Odgen Nash at Biltmore Hotel, Los Angeles in 1949, Los Angeles Daily News, Wikipedia “Ogden Nash”, licensed https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en

(18) HUMOROUS POETRY – OGDEN NASH

Reflections on Ice Breaking

Candy

Is dandy

But liquor

Is quicker

Let there be light verse!

We all love light verse or humorous poetry – “Light poetry or light verse is…usually brief, can be on a frivolous or serious subject, and often feature word play incuding puns, adventurous rhyme, and heavy alliteration”.

“While light poetry is sometimes condemned as doggerel or thought of as poetry composed casually, humor often makes a serious point in a subtle or subversive way. Many of the most renowned “serious” poets, such as Horace, Swift, Pope, and Auden, also excelled at light verse.”

When it comes to light verse or humorous poetry, I usually think of Lewis Carroll and Edmund Lear, the latter popularizing the limerick (although he did not use that term) – but above all, I think of Ogden Nash.

“Nash was best known for surprising, pun-like rhymes, sometimes with words deliberately misspelled for comic effect” – or his “fondness for crafting his own words whenever rhyming words did not exist”.

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Wilfred Owen in uniform by Allex Langie – Wikipedia “Wilfred Owen” licensed https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

(17) WAR POETRY – WILFRED OWENS

“My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori”.

War poetry has a long history in literature – indeed, arguably the longest, predating written literature itself, originating at least with Homer’s Iliad. I say at least because I suspect that among the earliest recitals of the origins of poetry itself – around the campfires of our Paleolithic tribal ancestors but faded and forgotten with those tribes by the Neolithic, let alone the Bronze Age – were war chants against tribal enemies.

Even if they weren’t, then I’d certainly propose that among the earliest poems of the Bronze Age were war poems celebrating the feats of kings or warriors, only those didn’t survive as the Iliad did to become the rosy-fingered dawn of Western literature. For that matter, I’d argue much of the Bible, particularly the Psalms, are war poetry – battle hymns of the kingdom, as it were.

We probably must go to the nineteenth century and the Crimean War for the next most famous war poem – Alfred Lord Tennyson’s The Charge of the Light Brigade – although I’d also argue that there’s a rich vein of American war poetry to be mined all the way back to the Revolution.

However, there’s one war that everyone thinks of for war poetry and war poems – which is of course the First World War, primarily as written by British war poets on the Western Front, even if it more evokes the trope of war poetry than prompts recollection of any individual poets, let alone poems.

There is one World War One poet I recall over all other such poets and that is Wilfred Owen, who almost made it through the war but was killed in action at 25 years of age on 4 November 1918, just a week before armistice. He wrote quite a few, dare I call them, bangers – the titles of “Anthem for Doomed Youth” and “Futility” give away the tone of his poetry – but the one stands out for me is the one I quoted, “Dulce Et Decorum Est”, the title of course coming from the Latin verse written by the Roman poet Horace, translating as “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country”.

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My quoted haiku and picture by Basho – Wikipedia “Haiku” (public domain image)

(16) HAIKU – MATSUO BASHO

“Quietly, quietly,

Yellow mountain roses fall –

Sound of the rapids“

You all know haiku – “a type of short form poetry that originated in Japan” consisting of three phrases composed of 17 syllables in a 5, 7, 5 pattern “that include a kireji, or “cutting word”; and a kigo, or seasonal reference” (or more broadly natural reference).

The classical Japanese poet for haiku was Matsuo Basho, albeit he would sometimes deviate from the traditional pattern.

Upon looking up haiku, I was intrigued to learn that “similar poems that do not adhere to these rules are generally classified as senryu”, that “haiku originated as an opening part of a larger Japanese genre of poetry called renga” (as opening stanzas known as hokku before they came to be written as stand-alone poems), and that “haiku was given its current name by the Japanese writer Masaoka Shiki at the end of the 19th century”.

Haiku now are written worldwide, albeit “with different styles and traditions while still incorporating aspects of the traditional haiku form” and “non-Japanese language haiku vary widely on how closely they follow traditional elements”.

