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 home of Arundhaty to her warm hospitality.
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 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 venerable poet Edward Lear could not be omitted as he was the founder of the Limerick poetic form which features anapaests rhymed in AABBA fashion 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 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. Th 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 accrued from the royalties of the famous Cats, the musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber 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 snack contributed by all the readers, entertained in Arundhaty’s home to her warm hospitality.
Eats on Dec 6,2025 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 at 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)
Full Account and Record of the Humorous Poems Session
Arundhaty
Shel Silverstein's poem If The World Was Crazy was recited by Arundhaty. It is an imaginative poem celebrating a reversed reality, where eating soup as a solid, wearing food as clothes, and talking through ears become normal. It uses a whimsical inversion of actions, objects, and social norms (calling boys "Suzy," greeting people with "goodbye") to create a topsy-turvy world.
It champions the creativity of the mind, freed from societal constraints, showing how delightful the world could be if rules were violated. The voice is inherently childlike, finding joy in absurdity and the impossible – a hallmark of Silverstein's work.
Each stanza begins with "If the world was crazy, you know what I'd..." (eat/wear/do), creating rhythm and expectation. It employs a simple AABB/ABCB rhymes and a bouncy rhythm, making it fun and memorable.
Silverstein invites readers, especially children, to dream beyond the ordinary and find joy in embracing the illogical, suggesting that a little bit of "crazy" can be a wonderful thing, offering freedom, fun, and a chance to rule your own whimsical world. Readers enjoyed Arundhaty’s voicing of the poem.
Here is a short bio of Shel Silverstein.
Devika
From the famous Bombay Poet Nissim Ezekiel, Devika culled a humorous poem that mimics the way Indians use English. They use the word ‘issues’ as synonym for children and ‘backside’ for the rear of a place, e.g. “My house is on your backside.” This and others matters of ‘weight and consequence’ are discussed among two friends when they meet and exchange pleasantries in the polite Indian ways of banter that can bring a smile to a reader’s face.
Nissim Ezekiel Bio (1924 – 2004)
Nissim Ezekiel was an Indian poet, actor, playwright, editor and art critic. He was a seminal figure in the literary history of postcolonial India, in particular for Indian poetry in English. He is often considered the father of Modern Indian English poetry.
Born into an affluent family in Mumbai, his father was a Professor of Botany, and mother, the Principal of her own school. The Ezekiels belonged to Mumbai’s Marathi speaking Jewish community known as Bene Israel or “Children of Israel.”
Nissim Ezekiel did his BA in Literature from Wilson College and later studied Philosophy in London. His works remain relevant for its unflinching portrayal of urban life in Mumbai, particularly the experiences of middle-class Indians navigating a society in flux. Ezekiel’s poetry is characterised by its directness and conversational tone. The poem, The Professor, is a dramatic monologue when the retired professor meets an old student. He uses Indian English to bring out the professor’s personality in phrases like ‘how many issues you have’ and ‘our progress is progressing;’ the English language blends with local culture. The poem captures the way older Indians often speak when they meet someone familiar, using conversation to share pride, values and a sense of tradition.
Ezekiel received the Sahitya Academy Award in 1983 for his poetry collection Latter-Day Psalms and the Padma Bhushan in 1984. He became a professor of English at Bombay University in the 1990’s editing the journal Poetry India, Quest, Imprint and Indian P.E.N.
Ezekiel mentored several Indian poets, such as Dom Moraes, Adil Jussawalla, and Gieve Patel, who would go on to win acclaim in their own right. Additionally,, he has inspired countless young minds. His poems Night of the Scorpion and The Patriot are often required reading in Indian schools. He became known as the father of post-independence English-language verse in India and, as such, inspired a new category of Indian literature.
He died at the age of 79 after a prolonged battle with Alzheimer’s disease.
Geetha
She chose the poem Asparagus by Maryann Corbett, which is laden with horticultural metaphors and resorts to the Roman god of fertility, Primps, fro inspiration. But she little reckoned with the poem using the chief of the features the god’s name is associated with, an dperhpsas hoped the readers would not catch on if she kept a straight face. But is all wa laid bare when the verb ‘Bobbitt’ was used for harvesting the Asparagus for the spot!
For good measure the poet throws in Latin words ‘vis’ and ‘vir’ which will remind the wide-eyed reader of a certain drug that has become popular for extravagant masculinity. Readers werein splits but took it all in stride this being the year-end Humorous Poems session.
Poet Bio
Maryann Corbett is vague about her age – she looks fiftyish. She grew up in McLean, Virginia, and now lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. Trained as a medievalist and linguist, she holds a doctorate in English from the University of Minnesota. Though she wrote poems as a young person, she largely left creative writing during the decades when she did scholarly work, took care of a family, and worked full time.
Her poems, essays, and translations have appeared in a host of journals such as the Southwest Review, Barrow Street, Rattle, etc. in print and online, as well as the anthologies like Hot Sonnets, The Able Muse Anthology, and so on. She has been a several-time Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee; and a finalist for the 2009 Morton Marr Prize, the 2010 Best of the Net anthology, the 2011 Able Muse Book Prize, the 2014 Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award, the 2016 Able Muse Book Prize, and the 2016 Hollis Summers Prize; and a winner of the Lyric Memorial Award, the Willis Barnstone Translation Prize, and the Richard Wilbur Poetry Award. She is the author of five books of poetry and two chapbooks. One of her poems is included in The Best American Poetry 2018.
She also reviews for several magazines, including Contemporary Poetry Review,The Raintown Review, Eclectica, The Arts Fuse, and Literary Matters.
She is married to John Corbett, a teacher of mathematics and statistics. They have two grown children.
Joe
Joe chose a poem titled from the Victorian era titled Under the Drooping Willow Tree elected from an anthology, the Oxford Book of Light Verse put together by W.H. Auden.
This is a comic ballad of the type usually sung in music halls in Britain. It is full of bathos, sexual innuendo and has a farcical resolution. The classic setup is of a maiden betrayed by a soldier and contemplating suicide.
The climax is not a death, but an accidental, graceless tumble.
The Parody of Tragic Romance takes the classic setup of a maiden betrayed by a soldier and contemplating suicide and subverts it at every turn. Bathos and Anti-Climax is signified by the poem consistently deflating its own melodrama.
He beheld her coming to with great acclamation,
And the tree bore witness to their reconciliation.
There he stood eyes reddening like a tragopan’s
For her right breast was roan, the other tan –
“How colourful!,” he cried “Now I’ll marry an amalgam.”
They sat by the duck pond of dark water,
Under the drooping willow tree.
The poem is saturated with double entendre. The final, bizarre reconciliation stanza, the suitor’s eyes redden "like a tragopan’s" at the sight of his lover’s oddly coloured breasts, leading him to cry, "Now I’ll marry an amalgam" – this is nonsensical, risqué, and focuses on physical comedy over emotion.
It uses a modified ballad structure (four-line stanzas with a repeated refrain), and forms a representative example of popular, subversive humour from the Victorian era.
Shortened Bio
The author of this poem was given as ‘Anon.’ but further researches in the archives revealed the real author was one Julian Soames.
Julian Soames was a man out of time, a creature of the fens marooned in an era that had no use for his particular brand of charm or his meticulously crafted, if ultimately indifferent, verse. His was the biography of a man perpetually on the verge of becoming someone else.
He was discharged from the Royal Army after a minor, oft-hinted-at incident involving a misunderstanding with a Corporal's daughter. He spoke of his service in a clipped, allusive manner, suggesting hidden depths of experience, though his duties mainly involved inventorying socks.
Julian fancied himself a ladies' man. He believed his occasional rustic gaucherie – such as once complimenting a woman by comparing her to a “well-kept heifer” were marks of authentic, unfiltered masculinity. He was, in his own mind, the anti-hero Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, bred in the Fens, though the local women saw him more as a harmless, if peculiar, landmark.
His true romance, however, was with literature. Immersing himself in a self-directed curriculum of popular novels pilfered from charity shops, he believed the secret to establishment acceptance lay somewhere between the macho posturing of a thriller and the sweeping bodices of a historical romance.
