Humorous Poems _ Dec 14, 2022

Humour of every variety and form, extending even to the hallowed sonnet and the Bard, were chosen by the readers to exemplify the kind of verse that turns a wry smile at the corner of one’s lips, if not an outright guffaw. Thus Sonnet 138 of Shakespeare with its puns (‘Therefore I lie with her and she with me’) excites the mind as much as it thrills the funny bone.

Devika chose a poem that confessed the woes of a regular churchgoer in a village in Wales who had tried to keep his eyes from straying to the eligible young women who attended services at the local parish church. They cursed him for his adulterous looks and the poor fellow, in spite of his staring, never managed to get a girl, and remained forever ‘wry–necked without a mate.’

We met the old woman who swore to ‘wear purple with a red hat’ in 2013 when Amita Palat recited Jenny Joseph’s poem Warning. But did we know that this poem became the rallying cry of a society for women’s freedom, called the Red Hat Society? Sue Ellen Cooper of Fullerton, California, gave her friend a vintage red fedora and a copy of Warning for her 55th birthday. She went on to found the popular Red Hat Society; at their public gatherings the women wore red hats and purple outfits!

Jenny Joseph – When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple

P.G Wodehouse was the author of a poem full of humour and indignation – an offended writer shoots the printer who committed intolerable misprints of his text. The judge at the trial sympathises because he has had similar dismal encounters; he quashes the jury’s verdict and dismisses the case in splendid rhyme:

I hereby quash and override
The jury's verdict. Gosh!' he cried.
‘Give me your hand. Yes, I insist,
You splendid fellow! Case dismissed.’

Poems by Anonymous have been famous, but we have not met a Mr. Nobody before in verse who does such mischief that cannot be traced to any living person. KumKum introduced the humorous verse of the unknown author. However we do recall Emily Dickinson’s short poem:

I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don't tell! they'd advertise – you know!
How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one’s name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!

Reminds one that the poet had anticipated the purpose of much of social media today, such as Twitter.

Group pic

Pamela in her lion’s head outfit gave voice to the little boy who visited the zoo and got swallowed by a lion. Albert’s Return is a hilarious poem in which we witness the parents of the unfortunate boy, about to receive the insurance cover on his life policy, when the mother tells the agent who has come to collect the monthly premium:

Our Albert's been et by a lion;
You've got to pay us for a change!

Priya recited a poem conveying the regret of a girl who didn’t listen to her mother, and neglected to care for teeth; she now faces the pain of the dentist’s chair:

If I’d known I was paving the way
…
The murder of fillin’s,
Injections and drillin’s,
I’d have thrown all me sherbet away.

Cat Morgan Introduces Himself

The cat poems of T.S Eliot not only provided relaxation and leisure to the poet and the little children of his friends for whom he wrote it, but they continue to entertain millions who read the poems today, and have seen the phenomenally successful musical Cats composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based upon the 1939 collection Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot. Cat Morgan Introduces Himself is the final poem and represents a cat who has become the resident watchman in front of Faber & Faber’s London premises in Bloomsbury, where TSE worked as director.

I once was a Pirate what sailed the 'igh seas -
But now I've retired as a com-mission-aire:
And that's how you find me a-taking' my ease
And keepin' the door in a Bloomsbury Square.

We had two poems from the pen of Lewis Carroll, The Mad Gardener’s Song and Jabberwocky. Both are pieces of Carroll’s fantastic imagination. In the first a series of hallucinations dogs the subject of the poem and as he surveys various scenes and then recoils when a completely different fantasy is revealed below what appears at first sight:

He thought he saw a Banker's Clerk
Descending from the bus:
He looked again, and found it was
A Hippopotamus.
"If this should stay to dine," he said,
"There won't be much for us!

Hippopotamus descending from the bus

Jabberwocky is an even more high-spirited flight of fancy. The father warns the son:

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

The son was watchful and took care of the Jabberwock:
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

The significant feature of this poem is the invention of new portmanteau words – Lewis Carroll's term for a blend, a word into which are packed the sense (and sound) of two words, e.g. slithy for lithe and slimy. Jabberwocky, a poem from Through the Looking Glass, has words like frabjous, chortle, vorpal, frumious, mimsy, etc. which have all entered the dictionary.

Arundhaty

Shakespeare is well known to our group says Arun and she shares a few points for the uninitiated, as she was a few years ago, before she joined KRG.

While Shakespeare was regarded as the foremost dramatist of his time, evidence indicates that both he and his contemporaries looked to poetry, not playwriting, for enduring fame.

Shakespeare’s sonnets were composed between 1593 and 1601, though not published until 1609. That edition, The Sonnets of Shakespeare, consists of 154 sonnets, all written in the form of three quatrains and a couplet that is now recognized as Shakespearean.

The sonnets fall into two groups: sonnets 1–126, addressed to a beloved friend, a handsome and noble young man, and sonnets 127–152, to a malignant but fascinating “Dark Lady,” who the poet loves in spite of himself. Nearly all of Shakespeare’s sonnets examine the inevitable transcience of time, and the immortalization of beauty and love in poetry.

