This year’s gathering for our annual year-end Humorous Poems session had many invitees, among them past readers Geeta Joseph; and Gopa Joseph with her husband Michael. We also had visitors – Joe and KumKum’s daughters, Michal and Rachel; and Rachel’s friend, Amy Cotter, who was visiting Kochi after attending COP28 in Dubai. Arundhaty’s kind neighbours, Ramesh Tharakan and his wife Rani, were also there to participate. Another neighbour, a Sri Lankan named Shirani, also came to enjoy.
People arrived in all sorts of costumes to give everyone a peek at literature lovers during playtime. At one end was the spooky garb of ghosts in white, at the other end the formal fashion of young college girls in olden days dressed in colourful half sarees. In between were those who dressed in pyjamas with unmatched legs and odd slippers as though in search of their missing half. We had queens – the Queen of Hearts and the Queen of the Nagas; odd guys dressed in keffiyehs (to commiserate with the devastated Palestinians) and dapper men dressed in dark suits wearing fedoras like gangsters.
The poems were bright, nonsensical and witty ranging from the whimsical lines of Ogden Nash to the lyrics of a Cole Porter song from one of his shows, Kiss Me Kate, a 1948 show that had over 1,000 performances on Broadway. Of course, one could not miss Edward Lear represented at this session by The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo with its memorable opening lines:
On the Coast of Coromandel
Where the early pumpkins blow,
In the middle of the woods
Lived the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.
Lewis Carroll could not be missed either; we had an unusually long poem of his called Phantasmagoria. And nobody had heard of Andrew Jefferson until we encountered his One-Eyed Love:
She’s charming and witty and jolly and jocular
Not what you’d expect from a girl who’s monocular.
Wit could also inform the minds of poets seven centuries ago as we learned from the Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym who tells a good one on himself, when he made an assignation with a bar-maid at an inn and came a cropper because other hostellers at the inn sent him packing from bed.
After the merry evening of poetry we had lively conversations among friends and a wonderful contributed dinner with Arundhaty playing the generous host at her house, a magnificent abode designed by her with her late husband, Reggie.
Arundhaty
Arundhaty read Edward Lear's poem The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo which was published in 1877 in Lear's collection Laughable Lyrics. The two major protagonists are the Yonghy-Bongy-Bo and the Lady Jingly Jones. The opening lines of Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo (YBO) talk about the coast of Coromandel. Coromandel is the Dutch transmogrification of Cholamandalam, a part of the coast around modern Chennai city.
Edward Lear, one of the finest writers of nonsense poetry and limericks, sketched by W.N. Marsrtrand
Edward Lear published many collections of poetry and limericks during his lifetime, all of which sold well. The Owl and the Pussycat, first published in 1867, is one of his most famous poems, probably learnt by every child learning English.
An early reviewer said of Lear’s work: “Much nonsense is published from time to tine, but the gift of writing such precious nonsense as that which came from the pen of the late Mr. Lear is denied to most authors. It is one thing to write nonsense without meaning it, and quite another to write nonsense for nonsense sake. Nonsense which is also literature is not so common that one can afford to speak slightingly of its author. All children, and those grown-ups whose frolicsome tendencies are not wholly submerged in worldly cares, enjoy good nonsense, and there is no doubt that the great nonsense writer bas a wide and enthusiastic audience.”
In 1988, one hundred years after his death, Edward Lear was given a place in Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey.
A profile of him in The Guardian-Observer of 1968 refers to Lear as ‘an utterly harmless man – irritable, quirky, hypochondriac, fussy, yet full of a certain sweetness.’
The Courtship of the Yonghy-BonghyBo
Lear uses this metre very effectively:
ti-ti-Tum-ti-Tum-ti-Tum-ti
ti-ti-Tum-ti-Tum-ti-Tum
ti-ti-Tum-ti-Tum-ti-Tum
ti-ti-Tum-ti-Tum-ti-Tum
with occasional rhyme to make it singable.
The YBO meets the Lady Jingly Jones and hears her talking to her milk-white Hens of Dorking, and promptly proposes marriage because
I am tired of living singly –
On this coast so wild and shingly –
She replies sadly
Yes! you've asked me far too late,
For in England I've a mate,
Disappointed the YBO floats away on the back of a turtle he seduces. But the Lady Jingly Jones, alas, was moonstruck:
From the Coast of Coromandel
Did that Lady never go;
On that heap of stones she mourns
For the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.
Everyone loved to hear the jingle of the poem, and laughed. Joe first heard this poem recited entirely from memory by a fellow graduate student in physics, Siddhartha Sen, when he came to have dinner with us at MIT.
Devika
Her poem was a satire on the confusion sown by the vagaries of pronouncing English words. Newscasters are often flummoxed by the words they come across – would this poem not be a good exercise for them? If they could pronounce correctly every word in this poem, their future in the broadcast world would be unblemished.
Speakers of highly phonetic languages like French and German (pronounced as they are written according to unvarying rules) would be sorely tried by Gerard Nolst Trenité’s poem: one Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading these lines aloud ! The author of the poem is a Dutchman who has spent time to unravel the the crazy variations of English pronunciation. Bernard Shaw reminded us the common word ‘fish’ could be written in English as ‘ghoti’ – that is, gh as in rough, o as in women and ti as in palatial; but the first reference to this alternative possibility of spelling ‘fish’ actually dates to 1855, much before GBS was born.
You can hear the poem Devika recited on Youtube:
Everyone was rapt with attention to the end and laughed at the conclusion. KumKum said she would take time to read it again.