His one published collection, Silt and Fancy, was printed in 1887 by a vanity press in Lincoln. It sold one hundred copies, most of them to a confused aunt who distributed it to relatives. The remaining dozen are stacked in a precarious tower in his parlour, a monument to his potential. He delighted in the playful anarchy of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll, scribbling his own limericks about a Young Fellow from Spalding which are, by any objective measure, far more lively and competent than the turgid odes in his published work.
His meditation was not transcendental; it was hydrological. He spent hours by the sluggish fenland drains, watching the water boatmen skate across the surface, imagining the currents carrying him away.
Julian Soames’s great, unspoken tragedy was his search for a helpmate. He did not seek a partner in the modern sense, but a dedicated acolyte—a woman of quiet means and robust constitution who could type his manuscripts, manage his “estate” (the damp cottage), and provide a captive audience for his nightly readings.
He waited for the post to bring a letter from the London Review of Books, recognising his genius. He waited for the inheritance that would fund his travels. He waited, most of all, for a knock on the door from a sensible woman with a warm smile.
He was still waiting when last observed, an age later.
Kavita
Kavita read Roald Dahl's poem The Tummy Beast, a humorous, rhythmic poem from his collection Dirty Beasts, featuring a child blaming a literal "beast" in their stomach for their constant hunger for sweets, which the disbelieving mother dismisses as a "greedy guzzling brat" excuse until the beast roars, making the mother faint in shock, thus proving the child's absurd story and highlighting the themes of gluttony, childhood excuses, and Dahl's signature dark, fantastical humour.
“It’s true!” I cried. “I swear it, mummy!
“There is a person in my tummy!
“He talks to me at night in bed,
“He’s always asking to be fed,
“Throughout the day, he screams at me,
“Demanding sugar buns for tea.
“He tells me it is not a sin
“To go and raid the biscuit tin.
The central theme is the child using the beast as an external force to justify their own poor eating habits, a fairly understandable childhood tactic. The beast demands constant food (buns, biscuits, sweets), symbolising excessive consumption and the battle against temptation, as noted by the child's internal conflict with Gluttony, one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
The poem starts as a simple excuse but culminates in a literal, roaring beast, validating the child's fantasy and shocking the pragmatic mother. This showcases Dahl's knack for dark humour, inventive language (like "greedy guzzling brat"), and his penchant for grotesque, fantastical creatures, making a mundane issue (overeating) monstrously hilarious.
A simple AABB rhyme accompanies a bouncy rhythm, making it fun and accessible for children, like most of Dahl's poetry. The phrase "person in my tummy" is repeated, emphasising the child's insistence and the absurdity.
Here is a bio of Roald Dahl.
KumKum
KumKum chose Norman MacCaig's poem Aunt Julia. It is a poignant, free-verse tribute to his Gaelic-speaking aunt, exploring themes of love, loss, tradition, and the subtle barrier of language. The speaker admires his aunt’s vibrant connection to the Scottish Highlands but regrets never learning her language before she died, so he could try connect with her. This leaves him with unanswered questions and a sense of fading cultural heritage. MacCaig uses vivid, simple metaphors (linking her to earth, water, air) and snapshots of her hardworking crofting life to create a deeply personal yet universal reflection on the fading of older traditions and missed connections.
The central conflict is the inability to communicate due to the language barrier, highlighting both the personal loss of a deeper relationship and the broader loss of Gaelic culture. The poem mourns Aunt Julia but also the passing of her traditional way of life; the speaker's adult understanding of Gaelic comes too late.
Julia embodies the rugged Highland landscape of nature, linked to elements like peat, wind, and water, showing her deep, elemental connection to the land. The poem contrasts Julia's self-sufficient, low-tech life (spinning wool, peat) with the speaker's modern perspective. Implied is a lament for the decline of old ways.
The lack of regular rhyme or rhythm mimics natural speech and personal memory, making it feel like an authentic, autobiographical extract.
MacCaig uses striking, simple metaphors
She wore men’s boots
when she wore any.
— I can see her strong foot,
stained with peat,
paddling with the treadle of the spinningwheel
while her right hand drew yarn
marvellously out of the air.
…
Aunt Julia spoke Gaelic
very loud and very fast.
By the time I had learned
a little, she lay
silenced in the absolute black
of a sandy grave
The personal perspective draws the reader into the poet's intimate memories and feelings of admiration and sorrow. There is a blend of affection, wonder, frustration, and deep regret.
Poet Bio
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Norman MacCaig (1910-1996) was a celebrated Scottish poet, teacher, and conscientious objector known for his witty, metaphor-rich verse, blending urban Edinburgh life with the landscapes of the Scottish Highlands, which inspired his deep connection to nature and elemental themes. A prominent voice in 20th-century Scottish literature, he taught, wrote over twenty collections like Far Cry (1943) and A Common Grace (1960), and received major awards including the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, leaving a legacy of keen observation and authentic voice.
He was born in Edinburgh, and studied Classics at the University of Edinburgh, graduating in 1932, and later became a primary school teacher. He was a lifelong pacifist, and registered as a conscientious objector during WWII, serving time in prison and labor programs.
He evolved from early surrealist leanings in the anthology The New Apocalypse (1939), which was edited by J. F. Hendry (1912–1986) and Henry Treece, to a more grounded, observant style, famed for its sharp wit, apt metaphors, and exploration of nature and existence, often contrasting his city life with Highland retreats.
He held positions as Edinburgh University's first Fellow in Creative Writing (1967) and a Reader in Poetry at Stirling University (1970). His dual upbringing in Edinburgh and his mother's Highland roots fuelled his poetry, with the region of Assynt serving as a spiritual home for inspiration.
He was awarded an OBE (1979) and the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (1985).
Major Works Include:
Far Cry (1943)
The Inward Eye (1946)
A Common Grace (1960)
Measures (1965)
Collected Poems (1985)
Pamela
Pamela selected Peter Pindar's (pen name of John Wolcot) poem To A Fly, Taken Out Of A Punch Bowl which uses the near-drowning of a fly in a bowl of sweet punch drink as a rich metaphor for human indulgence, pleasure-seeking, and the ever-present proximity of death. It reveals how desire leads mortals to danger, much like the fly's intoxication, and ends with a moral about prudence and the sweet, yet perilous, allure of worldly delights.
Pleasure and Danger in the world is signified by the fly's "intoxicated" state on the sweet punch. It symbolises humanity's own weakness, ever falling for pleasure, with the punch bowl representing tempting, intoxicating worldly delights that can easily lead to ruin or "Death's unsocial lands".
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Peter Pindar (John Wolcot) 1738–1819
The speaker's act of rescuing the fly becomes a moment of philosophical reflection, drawing parallels between the fly's experience and human behaviour, where
Thus 'tis with mortals, as it is with flies,
Forever hankering after Pleasure's cup
The Horse Metaphor is a powerful simile of untamed passions, comparing humans to wild colts that reject Prudence's guidance, emphasising how uncontrolled desire (like the fly's) leads to disaster.
The fly's eventual revival, "mov'st a leg, and now its brother," offers a moment of hope, suggesting that even after flirting with death, life and joy can resurrect, much like spring after winter.
The poem is written in engaging in rhyming couplets. The poem maintains a light, conversational, and satirical tone, typical of Pindar, making a serious moral point through a seemingly trivial event, creating a vivid, almost theatrical scene.
The poem is a classic example of memento mori (remember you must die) veiled in light verse, using a small, relatable incident to teach a grand lesson about the human condition – how our constant pursuit of sweet, fleeting pleasures often brings us dangerously close to a bitter end, but a touch of fate or a bit of luck can sometimes rescue us.
Priya
Priya chose 2 poems by Maya Angelou, not commonly known as a write of humorous poems. The Health-Food Diner is a witty poem celebrating appetite and indulgence, contrasting hearty comfort foods like steak and pork chops, with sparse health foods like sprouted wheat and kale. The poet mocks the "frail" patrons of such health food.