There are six additional sonnets that Shakespeare wrote and included in the plays Romeo and Juliet, Henry V and Love's Labour's Lost. There is also a partial sonnet in Edward III.

Sonnet 138 is one of the most famous of William Shakespeare's sonnets. Making use of frequent puns ("lie" and "lie" being the most obvious), it shows an understanding of the nature of truth and flattery in romantic relationships. The poem has also been argued to be biographical: many scholars have suggested Shakespeare used the poem to discuss his frustrating relationship with the Dark Lady, a frequent subject of many of the sonnets. (To note, the Dark Lady was definitely not Shakespeare's wife, Anne Hathaway.) The poem emphasizes the effects of age and the associated deterioration of beauty, and its effect on a sexual or romantic relationship.

Her second poem was written by an anonymous author who has a wonderful sense of humour . The author writes as a lady lover, who could not be more frank about herself .

She highlights her own neurotic qualities and authoritarianism which would likely send a prospective beau running .

She is also candid and full of self confidence and arrogance, so she says that it's her lover who is in love with her and that she herself is quite a catch .

Devika

Devika selected the poem 'The Girls Of Llanbadarn' by Daffyd ap Gwilym.

Dafydd ap Gwilym -c. 1320-c. 1370.

Prolific 14th century Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym is considered by many to be one of the greatest Welsh-language poets. Most of what is known about his life is gathered from his poetry; it is thought that he was born in the village of Brogynin, Penrhyncoch, Wales, to an aristocratic family, and that during his life he travelled throughout Wales.

R. Geraint Gruffydd, a Welsh scholar suggests c.1315 - c.350 as the poet's years of birth and death; others place him a little later from c. 1320-c. 1370.

As one of noble birth it seems Dafydd did not belong to the guild of professional poets in medieval Wales, and yet the poetic tradition had been strong in his family for generations.

According to R. Geraint Gruffydd he died in 1350, a possible victim of the Black Death. Tradition says that he was buried within the precinct of the Cistercian Strata Florida Abbey, Ceredigion. This burial location is disputed by supporters of the Talley Abbey theory who contend that the burial took place in the Talley Abbey Churchyard:

On Saturday 15 September 1984 a memorial stone was unveiled by a Prifardd (chief bard) to mark the site in the churchyard at Talley where a deeply-rooted tradition asserts that the poet Dafydd ap Gwilym lies buried.

The first recorded observation that Dafydd ap Gwilym was buried in Talley was made in the sixteenth century. Talley is located about 30 miles from Strata Florida (Welsh: Ystrad Fflur).

After mastering traditional Welsh techniques, ap Gwilym diverged from his peers in several notable ways. Unlike most medieval poets, ap Gwilym often wrote poems concerned with events in his own life. It is thought that in his travels he encountered French poetry of love and nature and embraced those themes as his own. His poetry, notable for its vivid imagery, is at turns erotic, comic, and thoughtful in its exploration of love and the natural world.

It is believed that about one hundred and seventy of his poems have survived, though many others have been attributed to him over the centuries. His main themes were love and nature.

He was an innovative poet who was responsible for popularising the metre known as the "cywydd" and first to use it for praise. But perhaps his greatest innovation was to make himself the focus of his poetry. By its very nature, most of the work of the traditional Welsh court poets kept their own personalities away from their poetry, the primary purpose of which was to sing the praises of their patrons. Dafydd's work, in contrast, is full of his own feelings and experiences, and he is a key figure in this transition from a primarily social poetic tradition into one in which the poet's own vision and art is given precedence.

Although Dafydd wrote comparatively conventional praise poetry, he also wrote love poetry and poetry expressing a personal wonderment at nature; Dafydd's poetry on the latter subject in particular is largely without precedent in Welsh or European literature in terms of its depth and complexity. His popularity during his own historic period is testified by the fact that so many of his poems were selected for preservation in texts, despite a relatively short career compared to some of his contemporaries.

The Girls of Llanbadarn, (Welsh: Merched Llanbadarn), is a short, wryly humorous poem in which the poet mocks his own lack of success with the girls of his neighbourhood. Dafydd is widely seen as the greatest of the Welsh poets, and this is one of his best-known works. The poem cannot be precisely dated, but was perhaps written in the 1340s.

Geetha

About this poem

Warning, written in 1961, is known and loved the world over for its message of old age as a time for indulgence and fun - it was voted Britain’s favourite poem. The poem’s focus - a respectable middle-aged woman, imagines herself in old age as a cheeky rebel with outrageous clothes and dotty behaviour. The poet Jenny Joseph has created a character whose thoughts have been quoted at conferences and funerals, used to cheer up sick friends and remembered with pleasure by children and adults alike around the world.

This poem was included in the anthology Tools of the Trade: Poems for new doctors (Scottish Poetry Library, 2014). The anthology was edited by Dr Lesley Morrison, GP; Dr John Gillies, GP and Chair, Royal College of GPs in Scotland, Rev Ali Newell, and Lilias Fraser. A copy was given to all graduating doctors in Scotland in 2014.

