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| _alias, hello, prance, busily, physical labor.Image(s) from the Internet.
The opening poem contains all the words (or variations of them) from today's Jumble.
Comments are welcomed! And couching them in Poetry is definitely NOT required.
Do not explicitly reveal any of the actual answer words until after closing time, but embedding them surreptitiously in comment sentences is encouraged.
17 comments:
FLN: Misty ~ LOL, Not so fast, m'Dear! --You know that TS was meant for you.
Anyway, I've already offered you partial answers. But it's OK if you'd rather move on.
And Wilbur, rhyme may well be out of fashion for the deep modern stuff, but it hasn't lost its place in greeting cards, odd ditties, or jolly jingles.
Nor, I venture, in quick contests using random anagram words!
And remember, we sometimes explore haiku.
Here's Saturday's ditty from me:
"Quizzical Xavier""
Our cat, alias "Xavier," prances busily through our rooms.
Full of energy, he's ready to rush to the screen
whenever a FaceTime friend or a relative looms.
Unlike other kitties he's blessed with a friendliness gene,
and he loves to wave "Hello!"--as if to preen.
Zoom in & see for yourself; he's quite a scene!
~ OMK
According to T.S. Eloit
Every cat has an alias.
Two, in fact, and each name
Will call out a different frame!
His human name will greet hello,
And follow about wherever you go.
His cat-mob name is more aloof
He may go prancing on the roof.
But his secret name is making plans
Busily plotting to usurp what is mans!
Securing the Web would be a favor,
To rule the world, sans physical labor!
Woohoo! Two great poems to start our morning!
Ol' Man Keith, you did it again: gave your cat a very cool name. Given his energy, it sounds as if Xavier is undoubtedly a savior of family pleasure.
Owen, interestingly you too have a cat as your protagonist this morning, though his name--actually names--is/are concealed as an alias. Loved the way you worked all the Jumble words and solution into your verses.
Thank you both for a fun start to our day.
Interesting, that both openers today are focused on cats when they are no longer in the theme. Eliot knew they hold a certain fascination for poets & philosophers.
Owen writes of Cat-in-general, how his "names" cover a range of mystery. His zinger points to a likely Cyber-Cat future, a world in which Coding Kitty will assign our daily tasks with ease.
I've no doubt we'll leap to, with adoration!
~ OMK
"Bad Beginning"
When I answered the door below,
a nice fellow said "Hello."
He said he needed a favor
and required help with some labor.
He began by being very quizzical
but his request turned out to be physical.
He'd been invited to a dance,
but all he could do was prance:
could I help him, by any chance?
To avoid any future fuss
I gave my name an alias.
And so the dance practice started busily
and soon made us both reel dizzily
and he ended up by kissing me.
Not the best way to start a romance
and I never gave him a chance.
He still doesn't know my name,
and that was the end of our game.
A first person tale from our Misty today, neatly broken into two nonet stanzas.
The story is short and sweet, telling of a brief encounter which she takes as a request from a "nice fellow" to help his dance moves. She complies but soon learns it's a dizzy dalliance.
Wisely, she judges it NOT "a romance" (as indeed most friendly flirtations don't rise to that level). Smart gal!
Both stanzas are completely free of mills (!), and they almost mirror one another. Each consists of three couplets and a triplet, just not in the same order.
Traditionally, the last line of a nonet is sometimes called the "turn" or "volta," where a change or resolution occurs. That is happening here, certainly at the end of the second stanza.
There is a nice balance between the two stanza-ending lines--the first raising the question whether she will help the guy, and the second concluding their... er, joint project.
~ OMK
[Nora speaks]
Lois my dear , tell us about yourself, your mother was less than forthcoming
[Lois responds]
My life took a detour, prancing and dancing about, but now I'm on the upswing
I've been busily making positive changes, I no longer need an alias
The labor isn't physical , rather spiritual, I no longer feel like an alien
[Chet butts in]
I can vouch for Lois as a splendid power of example. My life
Was an unhappy one until she said 'Hello'. Now she'll become my wife
WC
Ol' Man Keith, your explanations always astonish me. You may not believe this, but I did not realize I was splitting my poem into two sections each with nine lines and therefore producing a NONET. I don't think I've ever heard of a NONET, so this had to have been effectively unconscious on my part. But how can that happen? I'm just a bit stunned by this. So, thank you, again, for teaching me some new poetry concepts.
And, apologies, but can you remind me what "mills" are? You've told me before but I've forgotten.
I had to cheat on J#2. I'd hoped to use an OMK spoon but the answer was already posted.
Given LABOR I was able to get PHYSICAL.
I see "Cats" was the theme of the day especially with the fln mention of TS Eliot
Misty, your getting better every day.
WC
Wilbur, what a lovely, happy conclusion to your Lois and Chet story. And at the same time, you worked in all the Jumble words and solution. I hadn't remembered that Lois and Chet are married! How wonderful! Is this the ending of their double story, or is there more to come? Either way, a total treat!
It's an unusual day, isn't it?
With so MUCH more to respond to this afternoon.
Like Misty I am caught off guard, quite surprised that Wilbur's AA newbie & sponsor--Chet and Lois--are either ALREADY married, or on the track to BECOME wed, at least in Chet's plans!
I hadn't expected to see that, thinking they still needed to get through Chet's learning phase.
But Congratulations must be in order!
Sandy ~ You haven't weighed in yet, but I have been expecting your reaction to today's solution. I cannot imagine that it gives you any pleasure at all.
It certainly seemed dull to me, without an ounce of word play involved.
I mean, haven't we always understood the labor of giving birth to be a great "Physical Labor," perhaps the greatest?
Of course. it may also be described as mental and/or spiritual labor, but isn't the reason it is labeled "labor" that it is indeed physical labor?
Du-uh!
No additional meanings need apply.
Misty, "mill" is my nickname (mine alone, so you can't look it up online) for when you mix up the correct order of conversational English. The usual (but not the only) sin is to override the normal train of subject/verb/object by moving the verb to the end of the clause.
I am glad you did NOT write, for instance, "He said a favor he needed" or "He'd been to a dance invited"--stuff like that.
This is often done to place a word you want in the rhyme position. Hence it is mainly done when writing poetry, or it WAS done, long ago, so is today a sign of old-fashioned verse.
I have not commented on your recent "mills," preferring to wait till a day like today, when I can COMPLIMENT you on their absence! WooHoo!!
~ OMK
OMK, et al:
My preoccupation lately has been the Caldor fire. With family in South Lake Tahoe (evacuated and safe now), it's been a very scary preoccupation. Things are looking better, thanks to the weather/winds moderating, and to the thousands of firefighters still working so long and hard. But it's not over yet. I've checked in to what's happening here and on the Corner, but in between checking on the fire.
I do note that Chet has proposed to Lois and she's accepted. Had no idea things had progressed so far, but it certainly ties a bow on the ending.
Sandy ~ WE can become isolated here "inside" our favorite web pages & "forget" what's going on in the world outside. I am glad your family is safe and sorry they (and you) have been so worried by that awful fire.
A certain degree of insularity is to be expected, I suppose, and can be the very reason we come to a page like this. Just speaking for myself, my mood has been severely impacted by last weeks' events in Afghanistan, by the Supreme Court, and by the continuing evolution of the coronavirus.
That some refuge may be found in scribbling poetry may help to strike a healthy balance. Sandy, I appreciate that poetry isn't your thing, but I do enjoy your comments on the Jumble and (appreciating here the escapist value of fiction) in your observations on Chet's and Lois' love life!
Back to poetry: I have not mentioned meter for a while, not for a fairly long time in fact. But now is as good a time as any to raise it in our group thoughts.
Wilbur remarked last night that rhyme is not currently "in"--not for serious poetry at any rate.
Another consideration, one that may be seen to separate the "deep" from the "shallow," is the length of line. I will leave it to others to propose why this may be so, but the sort of jingles we compose, sometimes derided as "doggerel," are often in three- and four-beat lines.
Classic or traditional English poetry uses the five-beat line--pentameter. (Wilbur, under French influence, tends to run to six and seven beats.)
One reason for five may be to capture our common conversational rhythm.
Another reason may be to disrupt the sheer monotony of rhyming lines.
When lines are only three beats long, rhymes occur more frequently, and they hit harder. This is fun when we want to shove our rhymes in the reader's face.
But if we'd like to soften their impact, the five-beat line allows the content, the thought, to sink in before the musical notes recur. Sometimes, we really don't want rhymes to be so obvious.
And of course English poetry is famous for NOT rhyming in the five-beat lines we call "Blank verse."
Owen switches meter with some frequency; he offers good models for us to get a feeling of different forms.
I jot a lot of three-and four-beat lines for fun. But I also experiment, as in today's piece.
My "Quizzical Xavier" above plays at pentameter.
It isn't perfect, but then, what is?
~ OMK
OMK, re jumble solution. Couldn't agree more! With you.
Something tells me Chet and Lois moved fast. More is to come. I suspect Lois wrote a letter to "Aunt" Nora mentioning the betrothal else Chet wouldn't just blurt it out.
I also suspect the wedding will not be rushed and it's possible the news will be kept in house.
Now two couples who met in the rooms became engaged in less than a year, the second actually married.
In fact at lunch I teased a female friend that her boyfriend arrived in a wheelchair in March and they were a couple by June.
Generally one of the pair has multiple years. The "Rule " in Chet's case served as motivation to adhere rigorously to the program.
WC
OMK, P.S. WRITING poetry is not my thing.
Sandy ~ Gotcha!
(It may not be MY thing either, but as Archie Rice was fond of saying,
"I have a go, Ladies, don't I? I have a go.")
A little advice to follow my long piece above.
To scan my first line (the trickiest of them all), let me help:
iambus, tertius paeon, anapest, anapest, iambus
. . . .u/ . . . . . . . uu/u . . . . . . . uu/ . . . . . . .uu/ . . . . u/
The typical pentameter line is made up the feet known as iambs and anapests. But we don't usually compose by inserting them by label. We go with the flow, then afterwards figure out what we've got.
I had to look up my second beat today (two unstressed followed by a stress and a final unstressed) because who can remember the 4-syllable paeons?
This corresponds to the single beat or foot contained in the words "alias Xavier."
Yep. It isn't perfect, but then, what is?
~ OMK
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