True happiness comes from embracing what one loves, and satisfying cravings, even if it's “unhealthy.” Angelou's love for good food comes through with a humorous jab at restrictive diets:
Health-food folks around the world
Are thinned by anxious zeal,
They look for help in seafood kelp
(I count on breaded veal)
The speaker embodies Angelou's known love for food; the poem stems from her own experiences and appreciation for hearty meals, even though she has written cookbooks promoting moderation. The poem acts as a counterpoint.
Contrast is a poetic device used such as the opposition between “steak” and “sprouted wheat,” “pork chops” and “raw spinach.” Desirable foods are described vividly, and bland foods mocked.
Life Doesn't Frighten Me was the second poem that uses a child's bold, repetitive declaration of fearlessness against imagined and real threats (shadows, dragons, bullies) to teach resilience, self-belief, and courage. The poem suggests that facing fears with confidence and even making fun of them transforms vulnerability into strength, though the sheer list of fears hints at the very real anxieties the speaker might actually harbour.
The core message is that fear is natural, but choosing to be brave is a conscious decision, asserted through the repeated refrain, “life doesn't frighten me at all.“ The poem adopts a childlike voice, listing common childhood fears (monsters, mean adults, the dark) and dismissing them, reflecting universal themes of overcoming anxiety.
It celebrates the power of self-belief and the ability to find courage within, even when surrounded by perceived threats, turning weakness into power. The poem's rhythmic, almost chant-like structure and repetition reinforce the speaker's determination and make the message memorable.
Repetition is the chief poetic device. The recurring denial of fear acts as a mantra, strengthening the speaker's resolve. The strong rhythm creates a forceful, attention-grabbing sound:
Shadows on the wall
Noises down the hall
Life doesn't frighten me at all
Bad dogs barking loud
Big ghosts in a cloud
Life doesn't frighten me at all
However after the session we learned that Priya is afraid of Spreadsheets; any document at all containing rows and columns remind her of the dreaded spreadsheet!
Maya Angelou (1928-2014) biography
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Poet, dancer, singer, activist, and scholar Maya Angelou was a world-famous author, best known for her unique and pioneering autobiographical writing style. She wrote seven autobiographies, chronicling different stages of her life, beginning with her famous first book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and concluding with Mom & Me & Mom, forming a complete seven-volume series.
Maya Angelou, was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 4, 1928 as Marguerite Ann Johnson. Due to her parents’ tumultuous marriage and subsequent divorce, Angelou went to live with her paternal grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas at an early age. Her older brother, Bailey, gave Angelou her nickname “Maya.”
Returning to her mother’s care briefly at the age of seven, Angelou was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. He was later jailed and then killed when released from jail. Believing that her confession of the trauma had a hand in the man’s death, Angelou became mute for six years. During her mutism, known as मौन व्रत (maun vrath) in Hindi, and into her teens, she again lived with her grandmother in Arkansas.
Angelou’s interest in the written word and the English language was evident from an early age. Throughout her childhood, she wrote essays, poetry, and kept a journal. When she returned to Arkansas, she took an interest in poetry and memorised works by Shakespeare and Poe.
Angelou moved back before WWII with her mother, who at this time was living in Oakland, California. She attended George Washington High School and took dance and drama courses at the California Labor School.
When war broke out, Angelou applied to join the Women’s Army Corps. However, her application was rejected because of her involvement in the California Labor School, which was said to have Communist ties. Determined to gain employment, despite being only 15 years old, she decided to apply for the position of a streetcar conductor. Many men had left their jobs to join the armed services, leaving women to fill those vacancies. However, Angelou was barred from applying at first because of her race. But she was undeterred. Every day for three weeks, she requested a job application, but was denied. Finally, the company relented and handed her an application. Because she was under the legal working age, she wrote that she was 19. She was accepted for the position and became the first African American woman to work as a streetcar conductor in San Francisco. Angelou was employed for a semester but then decided to return to school. She graduated from Mission High School in the summer of 1944 and soon after gave birth to her only child, Clyde Bailey (Guy) Johnson.
After graduation, Angelou undertook a series of odd jobs to support herself and her son. In 1949, she married Tosh Angelos, an electrician in the US Navy. She adopted a form of his surname and kept it throughout her life, though the marriage ended in divorce in 1952.
Angelou was also noted for her talents as a singer and dancer, particularly in the calypso and cabaret styles. In the 1950s, she performed professionally in the US, Europe, and northern Africa, and sold albums of her recordings.
Maya Angelou doing a calypso dance
In 1950, African American writers in New York City formed the Harlem Writers Guild to nurture and support the publication of Black authors. Angelou joined the Guild in 1959. She also became active in the Civil Rights Movement and served as the northern coordinator of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a prominent African American advocacy organisation
In 1969, Angelou published I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, an autobiography of her early life. Her tale of personal strength amid childhood trauma and racism resonated with readers and was nominated for the National Book Award. Many schools sought to ban the book for its frank depiction of sexual abuse, but it is credited with helping other abuse survivors tell their stories. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings has been translated into numerous languages and has sold over a million copies worldwide. Angelou eventually published six more autobiographies, culminating in 2013’s Mom & Me & Mom.
She wrote numerous poetry volumes, such as the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Just Give me a Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie (1971), as well as several essay collections. She also recorded spoken albums of her poetry, including On the Pulse of the Morning, for which she won a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album. The poem was originally written for and delivered at President Bill Clinton’s inauguration in 1993. She also won a Grammy in 1995, and again in 2002, for her spoken albums of poetry. Here is Maya Angelou reciting a poem titled We Wear a Mask.
Angelou carried out a wide variety of activities on stage and screen as a writer, actor, director, and producer. In 1972, she became the first African American woman to have her screen play turned into a film with the production of Georgia, Georgia. Angelou earned a Tony nomination in 1973 for her supporting role in Jerome Kitty’s play Look Away, and portrayed Kunta Kinte’s grandmother in the television miniseries Roots in 1977. Once Thomo recited her paean to women everywhere called Phenomenal Woman; here is Maya doing the poem Phenomenal Woman.
She was recognised by many organisations both nationally and internationally for her contributions to literature. In 1981, Wake Forest University offered Angelou the Reynolds Professorship of American Studies. President Clinton awarded Angelou the National Medal of Arts in 2000. In 2012, she was a member of the inaugural class inducted into the Wake Forest University Writers Hall of Fame. The following year, she received the National Book Foundation’s Literarian Award for outstanding service to the American literary community. Angelou also gave many commencement speeches and was awarded more than 30 honorary degrees in her lifetime.
Angelou died on May 28, 2014. Several memorials were held in her honour, including ones at Wake Forest University and Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco. To honour her legacy, the US Postal Service issued a stamp with her likeness on it in 2015. (The US Postal Service mistakenly included a quote on the stamp that has long been associated with Angelou but was actually first written by Joan Walsh Anglund.)
Maya Angelou U.S. Stamp
In 2010, President Barack Obama awarded Angelou the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honour. It was a fitting recognition for Angelou’s remarkable and inspiring career in the arts.
President Barack Obama awards the 2010 Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honour, to Maya Angelou
(This bio is taken from https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/maya-angelou)
Saras
Saras’s choice of humorous poem was one of the cat poems from T.S. Eliot’s book Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, a 1939 collection of whimsical poems by T. S. Eliot about the personalities and social lives of cats, written under the pseudonym “Old Possum” for his godchildren. The book, which includes famous poems like The Naming of Cats and Macavity: The Mystery Cat, served as the basis for Andrew Lloyd Webber's iconic musical, Cats. The original material was written as individual poems in a series of letters to his godchildren. Here is the cover of the first edition of the collection
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First Edition (1939) of Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, illustrated by the author
Here is a copy of a letter to his godchild Alison Tandy, preserved in the British Library that includes the poem The Old Gumbie Cat.
Eliot Letter to Tandy family at The British Library
Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats, which was premiered in the West End of London in 1981 and on Broadway in 1982, became the longest-running Broadway show in history until it was overtaken by another musical by Lloyd Webber, The Phantom of the Opera. Cats introduces several additional characters from Eliot's unpublished drafts, most notably Grizabella.