Here is a biography of provided by Devika:
Gerard Nolst Trenité (born in Utrecht in 1870 and died in Haarlem in 1946)
Gerard Nolst Trenité
Gerard Nolst Trenité was the son of an Utrecht Minister. He considered himself a ‘Dutch observer of English.’ He studied classical literature and moved on to law and political science from 1890 to 1894, but never completed any course. In 1894, he embarked on a trip around the world, which ended in San Francisco. There, he tutored the children of the Dutch consul. Gerard returned to the Netherlands two years later and resumed his studies while preparing to qualify for teaching English. After getting the relevant certificate in 1898, he also obtained his political science doctorate in 1901.
In the following two decades, Trenité worked as an English and Civil Engineering teacher in Haarlem. He published several schoolbooks.
He gained fame under the name Charivarius, which he used for his weekly column in De Groene Amsterdammer from 1903 to 1940. The column mostly featured ironic and cynical rhymes. Although he was very popular among Dutch people, linguists didn’t take him too seriously.
According to Trenité, if you can pronounce every word correctly in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers worldwide. It is called The Chaos. He wanted to prove the extreme irregularity of the English language. His chef-d’oeuvre contains over 800 words nightmarish to spell/pronounce.
Gerard Nolst Trenité wrote this poem as an appendix to his 1920 textbook Drop Your Foreign Accent: engelsche uitspraakoefeningen.The subtitle of the book means ‘English pronunciation exercises.’ The most authoritative version of the poem has 274 lines.
Gerard Nolst Trenité – Drop Your Foregn Accent textbook
He studied a range of subjects from literature to law and political science at the University of Utrecht, not managing a degree in any of them.. He went on a trip of world sightseeing and returned after two years and prepared to teach English and got his certification in 1898. He taught in a school for 18 years from 1900 to 1918. He authored a number of texts to teach English.
Gerard Nolst Trenité – cartoon
He wrote a weekly column for a magazine De Groene Amsterdammer. Three anthologies of his columns have been published.
Geetha
Geetha chose a long poem called Phantasmagoria by Lewis Carroll, perhaps the most famous of writers of comic verse in English. It was first published in 1869 as the opening poem of a collection of verse by Carroll entitled Phantasmagoria and Other Poems. It has seven cantos (segments) consisting of a lengthy discussion on ghosts, who have their rules of behaviour and are answerable to the King of Ghosts for any infractions. According to the phantom, Ghosts fear the same things that humans often fear, but in reverse:
“And as to being in a fright,
Allow me to remark
That Ghosts have just as good a right,
In every way, to fear the light,
As Men to fear the dark.”
In the first canto (The Trystyng) which Geetha recited, the narrator encounters a "white and wavy" object in his dimly lit room when he returns in the evening. He hears the the Phantom sneeze, and wonders if it has caught a cold. The conversation is calm and the narrator's welcome is appreciated by the ghost.
The ghost explains that some houses have more than one ghost, but this is a "one-ghost" house. He describes the hierarchy among ghosts in occupying a house:
A Spectre has first choice, by right,
In filling up a vacancy;
Then Phantom, Goblin, Elf, and Sprite –
If all these fail them, they invite
The nicest Ghoul that they can see.
The readers assumed the selection of this ghost poem was inspired in part by the last novel we read, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, which was full of ghosts.
Bio of Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who assumed the pen name, Lewis Carroll, was originally a mathematician by training, specialising in Boolean logic. But he took up photography, drawing, science, and told droll stories to young children that happened to be recorded and published.
Lewis Carroll was the pen-name of Chares Dodgson
His book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), was an instant success and has since been translated into nearly every language in the world. So too the sequel, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, which was published in 1872. There was a real Alice in the person of Alice Pleasance Liddell, Carroll’s greatest child friend. She was one of the daughters of Henry George Liddell, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, where Dodgson (alias Carroll) was Lecturer in Mathematics.
During boat rides and picnics, Carroll would make up absurd tales to entertain the girls. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland began as one of these stories, and was only written down because Alice begged Mr. Dodgson. Not only did he do so but he illustrated it himself, before the print edition found John Tenniel as the official illustrator. Lewis Carroll’s handwritten edition of Alice's Adventures are stored in the British Library and a digital edition can be accessed online. Here is the Queen of Hearts page:
Lewis Carroll – The Queen of Hearts she made some tarts All on a summer's day
Victoria, Queen of England at the time, so enjoyed Alice's Adventures in Wonderland that she put in a request for the first edition of the very next book from his pen. Carroll duly sent her a copy of the next book he published – a mathematical work with the forbidding title An Elementary Treatise on Determinants.
Carroll is also known as an inventor of words such as ‘chortle’ (a gurgling chuckle) and ‘galumph’ (to bound about exultantly) which were called ‘portmanteau’ words for their ability to telescope two meanings in one word. They appear in his poem Jabberwocky which all children (and adults) should learn to declaim.
So widespread are allusions to Carroll’s works, not only in literature, but in economics and physics too, that no adult can live in the modern world without a passing knowledge of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
The Lewis Carroll Society of North America publishes his works and has a six-volume project on the way to form a complete record of all his works from art, to photography, to letters and tracts, mathematics and philosophical articles.
Joe
Joe was the first of three readers who used Ogden Nash, delectable poet and incorrigible versifier, as their prop to impart humour to the proceedings. His light poems give us so many laughs that we would live willingly in Nash’s company forever. Nash explains why marriage is more interesting than divorce:
Because it's the only known example of the happy meeting of
the immovable object and the irresistible force.