Joe

Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (1881-1975) was a novelist of hilarious comic situations affecting the landed English gentry. He was also a short-story writer with such deft aim for comedy in the small, that many of his stories have been turned into short films, available on YouTube. He wrote screenplays for Hollywood in his later life. He is best known for his Jeeves books in which he created the the highly competent and resourceful butler who is valet to an idle young Londoner named Bertie Wooster. Wodehouse wrote more than 90 books and more than 20 film scripts and collaborated on more than 30 plays and musical comedies.

Wodehouse went to college in London, and, after working a short while in a bank, became a humour columnist for the London Globe (1902). That was the year of his first novel, The Pothunters. In 1914 he married Ethel May Wayman, née Newton (1885–1984), an English widow. They were happily married for life. Ethel was gregarious, decisive and well organised, whereas PGW was shy and innocent.

Oxford University awarded Wodehouse an honorary doctorate for services to English in 1939. He was sojourning in France for tax reasons and was captured there by the Germans in 1940 and spent most of the war in Berlin. He made a few broadcasts from Berlin that described his experiences as a prisoner with humour, and cleverly poked fun at his captors. Unfortunately, humour was far from the minds of the British during the WWII and they resented his use of the broadcasts, alleging it was German propaganda. Realising his unpopularity in Britain, Wodehouse emigrated to the United States after the war, and became a citizen there in 1955. He was knighted in 1975.

Wodehouse at his typewriter ca. 1945

Shashi Tharoor says, “PG Wodehouse is by far the most popular English-language writer in India.” Wodehouse's writing embodied erudition, literary allusion, jocular slang and great timing. His knowledge of recondite matters like ‘orphreys’ (richly embroidered ornamental borders on liturgical vestments) becomes that precise image with which to nail a bishop in the Mulliner story Buck-U-Uppo, which Thomo read in our 2013 session on Wodehouse short stories. Evelyn Waugh adored his writing, particularly his supreme ability to coin the simile for the moment in every circumstance. To this day I have found no writer with such consummate ease in language, who can be precise, easeful in comedy, writing mellifluous sentences that trip off the tongue. The OED has more than 1,800 quotations from Wodehouse. Critics have likened his prose style to comic poetry. Hence it is no wonder to come across actual poems by PGW, one of which I shall recite.

Listen to Stephen Fry who played Jeeves in films carrying on for 3 minutes about P.G. Wodehouse:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DogZv_mWBD4

Here is a BBC documentary (1h 10m) , a portrait of the life of P.G. Wodehouse made in 1989:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbiwROt0yL8

For an extended biography, see:

https://internetpoem.com/p-g-wodehouse/biography/

Kavita

Wendy Cope OBE (born 21 July 1945) is a contemporary English poet. She read history at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She now lives in Ely, Cambridgeshire, with her husband, the poet Lachlan Mackinnon.

Cope was born in Erith in Kent, where her father Fred Cope was manager of the local department store, Hedley Mitchell. She was educated at West Lodge Preparatory School in Sidcup and Farrington's School, Chislehurst, both in Kent. Following her graduation from St Hilda's College, Oxford, Cope spent fifteen years as a primary-school teacher. In 1981, she became Arts and Reviews editor for the Inner London Education Authority magazine, Contact. Five years later she became a freelance writer and was a television critic for The Spectator magazine until 1990.

Five collections of her adult poetry have been published.She has also edited several anthologies of comic verse and was a judge of the 2007 Man Booker Prize. In 2013, after 19 years of living together, Cope married Lachlan Mackinnon in a register office.

In 1998, she was voted the listeners' choice in a BBC Radio 4 poll to succeed Ted Hughes as Poet Laureate. When Andrew Motion's term as Poet Laureate came to an end in 2009, Cope was again widely considered a popular candidate.

Cope was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours. In April 2011, the British Library purchased Cope's archive including manuscripts, school reports and 40,000 emails, the largest email archive they have bought to date. The papers also includes 67 poetry notebooks and unpublished poems. Cope commented:

“I wanted to find a good home for my archive. The timing was dictated because we had to move home, so we needed some money to buy a house, and the space. So this was the moment. I asked Andrew Motion what I should do, and he told me someone to approach at the British Library. I wasn't sure they would want it, but they did.”

When the collection is catalogued and organised, the archive will be available to researchers.

Kavita chose the limericks as she found them funny. It was Christmas season and hence she included the Christmas poem.

Kumkum

Both the poems KumKum chose were written by anonymous poets. The second one has a reference to the time when it first surfaced. This poem also has two titles, “I’m going to do Nothing for ever and ever” and “On A Tired Housewife.” It has been a popular comic poem, but it conveys a tragic tale of an overworked woman who had written it as a suicide note in 1905. She cited extreme fatigue as her reason for ending her life.

