In the May 4-10 2013 NewScientist, a piece on the “Rat with two faces”", beginning:
Beneath the snow of South Africa’s Drakensberg and Maluti mountains, African ice rats huddle together in burrows for warmth. When they reach the surface, though, it’s a different story.
In the New York Times Magaine on 3/24/13 (p. 49), a Five-Ku,
five haiku poems about a current celebrity or cultural phenomenon. (Past examples include haikus about Susan Sarandon, Russell Crowe and classic horror films.)
This week in Five-Ku, we present five short poems on the career of Channing Tatum. During the extensive research and reporting phase of this project, however, we made an important discovery: Channing Tatum’s name is delightfully, and quite possibly infinitely, anagrammable. (link)
Inspired by this posting, a bit of light verse:
NOTICE URGENT
You have fail to speak reply,
Yet we ask again again.
We do wonders why oh why
You is silents, strange of men:Give us now of some account,
WE AWAITS YOUR PROMPT REBOUND.
So demanding, these spamfolk.
From Anne Cutler, I learn that the light verse form the double dactyl is popular in Dutch — I knew it only in English, where it originated — thanks to “an outstanding practitioner of the art” (as Anne put it) in the Netherlands who writes under the pseudonym Drs. P. (Drs is an academic degree). A while ago Anne was inspired to try her own hand at it in Dutch, with a bit of an academic sting in its tail.
Back on Thanksgiving Day, I posted two notes on poetry: a the poem “Convalescing” by the late Jack Gilbert; and a Seamus Heaney poem on oysters from Kevin Young’s 2012 collection The Hungry Ear: Poems of Food and Drink (NY, Bloomsbury Group). Now my copy of the Young volume has arrived; it’s handsome and full of pleasures (taking as its subject matter not just food, but also the social occasions on which we share food) — and it has two poems by Jack Gilbert in it.
Jack Gilbert’s “Convalescing” (Collected Poems, New York: Knopf, 2012, p. 384), which Elizabeth Traugott passed on to me after reading a fascinating obit for Gilbert in the NYT:
I spend the days deciding
On a commemorative poem.
Not, luckily, an epitaph.
A quiet poem
to establish the fact of me.
As one of the incidental faces
in those stone processions.
Carefully done.
Not claiming that I was
at any of the great victories.
But that I volunteered.
Today’s Zippy:
Not the Caped Crusader — that would be Batman, a.k.a. the Dark Knight — but a caped psychopath, who bursts through windows in pursuit of evil-doers.
Of course, as a Z-person, I admire Z-Man’s name (Superman/Batman crossed with Zorro). And I’m entertained by the diction (“there was trouble afoot” — when I think about how I use afoot, I scant out very quickly — and “enough of your” whatever, both of which sound a bit old-fashioned and formulaic, like quotations from old books you can’t quite recall). And then there’s Ashtabula, Ohio.
A while back, several friends were talking about veganism and its challenges. I wondered about substitutes for cheese, and my companions googled up a variety of these, most of which didn’t get very good reviews. But then there was the wonderfully named Teese.
Teese: the melting vegan cheese
[In the news, reported here: 65-year-old Rep. Timothy Johnson of Illinois has cited family obligations for his decision not to run for re-election; Johnson has a family of 22: 9 children, 11 grandchildren, and 2 great-grandchildren. Meanwhile, today is Easter, a Christian holiday that has picked up associations with springtime celebrations of fecundity (featuring rabbits, eggs, and chicks).]
Bunny Hop
Hippity, hoppity,
Congressman Johnson is
Father and grandfather,
Great-grandsire too.
Loving his family, so
Philoprogenitive,
Duties are calling him –
Oh, twenty-two.
[On double dactyls, see here and here.]