The final lines of Nash’s poem are often hugely enjoyable like this one:
a little incompatibility is the spice of life,
particularly if he has income and she is pattable
Joe’s first intro to Nash was when his sister bought a ‘pocketbook’ called the Golden Trashery of Ogden Nashery, all of 35 cents (= ₹1.75) in those days (the early 1950s), with Nash’s smiling face inside the big O of Ogden. It had such inimitable lines as this on the turtle:
The turtle lives ’twixt plated decks
Which practically conceal its sex,
I think it clever of the turtle
In such a fix to be so fertile.
(the American pronunciation of ‘fertile’ as fertil is required for the rhyme)
Or another quote of his:
One bliss for which
There is no match
There is no match
Is when you itch
To up and scratch.
To up and scratch.
He was born in 1902 in Rye, NY, and died in 1971 in Baltimore, MD. Nash held a variety of jobs—advertising, teaching, editing, bond selling—before the success of his poetry enabled him to work full-time at it. He sold his first verse in 1930 to The New Yorker and continued to contribute to it over the years. His first collection, Hard Lines was published in 1931; thereafter, he produced 20 volumes of his daft kind of verse. There is nothing predictable about the poetic form he may choose, often meandering in length. But the results always give pleasure.
.png)
Ogden Nash (1902 – 1971)
There is a fairly complete bio written by Joe on this humorist when Pamela selected him 5 years ago. Nash could find the most unlikely of rhymes and lead you on an absurd chase until he (and the reader) discovered the rhyme at the end of several lines. Nash loved to rhyme. “I think in terms of rhyme, and have since I was six years old,” he stated in a 1958 news interview. He lived from 1902 to 1971, and was the premier humorous poet of America in his time. Like many successful people he was a Harvard dropout. In 1931, Nash published his first collection of poems, Hard Lines in 1931.
Ogden Nash’s first collection in 1931 was Hard Lines
The first poem Joe chose is on the cant words that supplant ordinary words in high society. He comments on a certain Mr Latour whom he rhymes with ‘boor’:
He calls poor people poor, instead of underprivileged,
Claiming that the English language is becoming overdrivileged.
In adopting such fashions of speech contrary to the refined norms of word choice the poet sees a dangerous return to the writing of the classical authors:
I will offer the hand of my daughter and half my income tax to he who will bring me the head of Mr. Latour on a saucer
Before he has everybody else talking as illiterate as Defoe and Chaucer.
In the second poem Nash pokes fun at the contrasting adoption of American words by common French speakers:
Your earnest students of Racine and Zola
Consuming le hot dog and Coca-Cola,
– and the use of French words in American speech:
Let's to the Opal Room, where for a fee
We're seated ringside by a mater d'—
In such crepuscule ambience are we meant
To reach a démarche, or perhaps détente?
Nash ends the short poem in pithy fashion:
I, too, conclude with this observation cursory:
English makes prettier French than vice versary.
It’s worth noting that a lot of what Nash published as lampoons appeared between the elegant covers of The New Yorker – at first under the founding editor Harold Ross who couldn’t have enough of him, and then under its second editor William Shawn (1951–87). This was the poem that first got him published in The New Yorker:
I sit in an office at 244 Madison Avenue
And say to myself, “You have a responsible job, havenue?
For a brief look at Ogden Nash, the master of pace and rhyme and of consciously bad poems, follow this link. The reader will find many memorable quotes, such as:
Candy is dandy
but liquor is quicker.
Kavitha
Kavita chose Nash too, a short poem of six couplets, about the hazards of having party people living one floor above in the same building.
They try to get their parties to mix
By supplying their guests with Pogo sticks,
He’s fine with their antics but declares:
I might love the people upstairs more
If only they lived on another floor.
Pamela
Pamela has recourse to Ogden Nash whenever December comes around, and this time it was a poem in six quatrains rhymed abab. Miranda, a girl, on waking up suddenly discovers she is thirty, and rues the passing of time to make her an oldish woman. However Nash reassures her:
Time is timelessness for you;
Calendars for the human;
What's a year, or thirty, to
Loveliness made woman?
Is she reassured? Will she stop pining for the twenty-nine she was last night?
KumKum
We know little of the poet Bill Hoeneveld besides his being born in Balcatta, Western Australia, and having attended school there, graduating in 1975. Readers with Facebook logins can meet him at that venue.
Bill Hoenveld
He seems to veer to pious words and does not have a high quotient of humour in his poems; he veers to earnest petitioning for better habits, trying to evoke disgust at the eating of Junk Food, the title of KumKum’s chosen poem:
Most people will tell you that burgers are junk,
With a thin bit of pattie and a whole pile of gunk.
The fries are hard and the drinks full of ice,
And the assistants wear nets to keep out the lice.
Saras
We don’t know much about the poet, Andrew Jefferson, who wrote the hilarious poem Saras read called My One-Eyed Love, of whom he writes:
She’s charming and witty and jolly and jocular
Not what you’d expect from a girl who’s monocular.
He decides he’ll marry her because:
If she looks slightly sideways she’ll see me in church.
And that’s what happens for he’d
… marry my true love who’s gentle and kind.
And thus prove to everyone that loves not quite blind.
Saras had originally chosen Canto 4 of Phantasmagoria by Lewis Carroll, but switched to this poem on one-eyed love. It is indeed a great advantage as a debater to have but one eye, so you do not need to see both sides of the question. There are many other circumstances that advantage monocular folk; if you’re a leader why would you want to be distracted from your tunnel vision? But considering the knifings in the neck happening nowadays, it would be useful to have another eye at the back of the head, don’t you think?
Shoba
Shoba turned up in the typical garb of a Malayalam film actress of the seventies. Her blouse, KumKum opined, was like that of the Bengali singing actress Kannan Devi.