Much later, Virginia Woolf quoted the poem in one of her letters to Lady Robert Cecil and she adds “that the jury at the Coroner's inquest found the charwoman to have been mad, which proves once more what it is to be a poet these days: if the title of this poem is unfamiliar to you, the last line may ring some bells: shouldering the emotional and domestic labour may leave many women longing for the relative comfort of oblivion.”

The nameless poet has a shrine

While lingers in the heart one line

(by Anonymous, from The Unknown Grave)

Priya

Pam Ayres – British poet, song writer and presenter of Radio and Tv shows. Born on March 14, 1947.

Her 1975 appearance on the television talent show Opportunity Knocks led to appearances on other TV and radio shows, a one-woman touring stage
show and performing before The Queen.

Early Life
Ayres was born in Stanford in the Vale, Berkshire (now administered as part of Oxfordshire), the youngest of six children (having four elder brothers and a sister) of Stanley and Phyllis Ayres. Her father worked for 44 years as a linesman for the Southern Electricity Board, having been a Sergeant in the Grenadier Guards during the Second World War. Ayres considered her upbringing a country childhood. she was raised in one of a row of small council houses.

After leaving Faringdon Secondary School at the age of 15, she joined the Civil Service as a clerical assistant and worked at the Army (RAOC) Central Ordnance Depot in Bicester. She soon left and signed up for the Women's Royal Air Force, where she trained as a Plotter Air Photographer. Whilst serving in the air force, she began her career as an entertainer. On leaving the WRAF, she went through a number of jobs, before ending up at Smiths Industries, Witney, where she spent six years, working as a Confidential Secretary. While at Smiths, Ayres began performing at a local folk club and this led eventually to an invitation to read on BBC Radio Oxford in 1974. Her reading of her poem The Battery Hen was re-broadcast as Pick of the Week on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, leading to a six-month contract with Radio Oxford. Her recital went on to feature as an item in the BBC's Pick of the Year. In February 1976, she left Smiths to pursue poetry full-time.

Bob Dylan inspired Ayres to write poetry.

In a 2006 interview, she stated that, at the age of twelve, she enjoyed writing parodies of the Lonnie Donegan songs popular at that time.

Pam is the author of several best-selling poetry collections, including The Works, With These Hands, Surgically Enhanced, You Made Me Late Again!, and Up In The Attic.

Career:
In 1975, Ayres appeared on the television talent show Opportunity Knocks. This led to a wide variety of guest appearances on TV and radio shows. Since then she has published six books of poems, toured in a one-woman stage show, hosted her own TV show and performed her stage show for the Queen.

Her poetry has a simple style and deals with everyday subject matter. Her poem 'Oh, I Wish I'd Looked After Me Teeth', was voted into the Top 10 of a BBC poll to find the nations 100 Favourite Comic Poems. In the UK Arts Council's report on poetry, Ayres was identified as the fifth best-selling poet in Britain in 1998 and 1999.

From 1996, Ayres has appeared frequently on BBC Radio. More recently Ayres has become a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4, appearing in programmes such as Just a Minute, Say the Word, That Reminds Me, and six series of her own show, Ayres on the Air, a radio show of her poetry and sketches. In 2007, Ayres acted in a radio sitcom, Potting On for Radio 4, co-starring Geoffrey Whitehead. In 2009, she made her first appearance on the BBC TV programme.

Her autobiography, The Necessary Aptitude: A Memoir, was published in 2011. It traces her life and career from growing as the youngest of six children in a council house in the Vale of the White Horse, Berkshire, her time in the Women's Royal Air Force and the string of events that led to Opportunity Knocks. The title refers to the number of times she was told in her life that she did not have the necessary aptitude for poetry.

In September 2021, her TV series The Cotswolds with Pam Ayres premiered on Channel 5. In 2022, the programme was recommissioned as The Cotswolds and Beyond with Pam Ayres, and the gardens at Highgrove, where she met King Charles III in an episode filmed when he was still the Prince of Wales.

Personal Life
Ayres is married to theatre producer Dudley Russell, and they have two sons, William and James. They live in the Cotswolds and keep rare breeds of cattle, as well as sheep, pigs, chickens, and guinea fowl. Ayres is a keen gardener and beekeeper.] She is a patron of the British Hen Welfare Trust, Cheltenham Animal Shelter and Oak and Furrows Wildlife Rescue Centre.

In 2004, she was appointed MBE for services to literature and entertainment.

Pamela

Pamela selected and recited the poem 'Albert's Return' by Marriott Edgar.

Lancastrian writer and poet Marriott Edgar was born in Kirkcudbright, Scotland, in 1880 and was most noted for the monologues he wrote for comic actor Stanley Holloway. Whilst little is known of his early life in Scotland and then Lancashire in England, it is generally perceived that he was quite a talented comedian as well as a respected writer. His name was originally Edgar Marriott but he swapped them around when he went to work on the stage.