Interestingly, Japanese haiku “are traditionally printed as a single line, while haiku in English often appear as three lines”

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Photograph of Bukowski on the cover of this 2018 anthology of his poetry published by Canondale PBS

(15) CHARLES BUKOWSKI (1920-1994)

Also known as Chuck Buk – a quip about his name that I read somewhere and have used ever since.

Charles Bukowski can be summed up by that meme of one of Bender’s best lines from Futurama (from the second episode at that) – I’ll write my own damn poetry, with blackjack and hookers!

Except as the line goes later in the episode – forget about the blackjack. And some might say the poetry.

Charles Bukowski shot poetry (and prose) straight from the hip, as well as the flophouse and the gutter – raw and wriggling to quote another meme (Gollum from The Lord of the Rings film trilogy).

And yet that rawness has a striking sharpness at times – with an undeniable knack for titles of anthologies too.

As for which Bukowski poem to pick for this entry, I’d go with the pack – about the dogs of hell that pursue the poet.

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Bust of A. D. Hope in “Poet’s Corner”, Garema Place, Canberra (one of a group of three, with two other poets) photographed by Doug Butler, Wikipedia “A.D. Hope” – licensed https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

(14) A.D. HOPE (1907-2000)

“Floods her monotonous tribes from Cairns to Perth.
In them at last the ultimate men arrive
Whose boast is not: “we live” but “we survive”,
A type who will inhabit the dying earth.”

If you were to ask the average Australian to name one poem about Australia, I suspect you’d mostly get the answer “My Country” – as in “I love a sunburnt country” – by Dorothea Mackellar.

Well, that is, if you got any answer at all, or one that wasn’t “Waltzing Matilda”, the country’s unofficial national anthem (aptly enough about a criminal swagman who prefers death to arrest and whose ghost haunts a billabong thereafter) by Banjo Paterson – the latter also probably the answer you’d get if you asked the average Australian to name one Australian poet and not without reason as Australia’s bush balladeer bard and poet laureate.

Or perhaps the official national anthem, “Advance Australian Fair”, for which everyone forgets there’s more than one verse – and only remembers the first because of its use of the word girt, because who puts girt in a national anthem?

And then there’s that other unofficial Australian anthem and greatest lyrical genius of Australia or by any Australian ever – “Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi oi oi!”. There’s actually more lines of this but you get the point.

If I were to name one poem about Australia, however, I’d name the poem I quoted at the outset, aptly and simply titled “Australia”, by Alec Derwent Hope- who would also be the one Australian poet I would name.

Also aptly enough for a poem about Australia by an Australian, it’s taking the p!ss out of patriotic poetic platitudes, presenting Australia as a nation clinging timidly to its coasts while draining its desert continent like a “vast parasite robber-state”.

Mind you, it’s not that much more complimentary to the European civilization of which Australia is a second-hand offshoot – “the learned doubt, the chatter of cultured apes which is called civilization over there”.

That pretty much sums up the “savagely satirical” style of A.D. Hope. I was delighted to learn that his highly er0tic verse and “frequent allusions to s€xuality” caused him to be dubbed “Phallic Alec” (in a letter to Norman Lindsay, an Australian also known for his er0ticism).

His style also harked back to eighteenth century poetry, leading an American journal to quip about him as “the greatest eighteenth century poet in the twentieth century”.

“When once asked what poets could do for Australia, Hope replied “oh not much, merely justify its existence”.

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Auden in 1939 photographed by Carl Van Vechten – Wikipedia “W.H. Auden” (public domain)

(13) W.H. AUDEN (1907-1973)

“A poem is never finished; it is only abandoned”

An adage that I have used ever since at work to illustrate that there comes a cut-off point – or where you have to get to the point – for attention to detail, although it was actually Auden paraphrasing the French poet Valery.

Like T.S. Eliot, a poet claimed by both Britain and the United States except in reverse – where T.S. Eliot was an American-British poet who moved from the United States to Britain, Wystan Hugh Auden was a British-American poet who moved from Britain to the United States. Although to be honest, I tend to think of both as British.