Last December Devika chose the Welsh poet David ap Gwilym for his humorous poem, Girls of Llanbadarn. It was Shoba’s turn to light upon the same poet a year later to read another of his poems, Trouble at a Tavern. It is remarkable that in both poems he tells a yarn about himself coming out second-best in the skirmish for a woman’s affections. As mentioned in a recounting of the poet’s exploits a year ago, his greatest innovation in Welsh poetry was to personalise poetry by making himself the focus of his poetry.
Sculpture of Dafydd ap Gwilym by W. Wheatley Wagstaff in Cardiff City Hall
So what was his blunder in the tavern? Well, his glad eye fell upon a maid who was serving, and he decided to meet her after hours:
I made an agreement (love was not idle / easy)
to come to the lovely girl
when the crowds had gone
to sleep; she was a dark-browed beauty.
But on his way to the assignation, he fell, hit his head, and crashed on the edge of a table, some pans fell with a clatter and the dogs woke up barking. He disturbed several sleeping Englishmen who fell upon him thinking he was a thief, but he managed to get out trouble –
I got back (sleepless confusion)
without any gain to my own lair.
I escaped (thank goodness that saints are close by),
I beg to God for forgiveness.
Poor David ap Gwilym, instead of some easy love, he got the shove ! There’s a bio paying homage to his stature in Welsh poetry on another page of this blog.
Thomo
Thomo wore a dark suit with tie and a fedora hat for reading his poem by Cole Porter. He said macho men in those times wore suits with broad lapels, dark shirts and loud ties, and sported a fedora, for it was typical gangster wear in the 1940s and 50s. His poem was taken from a musical, Kiss me Kate, which was written in 1948 and performed in the early 50s.
Porter, they say, was easily “the most Gallic composer in the Great American Songbook: suave, cosmopolitan, not-infrequently risqué.”
Cole Porter – The artist's genial and productive surface masked turbulent waters. Photograph by Horst P. Horst
Kiss Me, Kate is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter; the story, a take-off on Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, was written by the husband-and-wife team of Bella and Samuel Spewack. The story is about the production of a musical version of Shakespeare's play, and the conflict on and off-stage between Fred Graham, the show's director, producer, and star, and his leading lady, his ex-wife Lilli Vanessi. The musical premiered in 1948 and was Porter's only show to run for more than 1,000 performances on Broadway. In 1949, it won the first Tony Award for Best Musical.
Porter was the subject of two movies, including one, “Night and Day” (1946), made in his lifetime and with his reluctant collaboration, despite the unsayable but far from secret truth that that he was gay.
Cole Porter was a precocious, though largely untrained, musician. He was gay, and as open about it as a man could be in those days; he had many lovers. He was well known for his lyrics, just as much as for his musical compositions. One of his songs that became famous was Begin the Beguine as played by Artie Shaw. Dave Brubeck Quartet’s album of Porter songs, from the mid-sixties, is another celebration of Cole Porter compositions.
In the fall of 1937, when he was forty-six, Cole Porter fell off a horse he was riding, which caused permanent suffering for the rest of his life. He had the gift of focus to keep out the pain while doing his musical work, which gave so much pleasure to people.
The songs often told the stories e.g. in Brush Up Your Shakespeare, the hilarious song which Thomo recited.
Joe had Thomo repeat the lines referring to Shakespeare’s poem Venus and Adonis ; so erotic was that long poem that it sent the young Cambridge men into a tizzy when they read it:
In her virtue, at first, she defends---well
Just remind her that "All's Well Tat Ends Well"
And if she still won't give you a bonus
You know what Venus got from Adonis
Alas, so far from defending her virtue, Venus was begging Adonis to take her, using many enticements. Shakespeare is famous for a lot of bawdy stuff in his plays, but Joe vouches he never wrote anything more erotic than Venus and Adonis.
Some lines of Thomo’s poem ring true:
Brush up your Shakespeare
Start quoting him now
Brush up your Shakespeare
And the women you will wow
The Sonnets are indispensable armoury for any young man seeking to incline women toward his affections; but to say
they’ll all kow-tow
– is to overstate the case. One should add that in India a few well-chosen shayars could be just as effective. They need not be the province of young men alone – Joe has heard older men using their allure on young women.
In 1958 Porter’s crushed leg had to be amputated. Porter never wrote another song after that. He lived six more years, seeing only close friends. He died of kidney failure at age 73 in Santa Monica, California.
Zakia
Zakia read the poem Parable For A Certain Virgin by Dorothy Parker, a poet and critic who flourished in 1920s New York. She became famous for her pithy maxims and short cynical poems in The New Yorker. She was taken on its board of editors in 1925. The next fifteen years saw her prolific output of poems appear in Vanity Fair, Vogue, and other magazines. Like David ap Gwilym she was not shy of poking fun to make poetry out of her own failed romances.
It is reported Parker published her first volume of poetry, Enough Rope, in 1926 which sold 47,000 copies, an impressive number. She had two more volumes, Sunset Gun (1928) and Death and Taxes (1931), and also published collections of short stories: Laments for the Living (1930) and After Such Pleasures (1933). She married Edwin Parker and then divorced him, having several affairs later. She had film credits too, writing screenplays for the film producers in Hollywood. She made a good deal of money with Paramount pictures, along with her partner, and then husband, Alan Campbell.
Dorothy Parker
During the war (WWII) a concise volume of her verse and short stories was specially produced for soldiers, titled The Portable Dorothy Parker. She died in 1967 at the age of 73.
The title Enough Rope of her first volume already hints at suicide. One the poems, Résumé, reads:
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
It’s not hard to imagine she suffered from depression, which is almost a pre-condition of being a modern author. Here’s a throwaway quatrain about drinking (she was a toper):
I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most –
Three and I'm under the table,
Four and I'm under my host.