Due to an illicit and slightly drunken brief affair between his father and a widowed actress, Marriott Edgar had a half-brother, Edgar Wallace,who would grow up to be a stalwart of the movie scene writing scripts for The Terrible People and The Crimson Circle as well as the famous Edgar Wallace Mysteries. Born five years after Wallace, Edgar only really came into prominence when he teamed up with actor and comedian Stanley Holloway following their appearance in the play The Co-Optimists.

Buoyed with success, they went to Hollywood in 1930 and there is some evidence that Marriott and Edgar Wallace met up there. Holloway was already reasonably well-known but it was when Marriott Edgar began writing monologues for him that things began to take off. Written to be spoken in rhythm with the piano, perhaps the most memorable and successful of Edgar's work is The Albert series, in particular The Lion and Albert. In all he wrote 16 memorable monologues for the actor.

In 1932, Marriott Edgar appeared in the film Here Comes George and by 1935 he was also writing scripts for the likes of Arthur Askey, The Crazy Gang and Will Hay. Quite a number of his monologues hark back to his Lancashire working-class roots as well as adding a little humour to historical figures from Noah to Richard the Lion Heart. Marriott Edgar was also responsible for some of the classic comedy scripts of the era, including Ghost Train, Gas Bags and Charlie's Big Hearted Aunt. He married Mildred Williams in 1904 and had a son, Hindle, who also became an actor. Edgar continued to work up until after the end of the Second World war but died at the age of 71 in 1951 when he was in battle, East Sussex.
(Taken from Wikipedia - https://en.m.wikipedia.org)
Pam chose this poem because she found it quite hilarious - the story line, the situations created and the satire on the penny-wise middle class attitude. The lines that really made her laugh are -

1) And 'e coughed, and e' sneezed, and e' gargled
'Till Albert shot out .....like a cork!

2) If I'd thowt we was goin' to lose 'im,
I'd 'ave not 'ad 'is boots soled and 'eeled

3) Each cloud 'as a silver lining,

And we did 'ave young Albert insured.

4) Then giving young Albert a shilling,
'E said, "Ere, pop off back to the zoo;
Get your stick with the 'horse's 'ead 'andle.....
Go and see wot the tigers can do!"

Shobha

T S Elliot was born in St Louis,Missouri ,to a prominent Boston Brahmin family (as the Boston elites were known). He moved to England at the age of 25, to settle there. His famous poems are The Waste Land, Hollow Men, Ash Wednesday and Four Quartets. He wrote seven plays. Murder in the Cathedral and The Cocktail Party are thé most well known. Elliot won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. He was deeply interested in Hinduism and Indian philosophy.

In 1939,Elliot published a book of light verse, Old Possums Book of Practical Cats. Old Possum was Ezra Pound’s nickname for Elliot. It contains among others, poems like Mcavity the Mystery Cat, as well as the poem which Shobha read: Cat Morgan ntroduces Himself.

All the poems became famous through the musical Cats by Andrew Lloyd Webber,which opened on Broadway in 1982.

Thomo

Author, poet and mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson Carroll, who was better known by his pen name Lewis Carrol was born in England in 2832.
He came from a family of high church Anglicans and he became connected with Christchurch in Oxford. In fact he was ordained as a deacon there but did not accept ordination - he lived most of his life there as a student and later as a teacher.

Although he is best known as the author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Alice Through the Looking Glass, he was a poet, too. His best known poems are Jabberwocky and The Hunting of the Snark. These are categorised in the genre of literary nonsense.

In recognition of his poetic prowess and contribution, a memorial stone to him was unveiled at Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey in 1982.

Lewis Carroll

As a mathematician Carrol worked primarily in the fields of geometry, linear and matrix algebra, mathematical logic, and recreational mathematics and also developed new ideas in linear algebra. He produced nearly a dozen books under his real name Charles Dodgson. Queen Victoria enjoyed Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland so much that she requested Lewis Carroll to send her his next book. Carroll duly sent her a copy of the next book he published – a mathematical work with the exciting title An Elementary Treatise on Determinants.

He was an avid puzzler and created the word ladder puzzle which he published in his weekly column for the Vanity Fair magazine between 1879 and 1881.

Dodgson never married and died in 1898 of pneumonia in his sister's home. He was 66.

The Mad Gardener's Song
The Mad Gardener's Song is nonsense verse about seeing something at first then looking at it again and seeing something quite different. It is meant to be humorous simply for being entertaining. But the poem has satirical references to people the poet perhaps does not like – such as his sister's husband's niece.

Zakia

Lewis Carroll was actually a man named Charles Lutwidge Dodgson a mathematician at Christ Church Oxford. He formed his pen name by reversing his first two names.

Jabberwocky is a most famous nonsense poem in all of English literature.It was first published in 1871 in Lewis Carrolls novel “Through the Looking Glass .”

It is also an example of the fantasy genre supernatural or fictional monsters.The Jubjub bird.The Bandersnatch and the Jabberwock.

As well as being a fine piece of imaginative literature Jabberwocky also demonstrates a central principle of language productivity or open endedness.

The poem is also a feat of linguistic inventiveness every stanza is a feast of new words,coinages,nonsense formations.