Also one of the holy trinity of modern poets along with Eliot and Yeats – although he ranges from being seen as a lesser figure (as I suppose I do since I rank the other two in my top ten and Auden in these special mentions) to ranking him above them. I would agree that Auden was the most consummate poetic stylist of the three – Auden could pretty much compose a poem to any style or technical form on tap.

“Auden’s poetry is noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form, and content.”

“Iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles

Who would not live long.”

As for which Auden poem to choose for this special mention, there are so many from which to choose but I’ll go with the forlorn title poem of his collection of poetry, The Shield of Achilles.

“The mass and majesty of this world, all

That carries weight and always weighs the same

Lay in the hands of others; they were small

And could not hope for help and no help came”

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Passport photograph of D. H. Lawrence on 22 February 2029, enclosed in a letter to Bernard Falk, Wikipedia “D.H. Lawrence” (public domain)

(12) D. H. LAWRENCE (1885-1930)

Memorably described by popular historian Paul Johnson as a “strange and intuitive Englishman”, D.H. Lawrence is perhaps best remembered for novels that were the subject of censorship trials – although he should be remembered for his best novel based on title alone, Kangaroo, because what else are you to call a novel set in Australia?

However, he was also a poet – and I prefer his poetry to his novels.

“His best-known poems are probably those dealing with nature such as those in the collection Birds, Beasts and Flowers, including the Tortoise poems, and “Snake”, one of his most frequently anthologised, displays some of his most frequent concerns: those of man’s modern distance from nature and subtle hints at religious themes.”

I was tempted to nominate his poem “The English are so Nice” – a poem that among quite a few others of his were “often wry attacks on the moral climate of England” – for this special mention entry, if for no other reason than my English ex-wife who embodied it.

“The English are so nice

So awfully nice

They are the nicest people in the world

And what’s more, they’re very nice about being nice

About your being nice as well!

If you’re not nice, they soon make you feel it”

However, I chose one of his posthumously published poems, aptly enough about death and one of his most famous – The Ship of Death.

“Have you built your ship of death, O have you?

O build your ship of death, for you will need it.”

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Gerard Manley Hopkins as photographed – public domain image

(11) GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS (1884-1889)

“The achieve of, the mastery of the thing!”

Hopkins would earn special mention for “the sonnets of desolation” alone – a title I think would make a good name for a music band, perhaps as Gerard Manley Hopkins and the Sonnets of Desolation.

You don’t really expect poetry, let alone sonnets of desolation, from a man who was primarily a Jesuit priest – and an English one at that – but there you have it. Mind you, he published very little of his poetry during his life – it was only through a posthumous volume of his poems published in 1918 by his friend and fellow poet Robert Bridges that he “became recognised as one of the leading Victorian poets”.

“That night, that year

Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.”

Not surprisingly for a priest, a focus of his poetry is his celebration of the natural world through the lens of his religious belief –  “his praise of God through vivid use of imagery and nature”.

Not so much however his sonnets of desolation, which evoke religious doubt or as he described them to Bridges, “the thin gleanings of a long weary while” – hence why I prefer them (as I do the poems of T.S. Eliot that reflect his early doubt rather than his later faith).

According to John Bayley – “All his life Hopkins was haunted by the sense of personal bankruptcy and impotence, the straining of ‘time’s eunuch’ with no more to ‘spend’ …”

We’ve all been there.

As for which sonnet of desolation I’d choose over the others for this special mention, I’d nominate “Carrion Comfort” – the source of my quote of wrestling with (my God!) my God.

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There are photographs of Frost when younger but they just seem right – Robert Frost in 1949, photograph by Walter Albertin, World Telegram staff photographer, Library of Congress, New York World – Telegram & Sun Collection (public domain image)

(10) ROBERT FROST (1874-1963)

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”

When I wrote of Walt Whitman, Robert Frost was that one possible exception I proposed for Whitman as the American poet – the Great American Poet, or at least the Great New England poet in Frost’s case.