Th poem Saras chose was Of The Awefull Battle Of The Pekes And The Pollicles. The poem satirises the rivalries among them, telling how a fierce dog-fight is averted by the intimidating “Great Rumpus Cat.” It revealed Eliot's wit and ability to create music and characters, and served as a delightful preview of the musical Cats.
The poem exaggerates a typical dog squabble between Pekinese (Pekes) and Yorkshire Terriers (Pollicles), turning it into an “awefull” battle, a classic Eliot tactic to find fun in the mundane. It uses strong rhythms, rhymes, and onomatopoeia (like barking sounds) to create a musical, nursery-rhyme feel, making it engaging and memorable. Eliot, who never used rhymes in his ‘serious’ poems like The Wasteland, here positively revels in rhyme.
The Great Rumpus Cat is a mysterious, powerful feline who stops the fight with a single leap, acting as a benevolent superhero. The story unfolds like a mini-play, a chaotic build-up of barking, followed by the sudden, decisive intervention of the Rumpus Cat, scattering everyone. Eliot shows his versatile, lighthearted side for children and animal lovers.
Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles from Cats, the Musical
You may watch on Youtube the The Battle of Pekes and the Pollicles:
The Pekes and the Pollicles, everyone knows,
Are proud and implacable passionate foes;
It is always the same, wherever one goes.
And the Pugs and the Poms, although most people say
That they do not like fighting, will often display
Every symptom of wanting to join in the fray.
And they
Bark bark bark bark
Bark bark BARK BARK
Until you can hear them all over the Park.
This link T.S Eliot bio (1888-1965) provides a fairly extensive biography, including a touching poem Eliot wrote to his second wife Valerie Fletcher, who survived his death and protected his legacy until she died in 2012.
Shoba
Shoba chose an 18th century British poet named John Gay (1685-1732) who wrote a lengthy comic poem called A New Song of New Similies (sic). It was a tale of love lost, full of “as” and “like”, a prelude to deceptive similes which he labelled ‘similies.’
For example:
Pert as a pear-monger I'd be,
If Molly were but kind;
Cool as a cucumber could see
The rest of womankind.
This 1732 poem has the first recorded use of the phrase “cool as a cucumber” connecting the literal coolness of cucumbers with emotional calmness. It became popular for describing someone self-assured and calm in stressful situations. Gay used the phrase to express detachment from unrequited love, comparing his potential calm to the naturally cool vegetable. The idiom likely stems from ancient knowledge, possibly sourced from India, that cucumbers have a cooling effect, making them ideal for staying calm in hot climates, and this literal coolness was metaphorically extended to temperament. Cool, calm and collected would be a trio of alliterative adjectives to describe the poet’s attempted calm when faced by a recalcitrant woman.
Cool as Cucumber from davidjeremiah.org
John Gay's poem is a satirical take, using absurd and exaggerated comparisons (similies) to critique societal hypocrisy, particularly in love and manners, famously coining “cool as a cucumber” while poking fun at overly dramatic poetic language and the fickle nature of people, showing how everyone fails to live up to idealised comparisons.
Gay uses elevated language and serious-sounding comparisons but applies them to trivial or mundane situations (like a lover's neglect), creating humour. The poem flows in simple, memorable couplets (AABB), making it feel like a popular song or ballad, fitting its title.
Instead of classic, grand comparisons (like comparing heroes to lions), Gay offers fresh, often silly ones (for example, a lover's heart to a “warm stove,” a kiss to “a sweet plum”).
The idea is that everyone is deceptive; a lover might promise gold but give only a fig, a friend might steal your goods, but a wife steals your peace.
Gay satirises the poetic diction of his time (for example, Alexander Pope's), showing how stock phrases become meaningless and how poets force stiff meters, leading to ‘harshness.’ The poem also demonstrates how people fall short of their imagined ideals, making grand promises but delivering little. He reflects on his own predicament:
Plump as a partridge was I known,
And soft as silk my skin
My cheeks as fat as butter grown;
But as a groat now thin!
So the woman has reduced him to a scarecrow. He tells the harshness that awaits the man:
As smooth as glass, as white as curds,
Her pretty hand invites;
Sharp as a needle are her words;
Her wit, like pepper, bites:
In essence, Gay uses seemingly silly comparisons to reveal serious truths about human fallibility and the artificiality of both romantic ideals and poetic convention, making it a clever social commentary.
John Gay Biography
A supposed portrait of John Gay by Godfrey Kneller
John Gay (1685–1732) was an English poet and dramatist, best remembered for The Beggar’s Opera (1728). Born in Barnstaple to a respectable local family, he was educated at the town’s grammar school. After a brief apprenticeship to a London silk merchant, he returned to Devon before settling in London to pursue writing.
His literary career began with plays such as The Mohocks (1712) and The Wife of Bath (1713). In 1713, he dedicated Rural Sports to Alexander Pope, beginning a lifelong friendship. Pope encouraged Gay’s The Shepherd’s Week (1714), a series of mock-pastorals that humorously depicted English rural life. That same year, Gay joined the Scriblerus Club, a group of Tory satirists including Pope, Jonathan Swift, John Arbuthnot, and Thomas Parnell.
In 1714, Gay became secretary to the Earl of Clarendon’s diplomatic mission to Hanover, but the death of Queen Anne soon ended his hopes of official employment. The Hanoverian succession brought Whig dominance, and Gay never held another government post.
Back in London, he wrote the successful afterpiece The What D’Ye Call It? (1715) and the poem Trivia (1716), a witty guide to walking London’s streets. Although his comedy Three Hours After Marriage (1717) failed, he continued writing, collaborating with Handel on Acis and Galatea (1718).
Gay enjoyed patronage from many aristocrats, and in 1720 he gained over £1,000 from a subscription volume of poems. However, he lost his entire fortune later that year in the South Sea Bubble. The South Sea Bubble was a speculative financial crisis in Britain in 1720, centred on the South Sea Company, where share prices soared due to promises of lucrative South American trade (especially in slaves) and a scheme to take over national debt, only to spectacularly crash, ruining many investors. Despite this, friends such as the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, Pope, and Burlington supported him. From 1722, he held a sinecure as a lottery commissioner.
Gay’s greatest success came with The Beggar’s Opera (1728), a ballad opera produced by John Rich. Its characters, like Macheath and Polly Peachum, became household names. The work satirised both criminal society and political corruption, notably targeting Prime Minister Robert Walpole. It was a runaway hit, making Rich wealthy and Gay financially secure.
Dr Samuel Johnson and James Boswell who wrote the famous biography
Samuel Johnson said of the opera, “I should be very sorry to have “The Beggar's Opera” suppressed; for there is in it so much of real London life, so much brilliant wit, and such a variety of airs, which, from early association of ideas, engage, soothe, and enliven the mind, that no performance which the theatre exhibits, delights me more.” But he added a caveat in typical Johnsonese: “There is in it such a labefactation of all principles as may be injurious to morality.” (J. Boswell, Life of Johnson). You will recall Johnson’s famous dictionary has precious definitions such as:
cough n.s. [kuch, Dutch.] A convulsion of the lungs, vellicated by some sharp serosity. It is pronounced coff.
oats n.s. [aten, Saxon.] A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.
pátron n.s. [patron, Fr. patronus, Latin.] One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery.
váticide n.s. [vates and cædo, Latin.] A murderer of poets.
politician [politicien, French] A man of artifice; one of deep contrivance
compliment n.s. [compliment, Fr.] An act, or expression of civility, usually understood to include some hypocrisy, and to mean less than it declares.
A modern dictionary that occasionally interjects humour is Chambers, for example:
éclair – a cake, long in shape but short in duration
mullet – a hairstyle that is short at the front, long at the back, and ridiculous all around
You can consult the entire Johnson’s Dictionary online at
A sequel to The Beggar’s Opera was Polly, banned in 1729 – but its very banning caused its popularity to swell and earned Gay substantial sums through subscription publication. He revised The Wife of Bath in 1730, but it saw only brief stage success. Gay spent his final years living with the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry. He died in London in 1732 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Alexander Pope provided his epitaph, followed by Gay’s own self-mocking couplet:
Life is a jest, and all things show it,
I thought so once, but now I know it.