Several of them have even entered common usage: ‘chortle’ (a blend of ‘chuckle’ and ‘snort’) and ‘galumph’ (meaning to move in a clumsy way) are both used by many people who probably have no idea that we have Lewis Carroll to thank for them.

Carroll uses portmanteau words meaning a blend of two words for example slimy+ lithe= slithy and miserable +flimsy = mimsy or two meanings packed into one word.

The poem revolves around the story of a hero who leaves home and goes out into the world in order to force down some evil. After encountering difficulties and tests of bravery he is triumphant and vanquishes his foe .It’s a story told again and again from Beowulf to the Lord of the Rings.

The Poems

Arundhaty

Sonnet 138: When my love swears that she is made of truth

By William Shakespeare

When my love swears that she is made of truth,

I do believe her, though I know she lies,

That she might think me some untutored youth,

Unlearnèd in the world’s false subtleties.

Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,

Although she knows my days are past the best,

Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:

On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed.

But wherefore says she not she is unjust?

And wherefore say not I that I am old?

Oh, love’s best habit is in seeming trust,

And age in love loves not to have years told.

Therefore I lie with her and she with me,

And in our faults by lies we flattered be.

I Know You Got a Thing For Me

Anonymous

I know you got a thing for me,

But there’s a few things I first must say.

If you really are interested in me,

Then you must know these things today.

I’m not the perfect girl,

I will annoy and anger you,

I’ll nitpick and complain,

Until my face turns blue.

I may yell and shout a lot,

And I’ll carry on for a while.

I’ll tell you to shut up sometimes,

And to wipe away that smile.

I may whine and kick and scream,

If I don’t get my way.

And remind you that you’re useless,

And even ask you if you’re gay.

I’ll tell you not to hang out with friends,

And forbid you from staying out late.

You’ll never get to hold the remote,

And I’ll do all sorts of things you hate.

Don’t forget you’ll have to go shopping,

And wait for me for hours,

I’ll make you do the laundry,

And require you to buy me flowers.

But don’t you worry, don’t you fear,

You already know I’m a catch by now,

I just wanted to remind you, honey,

I’ll put up with you somehow.

Devika

The Girls of Llanbadarn by Dafydd ap Gwilym

I am bent with wrath,

a plague upon all the women of this parish!

for I've never had (cruel, oppressive longing)

a single one of them,

neither a virgin (a pleasant desire)

nor a little girl nor hag nor wife.

What hindrance, what wickedness,

what failing prevents them from wanting me?

What harm could it do to a fine–browed maiden

to have me in a dark, dense wood?

It would not be shameful for her

to see me in a bed of leaves.

There was never a time when I did not love —

never was any charm so persistent —

even more than men of Garwy's ilk,

one or two in a single day,

and yet I've come no closer to winning one of these

than if she'd been my foe.

There was never a Sunday in Llanbadarn church

(and others will condemn it)

that my face was not turned towards the splendid girl

and my nape towards the resplendent, holy Lord.

And after I'd been staring long

over my feathers across my fellow parishioners,

the sweet radiant girl would hiss

to her campanion, so wise, so fair:

'He has an adulterous look —

his eyes are adept at disguising his wickedness —

that pallid lad with the face of a coquette

and his sister's hair upon his head.'

'Is that what he has in mind?'

says the other girl by her side,

'While the world endures he'll get no response,

to hell with him, the imbecile!'

I was stunned by the bright girl's curse,

meagre payment for my stupefied love.

I might have to renounce

this way of life, terrifying dreams.

Indeed, I'd better become

a hermit, a calling fit for scoundrels.

Through constant staring (a sure lesson)

over my shoulder (a pitiful sight),

it has befallen me, who loves the power of verse,

to become wry–necked without a mate.

Geetha

Warning by Jenny Joseph

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple

With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired

And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

And run my stick along the public railings

And make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

And pick flowers in other people’s gardens

And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat

And eat three pounds of sausages at a go

Or only bread and pickle for a week

And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry

And pay our rent and not swear in the street

And set a good example for the children.

We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practise a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Joe

Printer's Error by P.G. Wodehouse

As o'er my latest book I pored,

Enjoying it immensely,

I suddenly exclaimed 'Good Lord!'

And gripped the volume tensely.

'Golly!' I cried. I writhed in pain.

'They've done it on me once again!'

And furrows creased my brow.

I'd written (which I thought quite good)

'Ruth, ripening into womanhood,

Was now a girl who knocked men flat

And frequently got whistled at',

And some vile, careless, casual gook

Had spoiled the best thing in the book

By printing 'not'

(Yes,'not', great Scott!)

When I had written 'now'.

On murder in the first degree

The Law, I knew, is rigid:

Its attitude, if A kills B,

To A is always frigid.

It counts it not a trivial slip

If on behalf of authorship

You liquidate compositors.

This kind of conduct it abhors

And seldom will allow.

Nevertheless, I deemed it best

And in the public interest

To buy a gun, to oil it well,

Inserting what is called a shell,

And go and pot

With sudden shot

This printer who had printed 'not'

When I had written 'now'.

