| seize, brand, scorch, plaque, cabin pressure.The opening poem contains all the words (or variations of them) from today's Jumble.
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6 comments:
How'd I get this black eye? It's a short story,
But I'll try to make it longer, to be worth your time.
Y'see, in second grade I won a plaque, my glory...
Oh, not so far back? Well, I guess. It's your dime.
We was riding herd out of El Paso, 300 head.
The nastiest cattle that you'd ever want to meet.
We'd branded them, but also got ourselves instead.
I've still got scorch-marks from protesting beef!
After the herd was sold, the pressure let up.
I went to relax at a cabin in the Oregon wood.
A bear came by most every day, cute as a pup.
He'd seize me in a bear hug, until I hit him good!
So today I met a lady, and offered to show my brand.
She gave me a roundhouse punch, near broke my jaw!
Then I offered a look at where my bear scars spanned,
She jabbed me in the eye, that was the last I saw!
Any meter in this one is a joke, and the ABAB rhyme doesn't work with lines this long. But those are typical shortcomings of mine. The odd thing about this one is, I had no idea how the last verse was going to play out until after I'd finished the third verse, and then it came as much of a surprise to me as I hope it did to you!
It's a great story, Owen. I can't judge the poetic quality, because it seems to be more of a straight-up narrative told in a very relaxed style. I would call it a good ol' boy's yarn with rhymes. Enjoyed it a lot, though I wonder why he didn't give up after the roundhouse punch; that black eye was definitely his own fault. Actually, my favorite verse is the first one. It seems very poetic, very rhythmic, to me.
As to the jumble, the clues came rather easily, but the solution took a few moments to see. Then light dawned for that second word and the first word became obvious. Meh.
Thank you so much for your poem, Owen. I got all four Jumble words without any problem at all, but just couldn't get the solution. So came to your poem and after a few minutes got the second word of the answer--of course, should have sensed it right away. And after just another second the first word fell into place. Fun cartoon with a fun resolution. Makes for a good Saturday morning!
A compact epic of a poem. I didn't find the meter looser than usual, Owen. You are normally pretty free ("Conversational," I call it), and today's stanzas hover between 4 and 6 beats a line. An actor can easily bend them to a pentameter model.
I agree with others: the jumble solution was Saturday-tough. After some minutes, I felt the pressure to get 'er done. I almost had to cave in. It broke our rule of solving the small word first.
~ OMK
Misty I linked something on CC yesterday that you might have been of interest to you since it was about joyce vs Nabokov.
Maybe I can put it here
Here it is, no link.
I knew I'd know NEALE Fraser when I got a perp or two. The Boston Globe had a dedicated Tennis writer*. And looking up his name I came upon this (Misty take note:
'Once, when an interviewer persisted in drawing comparisons between Nabokov and Joyce, he [Nabokov]replied, “Oh, yes, let people compare me to Joyce by all means, but my English is patball to Joyce’s champion game.” '**
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