Dorothy Parker is even more famous for her witty one-liners, which have seldom been bettered in the twentieth century; she rivals Oscar Wilde from the previous century in that respect:
“Brevity is the soul of lingerie”
“Men seldom make passes / At girls who wear glasses”
"how like me, to put all my eggs into one bastard” – this is what she said after one of her affairs resulted in a pregnancy
"The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue."
“You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.”
“Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.”
“Excuse my dust,” which Parker suggested be used as her epitaph – it was.
Rachel Cleetus
Our visitors were invited to spout any humorous verse they wished. One of them, Joe and KumKum’s daughter, Rachel, who has attended KRG sessions before, volunteered. She messaged her 16-year-old son Gael the night before, requesting a poem for this session. He misunderstood and thought he was being called upon to write a humorous poem, and dutifully sent one next morning, titled Poor Walter McLean (rhymed with ‘mean’) about an air-traveller who is petrified in his seat, undergoing near seizures, imagining he is being tossed and bumped dangerously in the plane. His heart is thudding until he is reassured by his fellow passenger: the plane is still on the ground. The readers gave a round of loud applause when Rachel finished reading.
Gael Willems Cleetus
Gael is a bit on the precocious side. Joe recalls the Christmas of 2021 when family members, eleven in all, were meeting in San Jose at Michal’s place. In his handwriting on cardstock with a nature photo pasted alongside, he’d written a nature poem for each of them. Bless him. He didn’t write one for himself, so his Opa made good.
The Poems
Arundhaty
The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo by Edward Lear (1812 – 1888)
On the Coast of Coromandel
Where the early pumpkins blow,
In the middle of the woods
Lived the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.
Two old chairs, and half a candle,
One old jug without a handle--
These were all his worldly goods,
In the middle of the woods,
These were all his worldly goods,
Of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo,
Of the Yonghy-Bonghy Bo.
Once, among the Bong-trees walking
Where the early pumpkins blow,
To a little heap of stones
Came the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.
There he heard a Lady talking,
To some milk-white Hens of Dorking--
"'Tis the Lady Jingly Jones!
On that little heap of stones
Sits the Lady Jingly Jones!"
Said the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo,
Said the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.
"Lady Jingly! Lady Jingly!
Sitting where the pumpkins blow,
Will you come and be my wife?"
Said the Yongby-Bonghy-Bo.
"I am tired of living singly--
On this coast so wild and shingly--
I'm a-weary of my life;
If you'll come and be my wife,
Quite serene would be my life!"
Said the Yonghy-Bongby-Bo,
Said the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.
"On this Coast of Coromandel
Shrimps and watercresses grow,
Prawns are plentiful and cheap,"
Said the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.
"You shall have my chairs and candle,
And my jug without a handle!
Gaze upon the rolling deep
(Fish is plentiful and cheap);
As the sea, my love is deep!"
Said the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo,
Said the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.
Lady Jingly answered sadly,
And her tears began to flow--
"Your proposal comes too late,
Mr. Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo!
I would be your wife most gladly!"
(Here she twirled her fingers madly)
"But in England I've a mate!
Yes! you've asked me far too late,
For in England I've a mate,
Mr. Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo!
Mr. Yongby-Bonghy-Bo!
"Mr. Jones (his name is Handel--
Handel Jones, Esquire, & Co.)
Dorking fowls delights to send
Mr. Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo!
Keep, oh, keep your chairs and candle,
And your jug without a handle--
I can merely be your friend!
Should my Jones more Dorkings send,
I will give you three, my friend!
Mr. Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo!
Mr. Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo!
"Though you've such a tiny body,
And your head so large doth grow--
Though your hat may blow away
Mr. Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo!
Though you're such a Hoddy Doddy,
Yet I wish that I could modi-
fy the words I needs must say!
will you please to go away
That is all I have to say,
Mr. Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo!
Mr. Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo!"
Down the slippery slopes of Myrtle,
Where the early pumpkins blow,
To the calm and silent sea
Fled the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.
There, beyond the Bay of Gurtle,
Lay a large and lively Turtle.
"You're the Cove," he said, "for me;
On your back beyond the sea,
Turtle, you shall carry me!"
Said the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo,
Said the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.
Through the silent-roaring ocean
Did the Turtle swiftly go;
Holding fast upon his shell
Rode the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.
With a sad primeval motion
Towards the sunset isles of Boshen
Still the Turtle bore him well.
Holding fast upon his shell,
"Lady Jingly Jones, farewell!"
Sang the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo,
Sang the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.
From the Coast of Coromandel
Did that Lady never go;
On that heap of stones she mourns
For the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.
On that Coast of Coromandel,
In his jug without a handle
Still she weeps, and daily moans;
On that little heap of stones
To her Dorking Hens she moans,
For the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo,
For the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.
Devika
The Chaos of English Pronunciation by Gerald Nolst (abridged)
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer
Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
Just compare heart, hear and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word.
Sword and sward, retain and Britain
(Mind the latter how it's written).
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say-said, pay-paid, laid but plaid.
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
But be careful how you speak,
Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak ,
Previous, precious, fuchsia, via
Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;
Woven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.
Say, expecting fraud and trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,
Missiles, similes, reviles.
Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
Same, examining, but mining,
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far.
From "desire": desirable-admirable from "admire",
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,
Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,
Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.
Gertrude, German, wind and wind,
Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind,
Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.
This phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.
Have you ever yet endeavoured
To pronounce revered and severed,
Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,
Peter, petrol and patrol?
Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which exactly rhymes with khaki.
Discount, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward,
Differ like diverse and divers,
Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.
Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,
Polish, polish, poll and poll.
Pronunciation-think of Psyche! –
Is a paling, stout and spiky.
Won't it make you lose your wits
Writing groats and saying "grits"?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel
Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,
Islington, and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Don't you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??
Hiccough has the sound of sup...
My advice is: GIVE IT UP!
Geetha
Phantasmagoria by Lewis Carroll
Canto 1: The Trysting
One winter night, at half-past nine,
Cold, tired, and cross, and muddy,
I had come home, too late to dine,
And supper, with cigars and wine,
Was waiting in the study.
There was a strangeness in the room,
And Something white and wavy
Was standing near me in the gloom—
I took it for the carpet-broom
Left by that careless slavey.
But presently the Thing began
To shiver and to sneeze:
On which I said “Come, come, my man!
That’s a most inconsiderate plan.
Less noise there, if you please!”
“I’ve caught a cold,” the Thing replies,
“Out there upon the landing.”
I turned to look in some surprise,
And there, before my very eyes,
A little Ghost was standing!
He trembled when he caught my eye,
And got behind a chair.
“How came you here,” I said, “and why?
I never saw a thing so shy.
Come out! Don’t shiver there!”
He said “I’d gladly tell you how,
And also tell you why;
But” (here he gave a little bow)
“You’re in so bad a temper now,
You’d think it all a lie.
“And as to being in a fright,
Allow me to remark
That Ghosts have just as good a right
In every way, to fear the light,
As Men to fear the dark.”
“No plea,” said I, “can well excuse
Such cowardice in you:
For Ghosts can visit when they choose,
Whereas we Humans ca’n’t refuse
To grant the interview.”
He said “A flutter of alarm
Is not unnatural, is it?
I really feared you meant some harm:
But, now I see that you are calm,
Let me explain my visit.
“Houses are classed, I beg to state,
According to the number
Of Ghosts that they accommodate:
(The Tenant merely counts as weight,
With Coals and other lumber).
“This is a ‘one-ghost’ house, and you
When you arrived last summer,
May have remarked a Spectre who
Was doing all that Ghosts can do
To welcome the new-comer.
“In Villas this is always done—
However cheaply rented:
For, though of course there’s less of fun
When there is only room for one,
Ghosts have to be contented.
“That Spectre left you on the Third—
Since then you’ve not been haunted:
For, as he never sent us word,
’Twas quite by accident we heard
That any one was wanted.
“A Spectre has first choice, by right,
In filling up a vacancy;
Then Phantom, Goblin, Elf, and Sprite—
If all these fail them, they invite
The nicest Ghoul that they can see.
“The Spectres said the place was low,
And that you kept bad wine:
So, as a Phantom had to go,
And I was first, of course, you know,
I couldn’t well decline.”
“No doubt,” said I, “they settled who
Was fittest to be sent
Yet still to choose a brat like you,
To haunt a man of forty-two,
Was no great compliment!”
“I’m not so young, Sir,” he replied,
“As you might think. The fact is,
In caverns by the water-side,
And other places that I’ve tried,
I’ve had a lot of practice:
“But I have never taken yet
A strict domestic part,
And in my flurry I forget
The Five Good Rules of Etiquette
We have to know by heart.”
My sympathies were warming fast
Towards the little fellow:
He was so utterly aghast
At having found a Man at last,
And looked so scared and yellow.
“At least,” I said, “I’m glad to find
A Ghost is not a dumb thing!
But pray sit down: you’ll feel inclined
(If, like myself, you have not dined)
To take a snack of something:
“Though, certainly, you don’t appear
A thing to offer food to!
And then I shall be glad to hear—
If you will say them loud and clear—
The Rules that you allude to.”
“Thanks! You shall hear them by and by.
This is a piece of luck!”
“What may I offer you?” said I.
“Well, since you are so kind, I’ll try
A little bit of duck.
“One slice! And may I ask you for
Another drop of gravy?”
I sat and looked at him in awe,
For certainly I never saw
A thing so white and wavy.
And still he seemed to grow more white,
More vapoury, and wavier—
Seen in the dim and flickering light,
As he proceeded to recite
His “Maxims of Behaviour.”
Joe
Two poems of Ogden Nash
Long Time No See, 'Bye Now
Let us all point an accusing finger at Mr. Latour.
Mr. Latour is an illiterate boor.
He watches horse racing, instead of the sport of kings, when at the track,
And to him first base is simply first base, instead of the initial sack.
He eats alligator pear, instead of avocado;
He says fan, or enthusiast, instead of aficionado.
He has none of the feeling for words that Ouida and Spinoza felt.
Instead of Eleanor, he says Mrs. Roosevelt.
Sometimes he speaks even more bluntly and rashly,
And says the former Mrs. Douglas Fairbanks Senior, instead of Sylvia, Lady Ashley.
He drinks his drinks in a saloon, instead of a tavern or grill,
And pronounces "know-how" "skill."
He calls poor people poor, instead of underprivileged,
Claiming that the English language is becoming overdrivileged.
He says the English language ought to get out of the nursery and leave the toys room,
So he goes to the bathroom, instead of the little boys' room.
I will offer the hand of my daughter and half my income tax to he who will bring me the head of Mr. Latour on a saucer
Before he has everybody else talking as illiterate as Defoe and Chaucer.
(The New Yorker, September 10, 1949)
What's Sauce Pour L'oie
Is Sauce Pour L'état C'est Moi
I know, mon Général, it hurts your pride
To see your cherished language Yankeefied,
Your pure, precise Parisian prunes and prisms
Walk check by jowl with Americanisms:
Your earnest students of Racine and Zola
Consuming le hot dog and Coca-Cola,
Or roaming through le drugstore in a quest
For paperbacks depicting le Far Ouest.