(Substantially based on the wiki entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gay)
Thomo
Thomo selected the self-satirical poem How pleasant to know Mr. Lear by Edward Lear, who is best known as the inventor of the 5-line anapestics form known as the ‘limerick.’ This one is formed by quatrains rhymed ABAB. Here is a recital of the poem set to music by Lenny Sayers and performed by him:
He sits in a beautiful parlour,
With hundreds of books on the wall;
He drinks a great deal of marsala,
But never gets tipsy at all.
Edward Lear Bio (1812–1888)
Edward Lear Portrait by Wilhelm Marstrand
Lear’s early years were a story of self-help. Born in 1812 in Highgate, a suburb of London, he began his career as an artist at age fifteen. His father, a stockbroker of Danish origin, was sent to debtor’s prison when Lear was thirteen, forcing the young Lear to earn a living. Lear quickly gained recognition for his work and, in 1832, was hired by the London Zoological Society to execute illustrations of birds. In the same year, the Earl of Derby invited him to reside at his estate; Lear ended up staying until 1836. His formal education was little; he was at first a self-taught artist, and at the age of 23 he encountered the visual filing system of animals being assembled by Lord Derby, whose growing menagerie already many professionals to look after them. Lear’s contribution was a sheaf of sharp watercolours that captured the glint in a parrot’s eye, the silky fur of a giant squirrel’s tail, and the stress of animals far from their familiar habitats. Lear could perform a range of amusing tricks, such as vamping away on the piano, or scattering his conversation with puns, but he would always be an outsider in the aristocratic world.
Lear’s first book of poems, A Book of Nonsense (Routledge, Warne, and Routledge, 1846) was composed for the grandchildren of the Derby household. Around 1836, Lear decided to devote himself exclusively to landscape painting, although he continued to compose light verse. Between 1837 and 1847, Lear traveled extensively throughout Europe and Asia.
Thereafter he had generous patrons and wealthy collectors whom he met. He graduated from wildlife to landscapes such as the plunging valleys of Kanchenjunga seen from Darjeeling (1877), grand vistas painted with fidelity to detail.
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Edward Lear’s Kanchenjunga from Darjeeling (1877)
After his return to England, Lear’s travel journals were published in several volumes as The Illustrated Travels of a Landscape Painter. Popular and respected in his day, Lear’s travel books have largely been ignored in the twentieth century. Rather, Lear is remembered for his humorous poems, such as The Owl and the Pussycat, and as the creator of the form and meter of the modern limerick. Alongside this he had started to write nonsense poems accompanied by deliberately crude sketches, featuring eccentric creatures like the Pobble who has no toes, or the Dong with a luminous nose. Later he would create “the Jumblies”, who go to sea in a sieve.
“There was an Old Man with a beard...”by Edward Lear
His books of humorous verse also include Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany, and Alphabets (James R. Osgood and Company, 1871) and Laughable Lyrics: a Fourth Book of Nonsense Poems, Songs, Botany, Music, &c. (Robert John Bush, 1877).
Lear gave the freedom of the page to his animal and human creations. Even his chosen limerick form, was like a cage he could keep them in while leaving the door to spring open at the end.
Lear’s serious paintings and nonsense verses emanated from the same person. His was a life of art and nonsense, the sublime and the ridiculous. Sometimes these categories overlapped. Whereas the soaring vistas of the paintings dwarfed the human figures and animals dotted around them, his nonsense was a world of tight close-ups, where buttons are made from chocolate drops and a hatchet is used to scratch a flea. A 2017 biography of his by Jenny Uglow, Mr Lear: A Life of Art and Nonsense, published by Faber is full of memorable word-pictures: for British visitors in the 19th century, Uglow observes, Corfu was “like a jotting in the margins of empire.”
Mr Lear: A Life of Art and Nonsense by Jenny Uglow – front cover
Lear was reluctant to stay in one place for long. He travelled to: Albania, Belgium, Corfu, Dardanelles, Egypt, France, Greece, Holland … And even after he bought a house in Italy, he continued to spend his summers in England. His imagination was just as restless, and he emerges as someone who was fascinated by the sheer strangeness of things that most people don’t bother to savour. This is the life of one in perpetual exile in the ordinary world.
Lear usually managed to laugh at the contradictions he found when he thought about the natural world. He had friends, but also suffered from loneliness, and quoted Tennyson’s poem Mariana with particular feeling, as if he too was forever waiting for a lover who would never come.
Her tears fell with the dews at even;
Her tears fell ere the dews were dried;
She could not look on the sweet heaven,
Either at morn or eventide.
He had lopsided friendships with younger men, but whether this was evidence of homosexuality or not is unclear. He acted the part of a clown who was often laid low by depression, especially after the epileptic fits he noted in his diary with a speechless “X”. Saddest of all, he was the most loveable of men, says his biographer, but convinced he was too hideous ever to be loved.
His most famous works brought these contradictions together and a wonderful creative life emerged. In 1836, he was staying with friends on Plymouth Sound; in the evenings they took their guitars down to the rocks, “& there we sate singing to the sea & the moon till late.” But, of course, the music had to end; the moment of happiness passed. A poem, by contrast, was a clock that could not be stopped. Years later, Lear wrote The Owl and the Pussycat (voted Britain’s favourite poem in a 2012 poll), which concludes with this scene of the sweetest and strangest couple of all:
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.
The Owl and the Pussy Cat – they danced by the light of the moon
And they’re still dancing.
(The above biography is taken largely from a review of Edward Lear’s biography by Jenny Uglow, in The Guardian newspaper Sep 30, 2017:
Portions are culled from
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The Owl and the Pussycat, drawn by Edward Lear, from his book Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany, and Alphabets (1871)
Edward Lear died on January 29, 1888, in San Remo, Italy, at the age of seventy-six.
Zakia
Zakia chose a poem by Gwendolyn Brooks about a tiger who wants to be different and masquerade in white gloves, The Tiger Who Wore White Gloves. It is a charming yet profound poem about individuality versus conformity, using a tiger's desire to wear fancy white gloves to explore social pressure, identity, and the conflict between inner desire and external expectations. The tiger's attempt to be different is met with ridicule from other animals, who insist that tigers should be fierce. This leads the tiger to sadly abandon his gloves, thus highlighting how societal norms can crush personal expression. Clearly the poem is advocating that tigers, like other creatures, should embrace their true self, but the tiger succumbs and returns “to the way it always was.”
The poet is holding up for consideration the theme of Individuality vs. Conformity. The tiger's white gloves symbolise a gentle, refined self-image, coming from an internal desire, which clashes with the jungle's demand for tigers, “not dainty, but daring.”
Social Pressure & Identity: The other animals (jaguar, lion, leopard, etc.) represent societal forces that enforce rigid roles. Their shaming convinces the tiger he must conform, and abandon his unique desire.
The tiger's final sigh and removal of the gloves show the painful cost of giving in to peer pressure, despite his love for the gloves:
when at last, with a sigh
and a saddened eye,
and in spite of his love,
he took off each glove,
and agreed this was meant
all to prevail:
The poem starts upbeat and optimistic, then shifts to a darker, more somber tone as the tiger faces criticism. The language is suitable for children, but carries deep meaning about societal expectations for all ages.
Gwendolyn Brooks Bio (1917 – 2000)
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Gwendolyn Brooks at her typewriter
Gwendolyn Brooks was one of the most influential American poets of the 20th century. Celebrated during her lifetime, she broke significant barriers as the first Black poet to win the Pulitzer Prize (for Annie Allen, a book of poetry published by Harper Brothers in 1949). She was the first Black woman to serve as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, a role now known as Poet Laureate. She was also the poet laureate of Illinois for 32 years. With over 20 published books, her work combined a deep commitment to racial identity with masterful technique, bridging the gap between the academic poets of the 1940s and the Black militant writers of the 1960s.
Born in Topeka, Kansas, in 1917, Brooks was raised in Chicago from a young age. Her parents, a janitor and a schoolteacher, nurtured her literary passion. She published her first poem at 13 and was a frequent contributor to the Chicago Defender by 17. The Chicago Defender was an influential African-American newspaper, founded by Robert S. Abbott in 1905, known for fighting racism, boosting Black migration North (known as The Great Migration); the Chicago Defender became a national voice for Black America. After junior college and work for the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), she honed her craft in workshops. Her first collection, A Street in Bronzeville (1945), announced a major new voice, offering terse, carefully crafted portraits of Black urban life that won praise from poets like Langston Hughes.