I tracked the bounder to his den

Through private information:

I said, 'Good afternoon', and then

Explained the situation:

'I'm not a fussy man,' I said.

'I smile when you put "rid" for "red"

And "bad" for "bed" and "hoad" for "head"

And "bolge" instead of "bough".

When "wone" appears in lieu of "wine"

Or if you alter "Cohn" to "Schine",

I never make a row.

I know how easy errors are.

But this time you have gone too far

By printing "not" when you knew what

I really wrote was "now".

Prepare,' I said, 'to meet your God

Or, as you'd say, your Goo or Bod,

Or possibly your Gow.'

A few weeks later into court

I came to stand my trial.

The Judge was quite a decent sort.

He said, 'Well, cocky, I'll

Be passing sentence in a jiff,

And so, my poor unhappy stiff,

If you have anything to say,

Now is the moment. Fire away.

You have?'

I said, 'And how!

Me lud, the facts I don't dispute.

I did, I own it freely, shoot

This printer through the collar stud.

What else could I have done, me lud?

He'd printed "not"...'

The judge said, 'What!

When you had written "now"?

God bless my soul! Gadzooks!' said he.

'The blighters did that once to me.

A dirty trick, I trow.

I hereby quash and override

The jury's verdict. Gosh!' he cried.

'Give me your hand. Yes, I insist,

You splendid fellow! Case dismissed.'

(Cheers, and a Voice 'Wow-wow!')

—

A statue stands against the sky,

Lifelike and rather pretty.

'Twas recently erected by

The P.E.N. committee.

And many a passer-by is stirred,

For on the plinth, if that's the word,

In golden letters you may read

'This is the man who did the deed.

His hand set to the plough,

He did not sheathe the sword, but got

A gun at great expense and shot

The human blot who'd printed "not"

When he had written "now".

He acted with no thought of self,

Not for advancement, not for pelf,

But just because it made him hot

To think the man had printed "not"

When he had written "now".'

Kavita

The Waste Land: Five Limericks by Wendy Cope

In April one seldom feels cheerful;

Dry stones, sun and dust make me fearful;

Clairvoyantes distress me,

Commuters depress me--

Met Stetson and gave him an earful.

She sat on a mighty fine chair,

Sparks flew as she tidied her hair;

She asks many questions,

I make few suggestions--

Bad as Albert and Lil--what a pair!

III

The Thames runs, bones rattle, rats creep;

Tiresias fancies a peep--

A typist is laid,

A record is played--

Wei la la. After this it gets deep.

A Phoenician named Phlebas forgot

About birds and his business--the lot,

Which is no surprise,

Since he'd met his demise

And been left in the ocean to rot.

No water. Dry rocks and dry throats,

Then thunder, a shower of quotes

From the Sanskrit and Dante.

Da. Damyata. Shantih.

I hope you'll make sense of the notes.

A Christmas Poem by Wendy Cope

At Christmas little children sing and merry bells jingle.

The cold winter air makes our hands and faces tingle.

And happy families go to church and cheerily they mingle,

And the whole business is unbelievably dreadful if you're single.

KumKum

MR. NOBODY, Unknown Author

I know a funny little man,

As quiet as a mouse,

Who does the mischief that is done

In everybody’s house!

There’s no one ever sees his face,

And yet we all agree

That every plate we break was cracked

By Mr. Nobody.

‘Tis he who always tears out books,

Who leaves the door ajar,

He pulls the buttons from our shirts,

And scatters pins afar;

That squeaking door will always squeak,

For prithee, don’t you see,

We leave the oiling to be done

By Mr. Nobody.

The finger marks upon the door

By none of us are made;

We never leave the blinds unclosed,

To let the curtains fade.

The ink we never spill; the boots

That lying round you see

Are not our boots,—they all belong

To Mr. Nobody.

On A Tired Housewife

Anonymous

Here lies a poor woman who was always tired,

She lived in a house where help wasn't hired:

Her last words on earth were: 'Dear friends, I am going

To where there's no cooking, or washing, or sewing,

For everything there is exact to my wishes,

For where they don't eat there's no washing of dishes.

I'll be where loud anthems will always be ringing,

But having no voice I'll be quiet of the singing.

Don't mourn for me now, don't mourn for me never,

I am going to do nothing for ever and ever.'

Pamela

Albert’s Return by Marriott Edgar

You've 'eard 'ow young Albert Ramsbottom

At the zoo up at Blackpool one year

With a stick with an 'orse's 'ead 'andle

Gave a lion a poke in the ear?

The name of the lion was Wallace,

The poke in the ear made 'im wild

And before you could say, "Bob's yer uncle!"

E'd upped and 'e'd swallowed the child.

'E were sorry the moment 'e done it;

With children 'e'd always been chums,

And besides, 'e'd no teeth in his muzzle,

And 'e couldn't chew Albert on't gums.

