It was a delightful evening of enjoyment, which started off with a high tea of fabulous snacks contributed by all the readers, and enjoyed in the warm hospitality of Arundhaty’s home.
The Reading Group outside by the lawn
KRG Readers gathered for the year-end joyful session of Humorous Poems where by custom everyone wears fanciful costumes, often illustrating the poem they are going to read. They make a motley crew glad to drop all pretence of literary accomplishment for the fun of having a rollicking time with stories in rhyme that reveal the light touch in poets, even those as venerable as T.S. Eliot.
The sad comic poet Edward Lear could not be omitted as he was the founder of the Limerick poetic form which features anapaests rhymed AABBA fashion in 5-line stanzas to celebrate comical events. There is the famous one about Calcutta:
There once was a man from Calcutta
Who coated his throat with butta
Thus converting his snore
From a thunderous roar
To a soft, melodious mutta.
(L. Kilham)
Here’s a tribute to Lear:
Although at the limericks of Lear
We may feel a temptation to sneer,
We should never forget
That we owe him a debt
For his work as the first pioneer.
Devika produced a superb piece by Nissim Ezekiel, the Bombay poet who in a moment of light musing delivered a colloquial exchange between two friends, in the kind of quaint speech that is full of gauche Indian ways of using English, such as using ‘backside’ for ‘rear.’ Which reminds one of a famous limerick celebrating Sardar Baldev Singh, India’s first Defence Minister –
A visit to Lady Mountbatten
Found her ducks running round in the garden,
Baldev Singh then stated
His spirit elevated
How lovely your battakhs, so fattened!
Maya Angelou, not known for her comedic verse, was selected by Priya. She came in a costume wearing a trendy hat and carrying a basket of wool, mimicking Mrs. Ruth Anning (not a character in Virginia Woolf's novel which we read, Mrs Dalloway) but instead, the protagonist of Woolf's short story titled Together and Apart, which is set at one of Clarissa Dalloway's parties. Her poem was about a dauntless woman whom nothing frightens –
Panthers in the park
Strangers in the dark
No, they don't frighten me at all.
Saras took up a Cat poem of T.S Eliot that features the Pekes and the Pollicles – pollicies being perhaps a kind of terrier given to barking. The battle between the dogs is shown in this video on YouTube, the The Battle of Pekes and the Pollicles. The ascending crescendo of cries overwhelms the neighbourhood in the battle:
Bark bark bark bark
Bark bark BARK BARK
Until you can hear them all over the Park.
Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles from Cats, the Musical
Th largest contribution to the estate of T.S. Eliot has accrued from the royalties of the famous musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Cats, where a dramatic narrative is created around the poems in Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot. It was first released as a full production in 1981 in London. To imagine it all began with T.S. Eliot writing funny little cat poems as gifts to his god-children by various friends!
Eliot Letter to Tandy family at The British Library
It was a delightful evening of enjoyment, which started off with a high tea with fabulous snacks contributed by all the readers, entertained in Arundhaty’s home to her customary hospitality.
Eats on Dec 6, 2025 at the KRG Humorous Poems session
Diligent Reader Exercises (DREs) for Humorous Poems KRG session on Dec 5, 2025
1. While everyone was excited by the phallic energy of Geetha’s poem Asparagus, there is a 2-word phrase in that poem borrowed from a 17th century satirist we have recited before at KRG. What is the phrase, and who is the satirist?
2. In Joe’s poem selection, Under the Drooping Willow Tree, from the collection by Auden of The Oxford Book Of Light Verse, three lines have been substituted. Which are the lines? To refresh your memory go to page 408 of the W.H. Auden book:
3. On the subject of family planning in Devika’s professor of Indianisms, Joe recited a haiku in Hindi to the gathering. Can you select any other subject touched on in Ezekiel’s poem The Professor, (for example. aches and pains, world is changing, score a century, weight and consequence, backside, etc.) and make a 17-syllable haiku in the famous form 5-7-5 in 3 lines? Preferably humorous, possibly scandalous.
4. Edward Lear (whom Thomo recited) almost single-handedly created the humorous poetic form called the Limerick which is rhymed in 5 lines as AABBA and has an anapaestic structure:
Lines 1, 2, and 5 each contain three anapaests (three “ta-ta-DUM” units) and have three stressed syllables.
ta-ta-DUM | ta-ta-DUM | ta-ta-DUM
Lines 3 and 4 each contain two anapaests (two “ta-ta-DUM” units) and have two stressed syllables.
ta-ta-DUM | ta-ta-DUM
But limericks can vary from that strict form …
FIND a limerick (or write your own) on any ONE of the following cities: Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, and Delhi.
5. Saras read a cat poem of T.S. Eliot, who demonstrated how adept he is at rhyming – something he never did in his ‘serious’ works. For whom did T.S. Eliot write his poems on cats? Which cat is labelled the ‘Napoleon of Crime’?
(Solutions are given at the end of the Consolidated Poems)
