Six Humorous Poets – clockwise from top left, Soyinka, Nash, Masefield, Tolkien, Carryl, Paterson
Ogden Nash is ever popular at our December sessions, with his unlikely rhymes and ridiculous situations, for example, speaking of husbands –
… they always drink cocktails faster than they can assimilate them,
And if you look in their direction they act as if they were martyrs and you were trying
to sacrifice, or immolate them,
Indian husband deeply ensconced in the affection of his wife
Husbands are indeed an irritating form of life,
And yet through some quirk of Providence most of them are really very deeply
ensconced in the affection of their wife.
Tolkien, whose seminal book The Hobbit we recently read, was also the purveyor of whimsical poems composed by one Tom Bombadil, a bearded hobbit short in stature in a blue coat and yellow boots who undertook a journey in a gondola across thirteen rivers, and among other things met a butterfly he fancied and proposed to her:
he begged a pretty butterfly
that fluttered by to marry him.
She scorned him and she scoffed at him,
she laughed at him unpitying;
so long he studied wizardry
and sigaldry and smithying.
he begged a pretty butterfly
that fluttered by to marry him.
She scorned him and she scoffed at him,
she laughed at him unpitying;
so long he studied wizardry
and sigaldry and smithying.
One of the pleasures Tolkien readers derive is that of meeting a host of old English words like sigaldry, meaning enchantment or witchcraft, and habergeon, a sleeveless coat of chain mail
One of our prizewinners (Devika) wore a devil’s cape and makeup to go with it, reciting a poem about outwitting The Devil, with a mere blast of the word ‘Amen.’
That men too undergo a harrowing experience at childbirth is not known or commiserated with. You have to hear Edgar Guest’s poem on Becoming A Dad to know how deeply it affects the man on the threshold of fatherhood:
I vow I never shall forget
The night he came. I suffered, too,
Those bleak and dreary long hours through;
I paced the floor and mopped my brow
And waited for his glad wee-ow!
Pamela regretted she could not dress as a one-humped camel, known as a dromedary. The Camel’s Complaint is that their owners never build a shelter, but just let them loose.
… a Camel comes handy
Wherever it’s sandy—
Anywhere does for me !
…
If the camel's nose is under the tent, the rest of the stinky camel will follow!
And bumpy and humpy—
Any shape does for me !
Banjo Paterson who writes humorous poems about the Australian outback had one about an old geezer who decided to forsake a horse to ride a bicycle, with unfortunate consequences:
It struck a stone and gave a spring that cleared a fallen tree,
It raced beside a precipice as close as close could be;
And then as Mulga Bill let out one last despairing shriek
It made a leap of twenty feet into the Dean Man's Creek.
After the ride he decides:
A horse's back is good enough henceforth for Mulga Bill.
A horse's back is good enough henceforth for Mulga Bill.
Most amusingly told is a poem by Wole Soyinka, the Nobel-winning author from Nigeria, about his early experiences of subtle racism when he wanted to rent a flat in England. He’s asked by the landlady if he is dark, or very light, and to clarify Soyinka answers:
You mean – like plain or milk chocolate?
What colour are you – white, milk chocolate or dark chocolate?
‘West African sepia’ is an alternative description that befuddles the landlady, until he finally pleads:
"Madam, … wouldn't you rather
See for yourself?"
John Masefield is known primarily as a poet of sailing and his poems acquaint readers with terms used about sailing ships, such as poop, taffrail, scuppers, and fo'c'sle. He wrote in rhyming meter; here it's AABB. The poet narrates the bloody encounters when the pirates capture and scuttle merchant ships, and makes the point that the Board of Trade in UK, ultimately banned piracy:
The schooners and the merry crews are laid away to rest.
Long John Silver with eyepatch, peg leg, cutlass and macaw
The poem may be taken as a nod to Robert Louis Stevenson of Treasure Island fame, the yarn where Long John Silver is the one-legged example of a stereotypical pirate.
Michal as Frieda Kahlo in costume and unibrow being humped over the border wall with Mexico by Trump
Group picture at the end of the reading
The spread after the reading was a knockout potluck
Arundhaty
Arundhaty was mighty relieved that her nose, like those of other people, is on her face. Following the poet Prelutsky, she has contemplated other places on the body where the nose might be, and the possible implications:
* on the posterior – in danger of getting squashed upon sitting
* in the palm of one’s hand – in danger of getting squished when making a fist
* on the ear – unable to sniff the aroma of cooking
etc
All in all she was ‘glad her nose is on her face!’
Bio of poet
Jack Prelutsky can be seen in a 40-min presentation at the 2007 National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. recorded on Sep 29, 2007. Here is the link:
He has over 75 books to his credit, with sales running into the millions. Jack Prelutsky was named the nation's first Children's Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. He has filled more than seventy-five books of verse with his inventive wordplay, including the recent New York Times bestseller My Dog May Be a Genius. Jack Prelutsky lives with his wife Carolynn in Washington State.
For 30 years, Jack Prelutsky’s inventive poems have inspired legions of children to fall in love with poetry. His outrageously silly poems have tickled even the most stubborn funny bones, while his darker verses have spooked countless late-night readers. His award-winning books include Tyrannosaurus Was a Beast, The Dragons Are Singing Tonight, The Random House Book of Poetry for Children, and The Beauty of the Beast.
Jack Prelutsky was born on September 8, 1940, in Brooklyn, New York, to Charles Prelutsky, an electrician, and Dorothea Prelutsky.
He studied at The High School of Music & Art. He had a beautiful singing voice and took part in the musicals. While attending a Bronx, New York, grade school, Prelutsky took piano and voice lessons and was a regular in school shows. Surprisingly, Prelutsky developed a healthy dislike for poetry on account of a teacher who “left me with the impression that poetry was the literary equivalent of liver. I was told it was good for me, but I wasn’t convinced.”
After several odd job occupations he started working in a bookstore in Greenwich Village and at Izzy Young's Folklore Center, singing in coffeehouses under the name Jack Ballard. While doing the latter he met Bob Dylan, became friends, and Dylan even opined that Prelutsky sounded “like a cross between Woody Guthrie and Enrico Caruso.”
Prelutsky also loved to draw imaginary turtle animals, and a friend of his encouraged him to send it to a publisher in New York with some poems he had written as wordplay for his drawings. The editor loved the poems but scanted his drawings – ever since his poetry books for children have been illustrated by well-known artists, such as such as Garth Williams, Arnold Lobel, and Marilyn Hafner.
Over his long career, Jack has won many awards, including the New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year, School Library Journal Best of the Best Books, Parents' Choice Award, Booklist Editor's Choice, an American Library Association Notable Children's Recording, and of special note: a Library of Congress Book of the Year.
His poetry books include Stardines Swim High Across the Sky: and Other Poems (2013), The Swamps of Sleethe: Poems From Beyond the Solar System (2009), and Be Glad Your Nose Is on Your Face And Other Poems (2008). He has also edited collections of poetry for children, including The 20th Century Children’s Poetry Treasury (1999).
The prolific poet that he is, Jack Prelutsky has several new books coming out every year and new recordings too.
Devika as a devil is hard to square with her usual demeanour and was the most unlikely person to have won the prize. An imp maybe, with an impish smile, and laughter accompanying benevolent acts – but a devil? That was to strain credulity, but as the picture shows she can put on the act rather well:
Devika as Devil
Is this testimony to the line –
He laughed and laughed like a deranged clown.
Devika provided this short bio of the poet:
Randy McClave is a poet born and raised in Ashland, Kentucky, and still resides there.
Randy McClave, poet of Appalachia
As a poet of Appalachia (a region of the eastern United States along the Appalachian mountains ranging from Alabama and Georgia the south to Pennsylvania and Virginia in the north, including West Virginia). Randy’s poetry reflects the culture and experiences that are truly Appalachian, not to mention stories dealing with his many worldly adventures as a frequent traveller. Though Appalachian by definition, these are poems that any reader can relate to.
Randy began writing when he was 13 years old. He writes daily as writing has become a spiritual release and joy for him. His poems reflect his life, the pain, the joy, and the torment. He writes to release the spark of life inside him. He has published four books on poetry and was inspired by poets of the past as well as contemporary poets. He sees life as a poem waiting to be written.
He has written a beautiful, heart-breaking poem on Auschwitz. His father and uncles fought during the WWII and from them he got to know about Nazi atrocities and the evil extermination at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
Geetha started by reciting the idiosyncrasies of husbands, such as
– to drink cocktails faster than they can assimilate them,
– to forget anniversaries
– to ignore all the minor courtesies when alone with their wives
Yet most husbands are really very deeply
ensconced in the affection of their wife.
[
Geetha reading an Ogden Nash poem
Geetha reading an Ogden Nash poem
How could this be – except for the noblesse of long-suffering wives? Or it could be Geetha chose the poem because dear Thomo is a rare exception to the catalogue of frailties Nash describes …
Bio of Ogden Nash (1902 – 1971)
Ogden Nash
Frederick Ogden Nash was born in Rye, New York, to Edmund Strudwick and Mattie Chenault Nash, both of Southern stock. Nash’s great-great-grandfather was governor of North Carolina during the Revolution, and that ancestor’s brother was General Francis Nash, for whom Nashville, Tennessee, was named. This pedigree did not in the least restrain the poet-inheritor of the Nash name from gently but thoroughly deflating genealogical pretensions, along with other pomposities, in his verses.
He was raised in Savannah, Georgia, and several other East Coast cities, as his father’s import-export business necessitated that the Nashes make frequent moves. Nash described his unique accent as “Clam chowder of the East Coast–New England with a little Savannah at odd moments” and attributed it to the influence of his family’s peripatetic existence during his formative years. Following his secondary education from 1917 to 1920 at St. George’s School in Newport, Rhode Island, Nash attended Harvard for the 1920–1921 academic year, and then, as he put it, he “had to drop out to earn a living.” He first tried teaching at his alma mater, but after a year he fled from St. George’s, “because I lost my entire nervous system carving lamb for a table of fourteen-year-olds.” Throughout his life Nash was a bit of a hypochondriac – one who, a friend recalled, “seemed to enjoy poor health.”
During his lifetime, Ogden Nash was the most widely known, appreciated, and imitated American creator of light verse, a reputation that has continued after his death. Few writers of light or serious verse can claim the same extensive dissemination of their poems that Nash’s works enjoy, both with and without citation of the author. Certain Nash lines, such as
If called by a panther,
Don’t anther,
and
In the vanities
No one wears panities,
and
Candy
Is dandy,
But liquor
Is quicker
have become part of popular American folklore. As Nash remarked in a late verse, the turbulent modern world has much need for the relief his whimsy offers:
In chaos sublunary
What remains constant but buffoonery?
Nash’s peculiar variety of poetic buffoonery combines wit and imagination with eminently memorable rhymes. Any attempt to place Nash’s work in the context of other American humorous writing, or the humour of any other country for that matter, tends initially to highlight his singularity. George Stevens notes this particularity. “Nash was not the only writer who could make frivolity immortal. But he was unique – not at all like Gilbert or Lear or Lewis Carroll, still less like his immediate predecessors in America: Dorothy Parker, Margaret Fishback, Franklin P. Adams. By the same token, he was and remains inimitable – easy to imitate badly, impossible to imitate well.”
Ogden Nash Poems Analysis
Have you ever heard adults talking about their spouses and all the troubles they have to put up with because they love them? In the poems The Trouble With Women Is Men and What Almost Every Woman Knows Sooner or Later, Ogden Nash talks about the troubles women go through daily with men and how frustrating it can be. In The Trouble With Women Is Men he gives an account of what a woman has to put up with from the man she loves. At the very end he writes “… just kick him fairly hard in the stomach, you will find it thoroughly enjoyable.”
Sometimes, women feel the need to release their anger just as men do, and Nash understands that. According to the website of the University of Texas, Nash had a very close relationship with his wife and two daughters, a family of all women. His marriage and his children proved to be a strong influence on his work.
In the second poem, What Almost Every Woman Knows Sooner or Later, Nash talks about how eventually women will know, or at least try to understand their men, and why they do the awful things they do sometimes. Nash shows an understanding of how men, at times, can be forgetful, uncaring, inconsiderate and self-centred:
Husbands are indeed an irritating form of life,
And yet through some quirk of Providence most of them are really very deeply
ensconced in the affection of their wife.
All those troubles women experience at the hands of their husband do not matter –despite everything their love for their husbands endures.
Encarta.com states that, “Nash’s comic verse ranges from lighthearted to bitter and at times is completely and hilariously nonsensical. He used startling rhymes and puns, asymmetrical lines, and highly amusing parenthetical statements.”
Joe
Joe recited, no actually sang, a whimsical poem by Tolkien whose imagination allowed him to make credible fairy tales of the most unlikely encounters – in this case of a blue-coated hobbit who is on an adventure (labelled Errantry to confound it with Don Quixote’s famous adventures) until he meets a fabulous fritillary (probably a swallowtail)
he begged a pretty butterfly
that fluttered by to marry him.
She scorned him and she scoffed at him,
she laughed at him unpitying;
so long he studied wizardry
and sigaldry and smithying.
But he is not fazed and clad in his habergeon he fights at plenilune the
dragon-flies
of Paradise, and vanquished them.
We must lament that a Tolkien will never come again to use rare words and enchant us with morion, chalcedony and gossamer.
Tolkien will ravish
Us with fairy tales to charm –
His magic lavish.
Tolkien’s bio was provided by Thomo at our recent reading of The Hobbit in Sep 2024.
Errantry is a 3-page poem by J.R.R. Tolkien, first published in The Oxford Magazine in 1933. It was included in a revised and extended form in Tolkien's 1962 collection of short poems, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, illustrated by Pauline Baynes.
Adventures of Tom Bombadil by Tolkien book cover
Tolkien was surprised at the reviews of the 1962 collection in The Times Literary Supplement and The Listener: “I had expected remarks far more snooty and patronising. Also I was rather pleased, since it seemed that the reviewers had both started out not wanting to be amused, but had failed to maintain their Victorian dignity intact.”
J.R.R. Tolkien, the Oxford don who specialised in Anglo Saxon and invented hobbits.
According to the editors of the book, Christina Scull and Wayne Hammond, there exists a fragment of a manuscript in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University where Tolkien states:
“Tombaombadil (sic) was the name of one [of] the oldest inhabitants of the kingdom; but he was a hale and hearty fellow. Four foot high in his boots he was, and three foot broad; his beard went below his knees; his eyes were keen and bright, and his voice deep and melodious. He wore a tall hat with a blue feather[;] his jacket was blue, and his boots were yellow.”
Tom Bombadil with his beard, blue jacket, and feather
Donald Swann set the poem Errantry to music in his 1967 song cycle, The Road Goes Ever On. There is a lecture recital of The Road Goes Ever On: Donald Swann's Song Cycle and the concert itself with singing starts at minute 41. The song Errantry starts at minute 56.30 with the first line There was a merry passenger and goes on to 1:01:44.
In the beginning of the poem, the protagonist prepares to go on an adventure, building a boat filled with “yellow oranges and porridge.” The protagonist heads off, calling upon the winds of argosies to help him sail through seventeen rivers in his way. After crossing the final river, Derrilyn, he abandons the boat to cross on foot through meadows to the nearby Shadow-land, before moving along again. Eventually, the protagonist takes a rest, deciding to sing. The is the story of one of Tom Bombadil's many adventures. Tolkien wrote it originally to be sung to Gilbert and Sullivan’s tune in The Pirates of Penzance ‘I am the very model of a modern major general!.’
Errantry is a Hobbit poem which was evidently composed by Bilbo Baggins, shortly after his return from the Lonely Mountain in The Third Age (which came to its end in the War of the Rings).
Errantry was actually one of the cyclical nonsense poems which amused Hobbits, although this one is the longest and most elaborate of the kind found in the Red Book (a fictional manuscript written by hobbits). The poem has complex trisyllabic assonances and an original metre invented by Bilbo, who was obviously proud of them. Each stanza is supposed to be read first at speed and then slowing down to pronounce words with clarity, with the exception of the last stanza that must begin slowly.