Although I do not wonder that you fuss,
Have you considered what you've done to us?
Just take a gander at your addenda, pardner,
To the heritage of Shakespeare and Ring Lardner.
Let's to the Opal Room, where for a fee
We're seated ringside by a mater d'—
In such crepuscule ambience are we meant
To reach a démarche, or perhaps détente?
A young chantoose is facing her premeer.
On her dressing-room chaise lounge lies her brazeer.
Aglow from kneading by a skilled massoose,
Her cheek is pink, her lonjeray chartroose.
The gourmet meal is guaranteed to please,
Concluding with that hybrid treat, bleu cheese.
I, too, conclude with this observation cursory:
English makes prettier French than vice versary.
(The New Yorker, August 17, 1968)
Kavitha
The People Upstairs by Ogden Nash
The people upstairs all practise ballet
Their living room is a bowling alley
Their bedroom is full of conducted tours.
Their radio is louder than yours,
They celebrate week-ends all the week.
When they take a shower, your ceilings leak.
They try to get their parties to mix
By supplying their guests with Pogo sticks,
And when their fun at last abates,
They go to the bathroom on roller skates.
I might love the people upstairs more
If only they lived on another floor.
KumKum
Junk Food by Bill Hoeneveld
The fast food we eat is sometimes quite slow,
We stand there in queues with nowhere to go.
The queue that you pick never seems to go fast,
And you always feel, you're being served the last.
A person in front, orders food for an army,
We all hate the wait as it makes you go barmy.
Kids are crying and parents are screaming,
And all the while, you're boiling and steaming.
The tension is mounting, you try to hold back,
From telling them off and giving a whack,
Finally its your turn, to order some food,
But by now you are fed up and not in the mood.
You're always flogged chips and a drink,
Hoping you'll say yes before you can think
It's probably why they make sure you wait,
So when you get served, there's no debate.
Most people will tell you that burgers are junk,
With a thin bit of pattie and a whole pile of gunk.
The fries are hard and the drinks full of ice,
And the assistants wear nets to keep out the lice.
People complain about the nutrition it lacks.
But they're the ones that can't fit in their slacks.
If you don't like it then don't come and eat,
Get out the pans and cook your own meat.
But people are lazy and want something quick,
Even if they don't like it and makes them feel sick.
They can't stay a way and Keep coming back,
To munch soggy fries and attack some big mac.
(1998)
Pamela
A Lady Who Thinks She Is Thirty by Ogden Nash
Unwillingly Miranda wakes,
Feels the sun with terror,
One unwilling step she takes,
Shuddering to the mirror.
Miranda in Miranda's sight
Is old and gray and dirty;
Twenty-nine she was last night;
This morning she is thirty.
Shining like the morning star,
Like the twilight shining,
Haunted by a calendar,
Miranda is a-pining.
Silly girl, silver girl,
Draw the mirror toward you;
Time who makes the years to whirl
Adorned as he adored you.
Time is timelessness for you;
Calendars for the human;
What's a year, or thirty, to
Loveliness made woman?
Oh, Night will not see thirty again,
Yet soft her wing, Miranda;
Pick up your glass and tell me, then—
How old is Spring, Miranda?
Saras
My One-Eyed Love by Andrew Jefferson
I’ve fallen in love—I don’t know why
I’ve fallen in love with a girl with one eye.
I knew from the start. It was plain to see
That this wonderful girl had an eye out for me
She’s charming and witty and jolly and jocular
Not what you’d expect from a girl who’s monocular.
Of eyes—at the moment—she hasn’t full quota
But that doesn’t change things for me one iota.
It must be quite difficult if you’re bereft.
If your left eye is gone and your right eye is left.
But she’s made up her mind. She’s made her decision.
She can see it quite clearly in 10/20 vision.
She’ll not leave me waiting, not left in the lurch
If she looks slightly sideways she’ll see me in church.
I’ll marry my true love who’s gentle and kind.
And thus prove to everyone that loves not quite blind.
Shoba
Trouble at a Tavern by Dafydd ap Gwilym
I came to a choice town
followed by my handsome page-boy.
Fine merry expense, an excellent place for dinner,
I took a pretty dignified public lodging,
I was a proud / fine young man,
and I had some wine.
I spotted a fair slender maid
in the house, my one fair sweetheart.
I set my mind entirely upon
my slender darling, colour of the rising sun,
I bought roast and expensive wine,
(not to show off) [for] me and the beauty over there.
Young men love playing games,
I called the girl, a modest maid, to [me on] the bench,
and we had a very grand dinner,
greater than a wedding feast.
I whispered (I was a bold diligent man,
that's for sure) two alluring words.
After the obstacle was cleared
by the whispering (close fate),
I made an agreement (love was not idle / easy)
to come to the lovely girl
when the crowds had gone
to sleep; she was a dark-browed beauty.
When everyone except me and the girl
had gone to sleep (exceedingly piteous),
I tried most adeptly to make my way
to the girl's bed, [but] it turned out disastrously.
I had a nasty fall making a commotion there,
there were no good feats.
I hurt my shin (my poor leg!),
I didn't jump safely, above the ankle,
on the edge of a stupid shrill stool,
because of the inn-keeper.
I hit my forehead (excessive desire is bad),
where I ended up, without any free leap,
frequent confusion of wild crashing,
on the end of the table,
where there was a loose basin now
and a noisy brass pan.
The table fell, a heavy piece,
and the two trestles and all the utensils.
The pan let out a clang,
it could be heard a long way behind me.
The basin boomed (I was a vain man)
and the dogs barked.