'E could feel the lad movin' inside 'im

As 'e lay on 'is bed of dried ferns;

And it might 'ave been little lad's birthday-

'E wished 'im such 'appy returns.

But Albert kept kickin' and fightin'...

And Wallace got up, feelin' bad.

Decided 'twere time that 'e started

To stage a comeback for the lad.

Then puttin' 'ead down in one corner,

On 'is front paws 'e started to walk;

And 'e coughed, and 'e sneezed, and 'e gargled

'Till Albert shot out... like a cork!

Now Wallace felt better directly

And 'is figure once more became lean.

But the only difference with Albert

Was 'is face and 'is 'ands were quite clean.

Meanwhile Mr. and Mrs. Ramsbottom

'Ad gone back to their tea, feelin' blue.

Ma said, "I feel down in the mouth, like.

" Pa said, "Aye, I bet Albert does, too."

Said Mother, "It just goes to show yer

That the future is never revealed;

If I'd thowt we was goin' to lose 'im,

I'd 'ave not 'ad 'is boots soled and 'eeled."

"Let's look on the bright side," said Father,

"Wot can't be 'elped must be endured;

Each cloud 'as a silvery lining,

And we did 'ave young Albert insured."

A knock on the door came that moment

As Father these kind words did speak.

'Twas the man from Prudential - 'e'd come for

Their tuppence per person per week.

When Father saw 'oo 'ad been knockin',

'E laughed, and 'e kept laughin' so -

The man said, "'Ere, wot's there to laugh at?"

Pa said, "You'll laugh an' all when you know!"

"Excuse 'im for laughing," said Mother,

"But really, things 'appen so strange

Our Albert's been et by a lion;

You've got to pay us for a change!"

Said the young man from the Prudential,

"Now, come, come, let's understand this...

You don't mean to say that you've lost 'im?"

Pa said, "Oh, no, we know where 'e is!"

When the young man 'ad 'eard all the details,

A purse from 'is pocket he drew

And 'e paid them with interest and bonus

The sum of nine pounds, four and two.

Pa 'ad scarce got 'is 'and on the money

When a face at the window they see

And Mother cried, "Eee, look, it's Albert!"

And Father said, "Aye, it would be."

Albert came in all excited,

And started 'is story to give;

And Pa said, "I'll never trust lions

Again, not as long as I live."

The young man from the Prudential

To pick up the money began

But Father said, "'ere, wait a moment,

Don't be in a 'urry, young man."

Then giving young Albert a shilling,

'E said, "'Ere, pop off back to the zoo;

Get your stick with the 'orse's 'ead 'andle...

Go and see wot the tigers can do!"

Priya

Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth by Pam Ayres

Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth,

And spotted the perils beneath

All the toffees I chewed,

And the sweet sticky food.

Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth.

I wish I’d been that much more willing,

When I had more tooth there than filling,

To give up gobstoppers,

From respect to me choppers,

And to buy something else with me shilling’.

When I think of the lollies I licked,

And the liquorice all sorts I picked,

Sherbet dabs, big and little,

All that hard peanut brittle,

My conscience gets horribly pricked.

My mother, she told me no end,

‘If you got a tooth, you got a friend.’

I was young then, and careless,

My toothbrush was hairless,

I never had much time to spend.

Oh I showed them the toothpaste all right,

I flashed it about late at night,

But up-and-down brushin’

And pokin’ and fussin’

Didn’t seem worth the time – I could bite!

If I’d known I was paving the way

To cavities, caps and decay,

The murder of fillin’s,

Injections and drillin’s,

I’d have thrown all me sherbet away.

So I lie in the old dentist’s chair,

And I gaze up his nose in despair,

And his drill it do whine

In these molars of mine.

‘Two amalgam,’ he’ll say, ‘for in there.’

How I laughed at my mother’s false teeth,

As they foamed in the waters beneath.

But now comes the reckonin’

It’s me they are beckonin’

Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth.

Shoba

Cat Morgan Introduces Himself by T.S. Eliot

I once was a Pirate what sailed the 'igh seas -

But now I've retired as a com-mission-aire:

And that's how you find me a-taking' my ease

And keepin' the door in a Bloomsbury Square.

I'm partial to partridges, likewise to grouse,

And I favour that Devonshire cream in a bowl;

But I'm allus content with a drink on the 'ouse

And a bit o' cold fish when I done me patrol.

I ain't got much polish, me manners is gruff,

But I've got a good coat, and I keep meself smart;

And everyone says, and I guess that's enough:

`You can't but like Morgan, 'e's got a kind 'art.'

I got knocked about on the Barbary Coast,

And me voice it ain't no sich melliferous horgan;

But yet I can state, and I'm not one to boast,

That some of the gals is dead keen on old Morgan.

So if you 'ave business with Faber - or Faber -

I'll give you this tip, and it's worth a lot more:

You'll save yourself time, and you'll spare yourself labour

If just you make friends with the Cat at the door.

Thomo

The Mad Gardener’s Song

by Lewis Carroll (pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, 1832-1898)

He thought he saw an Elephant

That practised on a fife: