Not Marble, nor the Gilded Monuments (Sonnet LV) -- William Shakespeare

Yesterday's parody made me realise that we hadn't yet run the original...

(Poem #1574) Not Marble, nor the Gilded Monuments (Sonnet LV) Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rime; But you shall shine more bright in these contents Than unswept stone, besmear’d with sluttish time. When wasteful war shall statues overturn, And broils root out the work of masonry, Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn The living record of your memory. ’Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room Even in the eyes of all posterity That wear this world out to the ending doom. So, till the judgment that yourself arise, You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes. -- William Shakespeare

This is a love poem with a twist. Or, at least, it is *nominally* a love
poem. What it really is is a poem that is, in the most literal sense, full
of itself - an extended boast about Shakespeare's skill at writing poetry.
Now don't get me wrong, I love this sonnet, and would even rank it among
the Bard's best. It is indeed a monumental tribute to Shakespeare's poetry
that the sonnet rings true, that it doesn't grate on the ear the way
less-worthy bragging is wont to do. But stripped of the beauty of the words,
what it is essentially saying is "You will be immortal because I am a great
poet, and this is a great poem".

On a somewhat tangential note, one thing that never fails to impress me when
reading Shakespeare's sonnets is how many ever-fresh variations he manages
to ring up on a bare handful of themes. "Age cannot wither her, nor custom
stale / Her infinite variety", wrote Shakespeare of Cleopatra, and I can
think of no more fitting epitaph for the man himself.

Links:

 We've run plenty of Shakespeare (one might even get the idea he's a
 somewhat popular poet):
[broken link] http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/index_poet_S.html#Shakespeare

 For another parody of a trite sentiment in poetic clothing, see A. D. Hope's
 "His Coy Mistress to Mr. Marvell" [Poem #1568]

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Strugnell's Sonnets (iv) -- Wendy Cope

(Poem #1573) Strugnell's Sonnets (iv) Not only marble, but the plastic toys From cornflake packets will outlive this rhyme I can't immortalize you, love - our joys Will lie unnoticed in the vault of time. When Mrs. Thatcher has been cast in bronze And her administration is a page In some O-Level text-book, when the dons Have analysed the story of our age, When travel firms sell tours of outer space When aeroplanes take off without a sound And Tulse Hill has become a trendy place And upper Norwood's on the underground Your beauty and my name will be forgotten - My love is true, but all my verse is rotten -- Wendy Cope

(from "Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis)

Notes: Parody of Shakespeare's Sonnet LV, "Nor Marble nor the Gilded
  Monuments". Strugnell is Cope's fictional creation, a 'rimer' whose
  tragedy it is to fall under the obvious influence of one great poet after
  another.

One of my happier poetry purchases over the last year was Cope's delightful
volume, "Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis". It's rare that I will sit and read
a single-poet collection through in one sitting, but Cope kept me entranced
all the way to the end, and laughing out loud as often as not.

Today's poem was definitely one of the laugh-out-loud ones, particuarly for
the superb image in the opening two lines. Many great poets have turned
their hands towards parody, but this particular form of bathos is something
Cope handles better than anyone I've seen. (For another great Strugnellian
juxtaposition of the high poetic and the utterly commonplace, see Poem #587
and its "incandescent football in the East"). After that, the poem sadly
degenerates a bit, with Strugnell amply establishing his credentials as a
Bad Poet, but lacking that touch of inspired unselfconsciousness that makes
the Strugnell/Cope poems so funny. But the ending makes up for all that,
with its utterly memorable lament - "my love is true, but all my verse is
rotten" (incidentally, a dig at yet another Shakespearean sonnet). Pure
genius.

martin

Links:
  Sonnet LV:
http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/shakespeare/not_marble_nor_gilded.html
  Sonnet CXXX: Poem #44

  More on "Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis" after Poem #693, and more on Cope
  after Poem #1323

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Said Hanrahan -- John O'Brien

Guest poem sent in by William Grey

(Poem #1572) Said Hanrahan "We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan, In accents most forlorn, Outside the church, ere Mass began, One frosty Sunday morn. The congregation stood about, Coat-collars to the ears, And talked of stock, and crops, and drought, As it had done for years. "It's looking crook," said Daniel Croke; "Bedad, it's cruke, me lad, For never since the banks went broke Has seasons been so bad." "It's dry, all right," said young O'Neil, With which astute remark He squatted down upon his heel And chewed a piece of bark. And so around the chorus ran "It's keepin' dry, no doubt." "We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan, "Before the year is out." "The crops are done; ye'll have your work To save one bag of grain; From here way out to Back-o'-Bourke They're singin' out for rain. "They're singin' out for rain," he said, "And all the tanks are dry." The congregation scratched its head, And gazed around the sky. "There won't be grass, in any case, Enough to feed an ass; There's not a blade on Casey's place As I came down to Mass." "If rain don't come this month," said Dan, And cleared his throat to speak -- "We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan, "If rain don't come this week." A heavy silence seemed to steal On all at this remark; And each man squatted on his heel, And chewed a piece of bark. "We want an inch of rain, we do," O'Neil observed at last; But Croke "maintained" we wanted two To put the danger past. "If we don't get three inches, man, Or four to break this drought, We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan, "Before the year is out." In God's good time down came the rain; And all the afternoon On iron roof and window-pane It drummed a homely tune. And through the night it pattered still, And lightsome, gladsome elves On dripping spout and window-sill Kept talking to themselves. It pelted, pelted all day long, A-singing at its work, Till every heart took up the song Way out to Back-o'-Bourke. And every creek a banker ran, And dams filled overtop; "We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan, "If this rain doesn't stop." And stop it did, in God's good time; And spring came in to fold A mantle o'er the hills sublime Of green and pink and gold. And days went by on dancing feet, With harvest-hopes immense, And laughing eyes beheld the wheat Nid-nodding o'er the fence. And, oh, the smiles on every face, As happy lad and lass Through grass knee-deep on Casey's place Went riding down to Mass. While round the church in clothes genteel Discoursed the men of mark, And each man squatted on his heel, And chewed his piece of bark. "There'll be bush-fires for sure, me man, There will, without a doubt; We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan, "Before the year is out." -- John O'Brien

Notes:
  John O'Brien was the nom de plume of Patrick Joseph Hartigan (1878-1952),
  born in Yass, New South Wales. He was a Roman Catholic priest in the Goulburn
  diocese and later parish priest at Narrandera -- also rural towns in New
  South Wales.

Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson are better (indeed the best) known names in the
Australian bush ballad tradition. Paterson ('Clancy of the Overflow', Poem
#566; 'The Man from Snowy River') and Lawson ('The Great Grey Plain', Poem
#569;
'Sweeney') however celebrate (or in Lawson's case lament -- see 'Past
Carin' ', Poem #1569) the Australian bush in a very different vein. Paterson
and
Lawson are city voices dreaming about, or meditating on, the bush while
detached from it living in the city. O'Brien, in comparison, is gentler and
indeed tenderly affectionate toward Australia's harsh brown land and its
seasonal cycles. O'Brien's poems are deeply and lovingly embedded in the
farming life of the Irish community in rural Australia, of which he was a part.

'Said Hanrahan' paints a wonderful portrait of Australian-Irish bush culture,
together with its church, the land, the climate and the seasons which
constitute its core. Hanrahan (a quintessentially Irish name) expresses
unconquerable Irish pessimism about the prospects down on the farm. (Hanrahan
has a point however: the lush growth from spring rain can indeed dry out into
fuel which poses a serious fire risk in summer.)

'Said Hanrahan', I think, is readily accessible to non-Australians but here are
a couple of notes:
'rooned' is Australian-Irish pronunciation of 'ruined';
'never since the banks went broke' refers to the turbulent 1890s which were bad
drought years and also when (in the absence of a central bank) nearly all the
land banks and building societies and 12 of the 22 trading banks went broke,
following the collapse of an intense property boom.
'Back-o'-Bourke' is an Australian colloquialism for being just about anywhere
in the vast and sparsely populated heartland of bush Australia;
'every creek a banker ran' means that the rivers overflowed.

'Said Hanrahan' was published in Around the Boree Log and Other Verses (1921).

William Grey

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Surprised by joy -- William Wordsworth

Guest poem sent in by Aseem

To Catherine Wordsworth 1808 - 1812:

(Poem #1571) Surprised by joy Surprised by joy - impatient as the Wind I turned to share the transport - Oh! with whom But Thee, deep buried in the silent tomb, That spot which no vicissitude can find? Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind - But how could I forget thee? Through what power, Even for the least division of an hour, Have I been so beguiled as to be blind, To my most grevious loss! - That thought's return Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore, Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more; That neither present time, nor years unborn Could to my sight that heavenly face restore. -- William Wordsworth

I don't like Wordsworth. Over the years I've tried very hard to like
him, tried convincing myself that there was some deep and mystical and
moving beauty to his work, worked very hard at trying to discover the
poet of whom Browning (who I love) once wrote: "We who had loved him,
worshipped him, honoured him / Lived in his mild and magnificient eye /
Learnt his great language, heard his clear accents / Made him our
pattern to live and to die". And I STILL don't like Wordsworth.[1]

The one exception to that rule is this poem. Not that I think it's a
brilliant poem or anything - there are lines in it that still make me
wince when I read them (who describes a tomb as "that spot which no
VICISSITUDE can find"? Outside of gawky english lit undergrads that
is). But despite the number of failings I see in it there's something
about it that's so heartfelt, so achingly honest that it (yes, I
confess it) moves me. The starting line is pure genius, of course, the
image of someone turning with a joke on his lips so vivid and the let
down in the second line ("Oh! with whom") so sudden that you feel the
hurt of it deep, deep inside you. And the sixth, seventh and eighth
lines are superb as well - blending so realistically their tones of
sorrow, wonder and accusation. And the defeat and sadness at the end
make such a beautiful contrast with the exuberance of the starting.
This is a wonderfully dramatic poem, but the very awkwardness of some
of its lines lend it a genuineness that a more polished rendition would
have destroyed. This is not a great poet expressing some mighty vision,
this is a mourning father, speaking simply and plainly about his loss.

The other reason I love this poem is because it speaks of a feeling
that i can relate to - the half-guilty, half-surprised sensation of
remembering something serious and sad just when you were most enjoying
yourself. It's a feeling I can relate to well as I type this, because
looking through the Minstrels archive I realised just now that the 8th
of December (two days ago) was Agha Shahid Ali's third death
anniversary, and I completely forgot. So in a way this poem is a way of
making up for having forgotten. It's not a particularly good way, but I
think it's one that would have amused Shahid.

Aseem

[1]These labours of mine have not been entirely in vain, of course. As
a child of eight I remember being convinced that 'Daffodils' was kind
of cute. On sundry vacations in the countryside I've even managed to
read all of 'Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey' with mild
interest. And once, on a drunken dare I even got through most of 'The
World is too much with us'.

[Martin adds]

I was struck by Aseem's uneasy relationship with the poet Wordsworth because
it so closely mirrors the way I feel about his contemporary Shelley. I
wonder if it is the mark of a great poet to produce this kind of
polarisation in attitudes, and if the more mediocre poets evoke not an
enduring distaste but at most a bored indifference.

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Jewish Wedding in Bombay -- Nissim Ezekiel

Guest poem sent in by Arvind Natarajan

(Poem #1570) Jewish Wedding in Bombay Her mother shed a tear or two but wasn't really crying. It was the thing to do, so she did it enjoying every moment. The bride laughed when I sympathized, and said don't be silly. Her brothrs had a shoe of mine and made me pay to get it back. The game delighted all the neighbours' children, who never stopped staring at me, the reluctant bridegroom of the day. There was no dowry because they knew I was 'modern' and claimed to be modern too. Her father asked me how much jewellery I expected him to give away with his daughter. When I said I did't know, he laughed it off. There was no brass band outside the synagogue but I remember a chanting procession or two, some rituals, lots of skull-caps, felt hats, decorated shawls and grape juice from a common glass for bride and bridegroom. I remember the breaking of the glass and the congregation clapping which signified that we were well and truly married according to the Mosaic Law. Well that's about all. I don't think there was much that struck me as solemn or beautiful. Mostly, we were amused, and so were the others. Who knows how much belief we had? Even the most orthodox it was said ate beef because it was cheaper, and some even risked their souls by relishing pork. The Sabbath was for betting and swearing and drinking. Nothing extravagant, mind you, all in a low key and very decently kept in check. My father used to say, these orthodox chaps certainly know how to draw the line in their own crude way. He himself had drifted into the liberal creed but without much conviction, taking us all with him. My mother was very proud of being 'progressive'. Anyway as I was saying, there was that clapping and later we went to the photographic studio of Lobo and Fernandes, world-famous specialists in wedding portraits. Still later, we lay on a floor-matress in the kitchen of my wife's family apartment and though it was part midnight she kept saying let's do it darling let's do it darling so we did it. More than ten years passed before she told me that she remembered being very disappointed. Is that all there is to it? She had wondered. Back from London eighteen months earlier, I was horribly out of practice. During our first serious marriage quarrel she said Why did you take my virginity from me? I would gladly have returned it, but not one of the books I had read instructed me how. -- Nissim Ezekiel

The poem starts with the setting of an Indian jewish wedding, then drifts into
the community's ways of living (how Indianised it has become) and finally ends
with looking back in life. Asked once how he could have written this poem,
Ezekiel retorted with, "Who is the 'we' in the poem?"

I liked Ezekiel's poking humor, "some even risked their souls by relishing
pork", "the photographic studio of Lobo and Fernandes, world-famous specialists

in wedding portraits" in particular.

Ezekiel is a legend and is considered the father of modern Indian poetry. Found
the above one in the Sahitya Akademi's journal which published an article and
some of his poems in rememberance of his death.

Arvind

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Marriage -- Gregory Corso

Guest poem sent in by Aseem

(Poem #1569) Marriage Should I get married? Should I be good? Astound the girl next door with my velvet suit and faustus hood? Don't take her to movies but to cemeteries tell all about werewolf bathtubs and forked clarinets then desire her and kiss her and all the preliminaries and she going just so far and I understanding why not getting angry saying You must feel! It's beautiful to feel! Instead take her in my arms lean against an old crooked tombstone and woo her the entire night the constellations in the sky - When she introduces me to her parents back straightened, hair finally combed, strangled by a tie, should I sit with my knees together on their 3rd degree sofa and not ask Where's the bathroom? How else to feel other than I am, often thinking Flash Gordon soap - O how terrible it must be for a young man seated before a family and the family thinking We never saw him before! He wants our Mary Lou! After tea and homemade cookies they ask What do you do for a living? Should I tell them? Would they like me then? Say All right get married, we're losing a daughter but we're gaining a son - And should I then ask Where's the bathroom? O God, and the wedding! All her family and her friends and only a handful of mine all scroungy and bearded just wait to get at the drinks and food - And the priest! he looking at me as if I masturbated asking me Do you take this woman for your lawful wedded wife? And I trembling what to say say Pie Glue! I kiss the bride all those corny men slapping me on the back She's all yours, boy! Ha-ha-ha! And in their eyes you could see some obscene honeymoon going on - Then all that absurd rice and clanky cans and shoes Niagara Falls! Hordes of us! Husbands! Wives! Flowers! Chocolates! All streaming into cozy hotels All going to do the same thing tonight The indifferent clerk he knowing what was going to happen The lobby zombies they knowing what The whistling elevator man he knowing Everybody knowing! I'd almost be inclined not to do anything! Stay up all night! Stare that hotel clerk in the eye! Screaming: I deny honeymoon! I deny honeymoon! running rampant into those almost climactic suites yelling Radio belly! Cat shovel! O I'd live in Niagara forever! in a dark cave beneath the Falls I'd sit there the Mad Honeymooner devising ways to break marriages, a scourge of bigamy a saint of divorce - But I should get married I should be good How nice it'd be to come home to her and sit by the fireplace and she in the kitchen aproned young and lovely wanting my baby and so happy about me she burns the roast beef and comes crying to me and I get up from my big papa chair saying Christmas teeth! Radiant brains! Apple deaf! God what a husband I'd make! Yes, I should get married! So much to do! Like sneaking into Mr Jones' house late at night and cover his golf clubs with 1920 Norwegian books Like hanging a picture of Rimbaud on the lawnmower like pasting Tannu Tuva postage stamps all over the picket fence like when Mrs Kindhead comes to collect for the Community Chest grab her and tell her There are unfavorable omens in the sky! And when the mayor comes to get my vote tell him When are you going to stop people killing whales! And when the milkman comes leave him a note in the bottle Penguin dust, bring me penguin dust, I want penguin dust - Yet if I should get married and it's Connecticut and snow and she gives birth to a child and I am sleepless, worn, up for nights, head bowed against a quiet window, the past behind me, finding myself in the most common of situations a trembling man knowledged with responsibility not twig-smear nor Roman coin soup- O what would that be like! Surely I'd give it for a nipple a rubber Tacitus For a rattle a bag of broken Bach records Tack Della Francesca all over its crib Sew the Greek alphabet on its bib And build for its playpen a roofless Parthenon No, I doubt I'd be that kind of father Not rural not snow no quiet window but hot smelly tight New York City seven flights up, roaches and rats in the walls a fat Reichian wife screeching over potatoes Get a job! And five nose running brats in love with Batman And the neighbors all toothless and dry haired like those hag masses of the 18th century all wanting to come in and watch TV The landlord wants his rent Grocery store Blue Cross Gas & Electric Knights of Columbus impossible to lie back and dream Telephone snow, ghost parking - No! I should not get married! I should never get married! But - imagine if I were married to a beautiful sophisticated woman tall and pale wearing an elegant black dress and long black gloves holding a cigarette holder in one hand and a highball in the other and we lived high up in a penthouse with a huge window from which we could see all of New York and even farther on clearer days No, can't imagine myself married to that pleasant prison dream - O but what about love? I forget love not that I am incapable of love It's just that I see love as odd as wearing shoes - I never wanted to marry a girl who was like my mother And Ingrid Bergman was always impossible And there's maybe a girl now but she's already married And I don't like men and - But there's got to be somebody! Because what if I'm 60 years old and not married, all alone in a furnished room with pee stains on my underwear and everybody else is married! All the universe married but me! Ah, yet well I know that were a woman possible as I am possible then marriage would be possible - Like SHE in her lonely alien gaud waiting her Egyptian lover so i wait-bereft of 2,000 years and the bath of life. -- Gregory Corso