It's easier to get up awkwardly
(foolish wickedness) than swiftly.
I came up (it was a remorseful tale)
— Welshmen love me! —
by thick walls where there were
three Englishmen in one stinking bed
worrying about their three packs,
Hickin and Jenkin and Jack.
The churlish slobber-chops
(cruel hate) hissed to the [other] two:
'There's a Welshman, fierce deceitful commotion,
roaming around here most cunningly;
he's a thief, if we allow it,
watch out, keep clear of him.'
The inn-keeper roused up all the host,
and it was a woeful tale.
Nine at a time they searched for me
scowling all around me,
whilst I, covered in painful bruises,
kept quiet in the darkness.
I prayed, not in fearless fashion,
in hiding, like one afraid,
and through the power of dear sincere prayer,
and through the grace of Jesus,
I got back (sleepless confusion)
without any gain to my own lair.
I escaped (thank goodness that saints are close by),
I beg to God for forgiveness.
Thomo
Brush up your Shakespeare by Cole Porter
The girls today in society
Go for classical poetry
So to win their hearts one must quote with ease
Aeschylus an Euripides
One must know Homer, and believe me, beau
Sophocles, also Sappho-ho
Unless you know Shelley and Keats and Pope
Dainty Debbies will call you a dope
But the poet of them all
Who will start 'em simply ravin'
Is the poet people call
The Bard of Stratford on Avon
Brush up your Shakespeare
Start quoting him now
Brush up your Shakespeare
And the women you will wow
Just declaim a few lines from Othella
And they'll think you're a hell of a fella
If your blonde won't respond when you flatter'er
Tell her what Tony told Cleopatterer
If she fights when her clothes you are mussing
What are clothes? Much ado about nussing
Brush up your Shakespeare and they’ll all kow-tow
Brush up your Shakespeare
Start quoting him now
Brush up your Shakespeare
And the women you will wow
With the wife of the British ambassida
Try a crack out of "Troilus and Cressida"
If she says she won't buy it or like it
Make her tike it, what's more As You Like It
If she says your behavior is heinous
Kick her right in the Coriolanus
Brush up your Shakespeare and thye’ll kow tow
Brush up your Shakespeare
Start quoting him now
Brush up your Shakespeare
And the women you will wow
If you can't be a ham and do Hamlet
They will not give a damn or a damlet
Just recite an occasional sonnet
And your lap'll have honey upon it
If your baby is pleading for pleasure
Let her sample you Measure for Measure
Brush up your Shakespeare and they’ll all kow-tow
Brush up your Shakespeare
Start quoting him now
Brush up your Shakespeare
And the women you will wow
Better mention "The Merchant of Venice"
When her sweet pound o' flesh you would menace
In her virtue, at first, she defends---well
Just remind her that "All's Well Tat Ends Well"
And if she still won't give you a bonus
You know what Venus got from Adonis
Brush up your Shakespeare and they’ll all kow-tow
Brush up your Shakespeare
Start quoting him now
Brush up your Shakespeare
And the women you will wow
If your girl is a Washington Heights dream
Treat the kid to "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
If she then wants an all-by-herself night
Let her rest ev'ry 'leventh or "Twelfth Night"
If because of your heat she gets huffy
Simply play on and "Lay on, Macduffy!"
Brush up your Shakespeare
And they'll all kow-tow - We trow
And they'll all kow-tow - We vow
And they'll all kow-tow.
Zakia
Parable For A Certain Virgin by Dorothy Parker
Oh, ponder, friend, the porcupine;
Refresh your recollection,
And sit a moment, to define
His means of self-protection.
How truly fortified is he!
Where is the beast his double
In forethought of emergency
And readiness for trouble?
Recall his figure, and his shade –
How deftly planned and clearly
For slithering through the dappled glade
Unseen, or pretty nearly.
Yet should an alien eye discern
His presence in the woodland,
How little has he left to learn
Of self-defense! My good land!
For he can run, as swift as sound,
To where his goose may hang high –
Or thrust his head against the ground
And tunnel half to Shanghai;
Or he can climb the dizziest bough –
Unhesitant, mechanic –
And, resting, dash from off his brow
The bitter beads of panic;
Or should pursuers press him hot,
One scarcely needs to mention
His quick and cruel barbs, that got
Shakespearean attention;
Or driven to his final ditch,
To his extremest thicket,
He'll fight with claws and molars (which
Is not considered cricket).
How amply armored, he, to fend
The fear of chase that haunts him!
How well prepared our little friend!-
And who the devil wants him?
Rachel
Poor Walter McLean by Gael Willems Cleetus
Poor Walter McLean
Looks a little bit green
As he sits in his tight airplane seat
At every odd bump,
He gives a yelp and a jump
And he’s shaking so bad he can hardly even eat
He wishes nothing more than to curl up in a ball
And pray for an ending to the terror of it all
Yes, in a metal tube way up in the air,
Poor Walter McLean gets a little bit scared
In a whimpering voice
He feels his heart thud and pound
(As if in sync with the plane’s constant shaking)
Until, at last, a little boy up front turns around
And, with a sip of soda and a roll of his eyes,
He faces poor Walter and loudly cries,
“Sir, quit your cursing and moaning and groaning,
For if you look out your window (and I don’t doubt it’ll astound),
You’ll see that we’re all still safely on the ground!”
KRG's December Session is always very enjoyable, this year's one was no exception.For this session the members are expected to dress up in fancy costumes, we had fun doing that this year too. Poems we chose were funny, food was excellent. Arundhaty's sprawling home by the river bank is the ideal setting for our year end session. Joe, thank you for putting everything together in this blog.
ReplyDelete