Her follow-up, Annie Allen (1949), won the Pulitzer Prize. In the 1950s, she published her only novel, Maud Martha (1953), whose vignettes explored prejudice within and outside the Black community. A profound shift in her work became evident in the late 1960s. After attending a Black writers' conference at Fisk University in 1967, Brooks described a new sense of pride and purpose, stating she thereafter thought of herself “as an African determined not to compromise social comment for the sake of technical proficiency.”
This transformation was cemented in a collection titled In the Mecca (1968). Its epic title poem traces a mother's search for her lost child in a sprawling tenement, revealing a community's struggles and serving as a powerful social commentary. The book also included overtly political poems, such as tributes to Malcolm X. A critic R. Baxter Miller called it “a most complex and intriguing book” that balances sordid realities with a quest for redemption.
Aligned with her new consciousness, Brooks made a logical activist move by leaving her major publisher, Harper & Row, for emerging Black-owned presses like Dudley Randall's Broadside Press and Haki R. Madhubuti's Third World Press. Through them, she published collections like Riot (1969) and Beckonings (1975), as well as the first volume of her autobiography, Report from Part One (1972). Some critics gave these works brief notice, which Brooks believed was on account of a reluctance to encourage Black publishers.
Her autobiography documented this personal and artistic growth. In a defining passage, she wrote of moving from “an almost angry rejection of my dark skin” to a “surprised queenhood in the new Black sun,” declaring her identity as “an essential African” and arguing that “Black emphasis must be, not against white, but FOR Black.”
In her later decades, her service as Library of Congress Consultant and Illinois Poet Laureate was characterised by direct, generous engagement. She used her personal funds to sponsor literary prizes and tirelessly visited schools, prisons, and community centres. This legacy is honoured through schools and cultural centres bearing her name. The annual “Brooks Day” in Chicago, is named for her. The enduring power of her poetry continues to give “a strong, uncompromising voice to the urban Black experience, a voice that is at once angry and compassionate, fierce and tender” (Encyclopedia Britannica).
(The bio above is condensed from what appears on The Poetry Foundation website at
The Poems
Arundhaty – If The World Was Crazy by Shel Silverstein
If the world was crazy, you know what I'd eat?
A big slice of soup and a whole quart of meat,
A lemonade sandwich, and then I might try
Some roasted ice cream or a bicycle pie,
A nice notebook salad, and underwear roast,
An omelet of hats and some crisp cardboard toast,
A thick malted milk made from pencils and daisies,
And that's what I'd eat if the world was crazy.
If the world was crazy, you know what I'd wear?
A chocolate suit and a tie of eclair,
Some marshmallow earmuffs, some licorice shoes,
And I'd read a paper of peppermint news.
I'd call the boys 'Suzy' and I'd call the girls 'Harry,'
I'd talk through my ears, and I always would carry
A paper unbrella for when it grew hazy
To keep in the rain, if the world was crazy.
If the world was crazy, you know what I'd do?
I'd walk on the ocean and swim in my shoe,
I'd fly through the ground and I'd skip through the air,
I'd run down the bathtub and bathe on the stair.
When I met somebody I'd say 'G'bye, Joe,'
And when I was leaving - then I'd say 'Hello.'
And the greatest of men would be silly and lazy
So I would be king... if the world was cazy.
Devika – The Professor by Nissim Ezekiel
Remember me? I am Professor Sheth.
Once I taught you geography. Now
I am retired, though my health is good. My wife died some years back.
By God's grace, all my children
Are well settled in life.
One is Sales Manager,
One is Bank Manager,
Both have cars.
Other also doing well, though not so well.
Every family must have black sheep.
Sarala and Tarala are married,
Their husbands are very nice boys.
You won't believe but I have eleven grandchildren.
How many issues you have? Three?
That is good. These are days of family planning.
I am not against. We have to change with times.
Whole world is changing. In India also
We are keeping up. Our progress is progressing.
Old values are going, new values are coming.
Everything is happening with leaps and bounds.
I am going out rarely, now and then
Only, this is price of old age
But my health is O.K. Usual aches and pains.
No diabetes, no blood pressure, no heart attack.
This is because of sound habits in youth.
How is your health keeping?
Nicely? I am happy for that.
This year I am sixty-nine
and hope to score a century.
You were so thin, like stick,
Now you are man of weight and consequence.
That is good joke.
If you are coming again this side by chance,
Visit please my humble residence also.
I am living just on opposite house's backside.
Geetha – Asparagus by Maryann Corbett
God of Roman gardens, obscene Priapus,
is that you? now risen in green and purple
thick-stalked rigor, here in the bed prepared for
old-fashioned roses?
Years ago I lusted for kitchen gardens
here, and trenched and phosphated, setting rootstocks
deep—and then I grew in a new direction,
longing for flowers.
Ave, old survivor, both vis and vir, old
force, green fuse still driving among the blossoms,
heedless of my changes of heart and hortus,
phallic as ever.
Heartless, though, to Bobbitt you off for cooking!
One alone, poor godhead, will never serve us,
hungry as we are for the primavera.
Gardening's answer:
Stand there still, O vegetable love. Grow taller.
Soar and soften out to a ferny greenness
feathered open, branched to adorn these hoped-for
armfuls of roses.
Joe – Under the Drooping Willow Tree by Anon.
On a small six-acre farm dwelt John Grist the miller,
Near a pond not far beyond grew a drooping willow,
Underneath its spreading leaves sat Jane, his only daughter.
Meditating suicide in the muddy water,
Element Aqua Pura, Aqua Impura.
She sat by a duck pond of dark water,
Under the drooping willow tree.
She'd been jilted by a youth who had joined the Rifles,
A young man not worth a rap, who never stuck at trifles.
Though he promised to keep true, act like a faithful lover,
When his rifle suit he got, then leg bail he gave her,
Hooked it, stepped it, toddled, mizzled.
She sat by a duck pond of dark water,
Under the drooping willow tree.
‘All alone I'm left,’ says she, ‘my poor heart is bursting;
Dearly did I love my Joe, though he wore plain fustian.
But my nose is out of joint, and don’t it make me nettled.
In this pond I'll drown myself, then I shall be settled.
Bottled, finished, done for, flummoxed.’
She sat by a duck pond of dark water,
Under the drooping willow tree.
She'd no wish to spoil her clothes, so undressed that minute;
But the water felt so cold when her toes were in it.
‘If it weren't so cold,’ said she, ‘I’d jump in like winking.’
Then she wiped her nose, and sat upon the edge thinking,
Pondering, puzzling, considering, ruminating.
She sat by a duck pond of dark water,
Under the drooping willow tree.
Like a Venus she sat in her nude state staying;
Presently she was frightened by a donkey braying.
Like a frog she gave a leap, but worse luck she stumbled,
Lost her equilibrium, and in the water tumbled,
Fell in, pitched in, dropped in, popped in.
She fell in the duck pond of dark water,
Under the drooping willow tree.
When she found she'd fallen in, she then took to swooning;
Very long it would not have been, before she took to drowning.
But her Joseph was close by, saw her in the water,
With his crooked walking stick by the wool be caught her,
Nabbed her, grabbed her, seized her, collared her
From out of the duck pond of dark water,
Under the drooping willow tree.
He beheld her coming to with great acclamation,
And the tree bore witness to their reconciliation.
There he stood eyes reddening like a tragopan’s
For her right breast was roan, the other tan –
“How colourful!,” he cried “Now I’ll marry an amalgam.”
They sat by the duck pond of dark water,
Under the drooping willow tree.
(p.408 of The Oxford Book Of Light Verse Chosen by W. H. Auden)
Kavita – The Tummy Beast by Roald Dahl
One afternoon I said to mummy,
“Who is this person in my tummy?
“Who must be small and very thin
“Or how could he have gotten in?”
My mother said from where she sat,
“It isn’t nice to talk like that.”
“It’s true!” I cried. “I swear it, mummy!
“There is a person in my tummy!
“He talks to me at night in bed,
“He’s always asking to be fed,
“Throughout the day, he screams at me,
“Demanding sugar buns for tea.
“He tells me it is not a sin
“To go and raid the biscuit tin.
“I know quite well it’s awfully wrong
“To guzzle food the whole day long,
“But really I can’t help it, mummy,
“Not with this person in my tummy.”
“You horrid child!” my mother cried.
“Admit it right away, you’ve lied!”
“You’re simply trying to produce
“A silly asinine excuse!
“You are the greedy guzzling brat!
“And that is why you’re always fat!”
I tried once more, “Believe me, mummy,
“There is a person in my tummy.”
“I’ve had enough!” my mother said,
“You’d better go at once to bed!”
Just then, a nicely timed event
Delivered me from punishment.
Deep in my tummy something stirred,
And then an awful noise was heard,
A snorting grumbling grunting sound
That made my tummy jump around.
My darling mother nearly died,
“My goodness, what was that?” she cried.
At once the tummy voice came through,
It shouted, “Hey there! Listen you!
“I’m getting hungry! I want eats!
“I want lots of chocs and sweets!
“Get me half a pound of nuts!
“Look snappy or I’ll twist your guts!”
“That’s him!” I cried. “He’s in my tummy!
“So now do you believe me, mummy?”
But mummy answered nothing more,
For she had fainted on the floor.
KumKum – Aunt Julia by Norman MacCaig
Aunt Julia spoke Gaelic
very loud and very fast.
I could not answer her —
I could not understand her.
She wore men’s boots
when she wore any.
— I can see her strong foot,
stained with peat,
paddling with the treadle of the spinningwheel
while her right hand drew yarn
marvellously out of the air.
Hers was the only house
where I’ve lain at night
in the absolute darkness
of a box bed, listening to
crickets being friendly.
She was buckets
and water flouncing into them.
She was winds pouring wetly
round house-ends.
She was brown eggs, black skirts
and a keeper of threepennybits
in a teapot.
Aunt Julia spoke Gaelic
very loud and very fast.
By the time I had learned
a little, she lay
silenced in the absolute black
of a sandy grave
at Luskentyre. But I hear her still, welcoming me
with a seagull’s voice
across a hundred yards
of peatscrapes and lazybeds
and getting angry, getting angry
with so many questions
unanswered.
Pamela – To A Fly, Taken Out Of A Punch Bowl by Peter Pindar
Ah! poor intoxicated little knave,
Now senseless, floating on the fragrant wave;
Why not content the cakes alone to munch?
Dearly thou pay'st for buzzing round the bowl;
Lost to the world, thou busy sweet-lipped soul--
Thus Death, as well as Pleasure, dwells with Punch.
Now let me take thee out, and moralize--
Thus 'tis with mortals, as it is with flies,
Forever hankering after Pleasure's cup:
Though Fate, with all his legions, be at hand,
The beasts, the draught of Circe can't withstand,
But in goes every nose--they must, will sup.
Mad are the passions, as a colt untamed!
When Prudence mounts their backs to ride them mild,
They fling, they snort, they foam, they rise inflamed,
Insisting on their own sole will so wild.
Gadsbud! my buzzing friend, thou art not dead;
The Fates, so kind, have not yet snapped thy thread;
By heavens, thou mov'st a leg, and now its brother.
And kicking, lo, again, thou mov'st another!
And now thy little drunken eyes unclose,
And now thou feelest for thy little nose,
And, finding it, thou rubbest thy two hands
Much as to say, "I'm glad I'm here again."
And well mayest thou rejoice--'tis very plain,
That near wert thou to Death's unsocial lands.
And now thou rollest on thy back about,
Happy to find thyself alive, no doubt--
Now turnest--on the table making rings,
Now crawling, forming a wet track,
Now shaking the rich liquor from thy back,
Now fluttering nectar from thy silken wings.
Now standing on thy head, thy strength to find,
And poking out thy small, long legs behind;
And now thy pinions dost thou briskly ply;
Preparing now to leave me--farewell, fly!
Go, join thy brothers on yon sunny board,
And rapture to thy family afford--
There wilt thou meet a mistress, or a wife,
That saw thee drunk, drop senseless in the stream
Who gave, perhaps, the wide-resounding scream,
And now sits groaning for thy precious life.
Yes, go and carry comfort to thy friends,
And wisely tell them thy imprudence ends.
Let buns and sugar for the future charm;
These will delight, and feed, and work no harm--
While Punch, the grinning, merry imp of sin,
Invites th' unwary wanderer to a kiss,
Smiles in his face, as though he meant him bliss,
Then, like an alligator, drags him in.
(Note: This poem was written under Wolcot's pen name, Peter Pindar.)
Priya – The Health-Food Diner, Life Doesn't Frighten Me by Maya Angelou
(1) The Health-Food Diner
No sprouted wheat and soya shoots
And Brussels in a cake,
Carrot straw and spinach raw,
(Today, I need a steak).
Not thick brown rice and rice pilaw
Or mushrooms creamed on toast,
Turnips mashed and parsnips hashed,
(I'm dreaming of a roast).
Health-food folks around the world
Are thinned by anxious zeal,
They look for help in seafood kelp
(I count on breaded veal).
No smoking signs, raw mustard greens,
Zucchini by the ton,
Uncooked kale and bodies frail
Are sure to make me run
to
Loins of pork and chicken thighs
And standing rib, so prime,
Pork chops brown and fresh ground round
(I crave them all the time).
Irish stews and boiled corned beef
and hot dogs by the scores,
or any place that saves a space
For smoking carnivores.
(2) Life Doesn't Frighten Me
Shadows on the wall
Noises down the hall
Life doesn't frighten me at all
Bad dogs barking loud
Big ghosts in a cloud
Life doesn't frighten me at all
Mean old Mother Goose
Lions on the loose
They don't frighten me at all
Dragons breathing flame
On my counterpane
That doesn't frighten me at all.
I go boo
Make them shoo
I make fun
Way they run
I won't cry
So they fly
I just smile
They go wild
Life doesn't frighten me at all.
Tough guys fight
All alone at night
Life doesn't frighten me at all.
Panthers in the park
Strangers in the dark
No, they don't frighten me at all.
That new classroom where
Boys all pull my hair
(Kissy little girls
With their hair in curls)
They don't frighten me at all.
Don't show me frogs and snakes
And listen for my scream,
If I'm afraid at all
It's only in my dreams.
I've got a magic charm
That I keep up my sleeve
I can walk the ocean floor
And never have to breathe.
Life doesn't frighten me at all
Not at all
Not at all.
Life doesn't frighten me at all.
Saras – Of The Awefull Battle Of The Pekes And The Pollicles by T.S. Eliot
TOGETHER WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE PARTICIPATION
OF THE PUGS AND THE POMS, AND THE INTERVENTION OF THE GREAT RUMPUSCAT
The Pekes and the Pollicles, everyone knows,
Are proud and implacable passionate foes;
It is always the same, wherever one goes.
And the Pugs and the Poms, although most people say
That they do not like fighting, will often display
Every symptom of wanting to join in the fray.
And they
Bark bark bark bark
Bark bark BARK BARK
Until you can hear them all over the Park.
Now on the occasion of which I shall speak
Almost nothing had happened for nearly a week
(And that's a long time for a Pol or a Peke).
The big Police Dog was away from his beat -
I don't know the reason, but most people think
He'd slipped into the Bricklayer's Arms for a drink -
And no one at all was about on the street
When a Peke and a Pollicle happened to meet.
They did not advance, or exactly retreat,
But they glared at each other and scraped their hind feet,
And started to
Bark bark bark bark
Bark bark BARK BARK
Until you could hear them all over the Park.
Now the Peke, although people may say what they please,
Is no British Dog, but a Heathen Chinese.
And so all the Pekes, when they heard the uproar,
Some came to the window, some came to the door;
There were surely a doyen, more likely a score.
And together they started to grumble and wheeye
In their huffery-snuffery Heathen Chinese.