One of my all-time favourite poems. Every time I get invited to a friend's
wedding (and that happens with distressing regularity now) I pull out a copy of
this poem and read it. It's not just that it's a wildly funny poem (though it
is that too -  I still can't keep myself from laughing out loud every time I
read it) or one that, unlike many other beat poems, doesn't take itself too
seriously. It's the balance of it - the combination of a faux yet visionary
ecstacy ("Penguin dust, bring me penguin dust, I want penguin dust") with
snatches of quiet, understated yearning ("But there's got to be somebody!");
the juxtaposition of these simple yet vivid everyday scenes with some truly
startling imagery ("telephone snow, ghost parking", "take her not to movies,
but to cemeteries"); the vicious lampooning of stereotypes interspersed with
lines of true poetry ("woo her the entire night the constellations in the sky"
or "I see love as odd as wearing shoes"); the emergence of almost universal
themes from amidst some fairly contextual references.

It would have been easy for Corso to go too far here - he could easily have
made this just another juvenile rant against marriage. Instead he pulls of a
real masterpiece of a poem.

Aseem

[Links]

Biography:
  [broken link] http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=421

Some more Corso poems:
  http://www.rooknet.com/beatpage/writers/corso.html

A tribute by Robert Creeley:
  http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/creeley/corso.html

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Past Carin’ -- Henry Lawson

Guest poem sent in by Frank O'Shea

(Poem #1568) Past Carin’ Now up and down the siding brown The great black crows are flyin’, And down below the spur, I know, Another ‘milker’s’ dyin’; The crops have withered from the ground, The tank’s clay bed is glarin’, But from my heart no tear nor sound, For I have gone past carin’— Past worryin’ or carin’, Past feelin’ aught or carin’; But from my heart no tear nor sound, For I have gone past carin’. Through Death and Trouble, turn about, Through hopeless desolation, Through flood and fever, fire and drought, And slavery and starvation; Through childbirth, sickness, hurt, and blight, And nervousness an’ scarin’, Through bein’ left alone at night, I’ve got to be past carin’. Past botherin’ or carin’, Past feelin’ and past carin’; Through city cheats and neighbours’ spite, I’ve come to be past carin’. Our first child took, in days like these, A cruel week in dyin’, All day upon her father’s knees, Or on my poor breast lyin’; The tears we shed—the prayers we said Were awful, wild—despairin’! I’ve pulled three through, and buried two Since then—and I’m past carin’. I’ve grown to be past carin’, Past worryin’ and wearin’; I’ve pulled three through and buried two Since then, and I’m past carin’. ’Twas ten years first, then came the worst, All for a dusty clearin’, I thought, I thought my heart would burst When first my man went shearin’; He’s drovin’ in the great North-west, I don’t know how he’s farin’; For I, the one that loved him best, Have grown to be past carin’. I’ve grown to be past carin’ Past lookin’ for or carin’; The girl that waited long ago, Has lived to be past carin’. My eyes are dry, I cannot cry, I’ve got no heart for breakin’, But where it was in days gone by, A dull and empty achin’. My last boy ran away from me, I know my temper’s wearin’, But now I only wish to be Beyond all signs of carin’. Past wearyin’ or carin’, Past feelin’ and despairin’; And now I only wish to be Beyond all signs of carin’. -- Henry Lawson

To join A D Hope today and Eric Bogle's lovely "Now I'm Easy" a few weeks
ago, here is another Australian poem. Unlike Bogle's old man, the speaker
here is far from "easy" as she looks back on her hard life.

Henry Lawson's reputation as a short-story writer has outlasted his fame as
a poet, at least among the academics. But today's poem is like a short
story in its own right, and anyway people who have never read a short story
still read his poetry. You can get a sense of his own bleak outlook as well
as his love-hate (mostly hate) relationship with the outback in this poem.
I don't know if it is great poetry, but where else can you find such
unremitting bleakness so sympathetically portrayed? The strong, determined
woman finally beaten by her lot.

I'm surprised that you have only two of Lawson's poems in your collection.
If you want to find out what Australia was like 100 years ago, it would be
hard to beat Lawson. The fact that he was what we might today call "a
loser" has in no way changed the affection in which he was then, and still
is, held by Australians.

Frank O'Shea

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