Robert Frost “was one of the most iconic and influential American poets of the 20th century. He is best known for “The Road Not Taken” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, both of which are commonly taught to US students beginning in elementary school.”

There were two Robert Frosts – the folksy Frost that most people think of from school, “the genial homespun New England rustic”, and the folk horror Frost, who pops up from his poetry like a jump scare, “depicting with chilling starkness the loneliness of an individual in an indifferent universe” (or outright hostile one).

The latter is the dark Frost, the apocalyptic Frost of fire and ice.

The Frost of the poem House Fear from the short series of poems collated as The Hill Wife.

“Always—I tell you this they learned—

Always at night when they returned

To the lonely house from far away

To lamps unlighted and fire gone gray,

They learned to rattle the lock and key

To give whatever might chance to be

Warning and time to be off in flight”

Or the Frost of the poem Bereft:

“Where had I heard this wind before

Change like this to a deeper roar?…

Leaves got up in a coil and hissed,

Blindly struck at my knee and missed.

Something sinister in the tone

Told me my secret must be known:

Word I was in the house alone

Somehow must have gotten abroad,

Word I was in my life alone,

Word I had no one left but God.”

Folk horror Frost may be my tongue in cheek description of the dark(er) Frost – but not by much. I always remember being taught that the central metaphor for Frost was the title of his final collection of poem, In the Clearing – in which “Frost portrays human security as a rather tiny and quite vulnerable opening in a thickly grown forest, a pinpoint of light against which the encroaching trees cast their very real threat of darkness”.

I also always remember being taught that the central characteristic of Frost – the same characteristic that underlays (and arguably resolves) the apparent duality of the folksy Frost and the folk horror Frost – is his ambiguity which undercuts what otherwise appears to be country proverbs with profound doubt.

As for example, my opening quote from his most famous poem where the road less traveled “has made all the difference”…which may be no difference at all.

Or my quote from Bereft. To the devout Puritans who settled his beloved New England, being all alone but for God would be a source of strength or the ultimate reassurance – the God who carries you like in that Christian “Footsteps” poem. But to someone in the twentieth century filled with doubt, being alone but for God may be very alone indeed.

As for which Frost poem I would choose for this special mention, there are so many from which to choose but I’d just have to come back to his Hill Wife poems, particularly the forlorn Impulse with its rural marriage falling apart:

“Sudden and swift and light as that

The ties gave,

And he learned of finalities

Besides the grave.”

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Portrait of Swinburne in watercolor and chalk by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1861 (public domain image used as feature image in the Wikipedia article for Swinburne)

(9) ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE (1837-1909)

“What ailed us, O gods, to desert you,

For creeds that refuse and restrain?

Come down and redeem us from virtue,

Our Lady of Pain”

A deliciously decadent and pagan poet, as well as one that was distinctly kinky – that Lady of Pain wasn’t just some turn of the phrase but a glimpse into the sadomasochistic dungeon in the basement of his mind.

He was best known for his debut poetry collection Poems and Ballads, which was something of his personal pagan manifesto and featured the poem Dolores that I quoted at the outset.

“The poem demonstrates most of the controversial themes for which Swinburne became notorious. It conflates the cruel yet libidinous pagan goddess figure of Dolores, the Lady of Pain with Mary, Mother of Jesus and associates the poem itself, through its parenthetical titular text (Notre-Dame des Sept Douleurs, i.e., “Our Lady of Seven Sorrows” with the Seven Dolours of the Virgin.”

Camille Paglia observed how much the poem resembles prayer, particularly in rhythm and recurring phrases – presumably amidst sacraments of flagellation and spanking. I’d go to that church!

That pretty much sums up Swinburne. As for which Swinburne poem to select for this entry, there’s so many from which to choose. I’ll go with Dolores – Our Lady of Pain – but it was a close call with the temptation of Faustine, which resembles Dolores in prayer-like quality.

“What coiled obscene

Small serpents with soft-stretching throats

Caressed Faustine?”

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