But a terrible din is what Pollicles like,
for your Pollicle Dog is a dour Yorkshire tyke,
And his braw Scottish cousins are snappers and biters,
And every dog-jack of them notable fighters;
And so they stepped out, with their pipers in order,
Playing When the Blue Bonnets Came Over the Border.
Then the Pugs and the Poms held no longer aloof,
But some from the balcony, some from the roof,
Joined in
To the din
With a
Bark bark bark bark
Bark bark BARK BARK
Until you could hear them all over the Park.
Now when these bold heroes together assembled,
The traffic all stopped, and the Underground trembled,
And some of the neighbours were so much afraid
That they started to ring up the Fire Brigade.
When suddenly, up from a small basement flat,
Why who should stalk out but the GREAT RUMPUSCAT.
His eyes were like fireballs fearfully blazing,
He gave a great yawn, and his jaws were amazing;
And when he looked out through the bars of the area,
You never saw anything fiercer or hairier.
And what with the glare of his eyes and his yawning,
The Pekes and the Pollicles quickly took warning.
He looked at the sky and he gave a great leap -
And they every last one of them scattered like sheep.
And when the Police Dog returned to his beat,
There wasn't a single one left in the street.
Shoba – A New Song of New Similies by John Gay
My passion is as mustard strong;
I sit all sober sad;
Drunk as a piper all day long,
Or like a March-hare mad.
Round as a hoop the bumpers flow;
I drink, yet can't forget her;
For, though as drunk as David's sow,
I love her still the better.
Pert as a pear-monger I'd be,
If Molly were but kind;
Cool as a cucumber could see
The rest of womankind.
Like a stuck pig I gaping stare,
And eye her o'er and o'er;
Lean as a rake with sighs and care;
Sleek as a mouse before,
Plump as a partridge was I known,
And soft as silk my skin
My cheeks as fat as butter grown;
But as a groat now thin!
I, melancholy as a cat,
And kept awake to weep;
But she, insensible of that,
Sound as a top can sleep.
Hard is her heart as flint or stone,
She laughs to see me pale;
And merry as a grig is grown,
And brisk as bottled ale.
The God of Love at her approach
Is busy as a bee;
Hearts, sound as any bell or roach,
Are smit and sigh like me.
Ay me! as thick as hops or hail,
The fine men crowd about her;
But soon as dead as a door nail
Shall I be, if without her.
Straight as my leg her shape appears,
O were we join'd together!
My heart would be scot-free from cares,
And lighter than a feather.
As fine as fivepence is her mien,
No drum was ever tighter;
Her glance is as the razor keen,
And not the sun is brighter.
As soft as pap her kisses are,
Methinks I taste them yet;
Brown as a berry is her hair,
Her eyes as black as jet:
As smooth as glass, as white as curds,
Her pretty hand invites;
Sharp as a needle are her words;
Her wit, like pepper, bites:
Brisk as a body-louse she trips,
Clean as a penny drest;
Sweet as a rose her breath and lips,
Round as the globe her breast.
Full as an egg was I with glee;
And happy as a king.
Good Lord! how all men envy'd me!
She lov'd like anything.
But, false as hell! she, like the wind,
Chang'd, as her sex must do;
Though seeming as the turtle kind,
And like the gospel true.
If I and Molly could agree,
Let who would take Peru!
Great as an emperor should I be,
And richer than a Jew.
Till you grow tender as a chick,
I'm dull as any post;
Let us, like burs, together stick,
And warm as any toast.
You'll know me truer than a dye;
And wish me better speed;
Flat as a flounder when I lie,
And as a herring dead.
Sure as a gun, she'll drop a tear,
And sigh, perhaps, and wish,
When I am rotten as a pear,
And mute as any fish.
Thomo – How pleasant to know Mr. Lear by Edward Lear
How pleasant to know Mr. Lear,
Who has written such volumes of stuff.
Some think him ill-tempered and queer,
But a few find him pleasant enough.
His mind is concrete and fastidious,
His nose is remarkably big;
His visage is more or less hideous,
His beard it resembles a wig.
He has ears, and two eyes, and ten fingers,
(Leastways if you reckon two thumbs);
He used to be one of the singers,
But now he is one of the dumbs.
He sits in a beautiful parlour,
With hundreds of books on the wall;
He drinks a great deal of marsala,
But never gets tipsy at all.
He has many friends, laymen and clerical,
Old Foss is the name of his cat;
His body is perfectly spherical,
He weareth a runcible hat.
When he walks in waterproof white,
The children run after him so!
Calling out, "He's gone out in his night-
Gown, that crazy old Englishman, oh!"
He weeps by the side of the ocean,
He weeps on the top of the hill;
He purchases pancakes and lotion,
And chocolate shrimps from the mill.
He reads, but he does not speak, Spanish,
He cannot abide ginger beer;
Ere the days of his pilgrimage vanish,
How pleasant to know Mr. Lear!
Zakia – The Tiger Who Wore White Gloves
by Gwendolyn Brooks
There once was a tiger, terrible and tough,
who said “I don’t think tigers are stylish enough.
They put on only orange and stripes of fierce black.
Fine and fancy fashion is what they mostly lack.
Even though they proudly
speak most loudly,
so that the jungle shakes
and every eye awakes—
Even though they slither
hither and thither
in such a wild way
that few may care to stay—
to be tough just isn’t enough.”
These things the tiger said,
And growled and tossed his head,
and rushed to the jungle fair
for something fine to wear.
Then!—what a hoot and yell
upon the jungle fell
The rhinoceros rasped!
The elephant gasped!
“By all that’s sainted!”
said wolf—and fainted.
The crocodile cried.
The lion sighed.
The leopard sneered.
The jaguar jeered.
The antelope shouted.
The panther pouted.
Everyone screamed
“We never dreamed
that ever could be
in history
a tiger who loves
to wear white gloves.
White gloves are for girls
with manners and curls
and dresses and hats and bow-ribbons.
That’s the way it always was
and rightly so, because
it’s nature’s nice decree
that tiger folk should be
not dainty, but daring,
and wisely wearing
what’s fierce as the face,
not whiteness and lace!”
They shamed him and shamed him—
till none could have blamed him,
when at last, with a sigh
and a saddened eye,
and in spite of his love,
he took off each glove,
and agreed this was meant
all to prevail:
each tiger content
with his lashing tail
and satisfied
with his strong striped hide.
Solutions to DREs:
1. The 2-word phrase is ‘vegetable love’ and occurs in the poem To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
See:
2. In the last stanza of the poem Under the Drooping Willow Tree by Anon.
The lines
There it stands in all its pride, and will stand, moreover,
Unless the spot should be required by the London, Chatham and Dover
Railway, Company, Limited, Good Dividends
– have been substituted by
There he stood eyes reddening like a tragopan’s
For her right breast was roan, the other tan –
“How colourful!,” he cried “Now I’ll marry an amalgam.”
3.
Ex. A haiku at on a subject touched on in Ezekiel’s poem The Professor
Weight and consequence
Qualities of great import —
Secure dominance!
4.
Calcuta
There once was a man from Calcutta
Who coated his throat with butta
This converting his snore
From a thunderous roar
To a soft, melodious mutta.
(L. Kilham)
Madras
There was once a bright gal from Madras
Who was due to be put out to grass,
But she said “At seventy,
Though I’m not as feisty,
As a woman I’m still quite bindaas.”
(Joe)
Delhi
Did you hear of the girl from New Delhi?
How she turned those guys knees to jelly?
She'd wiggle and jiggle
she'd laugh and she'd giggle
while shaking her **** and her belly.
(John F McCullagh)
Bombay
There was once a young man from Bombay
Who boarded the bus on a Tuesday
It said on the door
Don’t spit on the floor
So he stood up and spat on the pathway..
(A more comical one came to hand about Bombay, but it was anatomical, and therefore a bit risqué)
5.
Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats was begun in 1934–35. The separate poems were intended as gifts for the children of friends and the poet’s godchildren. For example:
The Napoleon of Crime is Macavity: The Mystery Cat who could never be found at the scene of his crimes:
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