Much of this commentary is taken from the Tolkien Gateway:
Kavita
Wearing a baby bump to read a poem is an extreme form of poem mimicry. But when the poem is about how the dads suffer the tense waiting in the hospital after taking wives for their confinement, no sacrifice to personal appearance is enough. But all is resolved in happiness:
Then morning broke, and oh, the joy;
Then morning broke, and oh, the joy;
With dawn there came to us our boy,
We may conclude that
The bump will resolve
Shapes to status quo ante
If dads are involved.
KumKum
KumKum recited a Nash poem that clearly shows its vintage because it refers to the Axis hating the United States – referring not to George Bush’s Axis of Evil of 2002 (Iraq, Iran and N Korea), but to the Axis Powers of WWII in 1941 comprising Germany, Italy and Japan. Nash’s biography has been tackled by Geetha above, and also by Joe in Dec 2023 and by Geetha in Dec 2019 and on several other occasions also. He's a perennial favourite at KRG.
The similes are beyond ludicrous to express romantic love:
I love you more than a wasp can sting,
And more than the subway jerks,
…
As the High Court loathes perjurious oathes,
That's how you're loved by me.
No doubt Nash is sending up the romantic yearnings of youth for their sheer absurdity. This haiku reflects his mood:
As loud as my fart
So formidable my love –
So tender my heart.
Pamela
Pamela desired to represent the Arabian camel, ungainly but tough, and capable of surviving the harshest environments. It does not seek a comfortable pen or coop or roost –
Puppies are able to sleep in a stable,
And oysters can slumber in pails.
…
But no one supposes
A poor Camel dozes—
Any place does for me !
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Charles E. Carryl (1841 – 1920) American author who wrote children’s books
Charles Carryl was newly introduced to KRG as a humorous poet and what he’s saying is that –
The Camel’s all lumpy
And is somewhat humpy
But not at all frumpy
Though he may look grumpy
But he’s spunky and funky !
Charles Edward Carryl Bio
He was born in 1840, in New York, to a wealthy businessman, Nathan Taylor Carryl. After attending private schools until the age of sixteen, he embarked on a successful business career, working as an officer and manager of various railroad companies until 1872, when he decided to become a stockbroker. He obtained a seat at the New York Stock Exchange in 1874 and kept it for almost forty years, writing mostly about stockbroking and business-related matters.
In 1869, he married Mary Wetmore in 1869, and together they had two children Guy (who later also became a writer) and Constance.
Carryl developed his unique “nonsense and fantasy world” stories while raising his children and published his first stories in the St. Nicholas Magazine around 1884. They were collectively released as Davy and the Goblin; Or What Followed Reading “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” in 1885. The book met with immediate success and launched Carryl’s poetry career. His style, however, was different from that of Lewis Carroll; it mixed the nonsensical and bizarre with logical and real settings and included numerous poems and child-friendly verses.
Carryl’s second book, The Admiral’s Caravan was again published as a series in St. Nicholas Magazine in 1891 before appearing as a book in 1892. It was dedicated to his daughter Constance. His compilation The River Syndicate and Other Stories was published in 1899 and The Charades of an Idle Man in 1911.
Carryl continued writing in the same humorous genre until his death in 1920 and some of his works were released after his death.
Priya
Shoba & Priya
Riding a bicycle is a skill we all learn when we‘re young but Mulga Bill of the Australian bush country tried cycling only when he was middle-aged, as an alternative to the horse-riding he was accustomed to. He comes to grief in a wild downhill ride on a cycle –
It struck a stone and gave a spring that cleared a fallen tree,
It raced beside a precipice as close as close could be;
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‘Banjo’ Paterson (1864 – 1941) was an Australian bush poet, journalist and author
Here linked is a Banjo Paterson Bio which Thomo wrote up when he read the poet in Feb 2020.
The ballad meter nicely keeps pace with Mulga Bill as he hurtles across the slopes.
Mulga Bill didn’t learn
Cycling until middle-aged –
Ride he’d ever spurn.
Saras’ Library Poem by Julia Donaldson describes a place where everyone has a home:
Are you into battles or biography?
Are you keen on gerbils or geography?
Gardening or ghosts? Sharks or science fiction?
There's something here for everyone, whatever your addiction.
The poet describes the helpful librarian:
The librarian's a friend who loves to lend,
So see if there's a book that she can recommend.
Julia Donaldson, born in London, UK 1948, has written some of the world's best-loved children's books, including the modern classic The Gruffalo
Library’s cosmic
A universal retreat
Its reach galactic !
Saras wrapped as a book
No wonder Saras was arrayed as a book with an inscription as follows:
“Saraswathi Rajendran is a member of KRG from 2016.
She was inspired to write a book in the Library of KRG because of the vivaciousness of its members and the haikus of the administrator of the group, Joe.
The book opened to rave reviews and it is on the best=seller list of the NY Times, climbing there by the efforts of KumKum who has gifted the book to all and sundry.”
Shoba
Shoba selected a priceless poem, Telephone Conversation by Wole Soyinka. She gave the following account:
Wole Soyinka wrote the poem nearly fifty years ago. It is a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the racism that he endured while in London as a student. He remembers that blacks were chased down alleys and beaten up. Many a time a white person would refuse to sit near him in a bus. He would hang out with West Indians simply because they would give it back to whoever got violent with them.
In Nigeria, the poet had encountered Europeans who were there on business but did not face racism there on the scale that he encountered in England. The poet uses humour to poke fun at a landlady who asks ‘How dark’ he is!
Wole Soyinka, Nigerian playwright and poet
The landlady wanted to know from the prospective renter how ‘dark’ he was – dark as milk chocolate, dark as dark chocolate, or dark as burnt chocolate? The author who went on to win a Nobel prize answered: ‘West African sepia,’ which is a wonderfully poetic description. But the landlady became confused, because she couldn’t visualise the colour – it matters a lot to her apparently. The conclusion is hilarious.
Oh curious biddy
My bottom is black, palm white –
Which would you study?
Thomo
Thomo selected the well-known poet John Masefield whose famous poem Sea-Fever begins –
I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
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John Masefield (1878 – 1967) was an English poet and writer, Poet Laureate from 1930 until his death in 1967
Here linked is a John Masefield Bio which Geetha put together when she read the poet in Oct 2021. The present poem is about ships once again and Masefield introduces a whole slew of sailing terms: schooner, rigged, scuppers, poop, fo'c'sle, and quidding (tobacco-chewing) pirates. Whether the poet is being nostalgic for the era of pirates, who boarded, looted and scuttled ships, or is merely having fun describing their inimitable ways, is difficult to say. It’s likely the former since he refers to the ‘naughty’ Board of Trade putting a stop to piracy. Besides, Long John Silver, the one-legged pirate of Treasure Island fame, is the one to whom the poem is inscribed.
Delight in sailing
Fed his imagination,
Ships filled his yearning …
Zakia
Zakia was tied up and could not come on the day. Her poem was about a dog, and therefore sure to be a favourite. This one was frisky:
Meter readers, couriers,
Serve to make her furious.
…
But she does provide protection,
And for that we feel affection.
Cynthia C. Naspinski is a children's poet known for her playful, whimsical style that resonates with young readers. Her poems often feature themes of imagination, humor, and everyday childhood experiences. Beyond this, specific details about her life, works, or career aren't widely available in public sources.
Cynthia C. Naspinksi – poem ‘Our Imperfect Dog’
In the poem Our Imperfect Dog the author celebrates the dog's unique personality traits, such as its stinky farts, aversion to baths, and penchant for diving into muddy ponds. The speaker describes the dog's antics, from chasing away meter readers to waging war with household appliances like the lawn mower and vacuum cleaner. Despite the dog's pesky behaviour, the speaker expresses deep love and affection for their furry companion, highlighting the dog's loyalty, protection, and endearing qualities. The poem captures the essence of the special bond between humans and their pets, emphasising the unconditional love and joy that animals bring into our lives. The poet concludes:
She's our funny, gorgeous girl.
We wouldn't trade for all the world.
One might as well confess –
Canine, we love thee
Dearly because you’re friendly –
Spirited and free.
Michal takes a picture from the back of Trump
The Poems
A file in PDF format of all the poems recited is linked here.
It was a lovely year-end Session at Arundhaty's beautiful home. All of us dressed up like crazies, had lots of fun looking at each other and reciting Funny and humorous poems. And the food from the kitchens of the KRG members were delicious. Joe you included everything in the blog, including a picture of the food we ate that evening!
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