| || metal, title, oddity, glossy, all (in) good time.
Image from the Internet.
The opening poem contains all the words (or variations of them) from today's Jumble.
Comments are welcomed!
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:
The poet was from Alabama.
Like all versifiers he often found himself desperate for words that would have the right rhythm and sound enough alike that he could pass them off at the ends of his "immortal lines."
At times he would be so needy, he would footnote a word to remind readers that he was a son of Dixie, hoping they'd know that with a drawl it would rhyme.
~ OMK
Bilbo went ahead, the dwarves were still fearful
That Smaug had returned to his lair. He was careful
But no sound nor gassy smell revealed a sign of the beast.
For Bilbo that was not an oddity; the Titan would feast
On Laketown. He searched through the treasure hoard
Where precious metals and glossy jewels were stored.
He'd call up the dwarves all in good time, meanwhile
He'd search around but gaudy treasure was not his style.
WC
OMK, I picked up a few southern oddities since coming to Florida. "Y'all is handy Fri the plural.
And I had to get used to being called honey by salegirls and supermarket clerkes. I went through the McDonald's drive-thru and said "Thank you, Sweetheart" and Betsy threw a fit.
My son blacked me up.
No probs with today's J. I hope posting the first half of "Bilbo meets Smaug" wasn't overkill.
WC
Woohoo! Got all four Jumble words without any problem, but was stumped by the reveal. How silly of me--as soon as I read Ol'Man Keith's clever gloss--there it was! And, of course, there it was in Wilbur's poem as well, plain as day, along with the various words. So thank you, both Ol'Man Keith and Wilbur, and I'll do my best to keep track of Bilbo and Smaug in your poems, Wilbur.
I spoke out too soon
To sing Wilbur's praise.
I should hear the whole song
Before handing out kudos.
Maybe wait until June
To process his lays...
Premie paeans are wrong;
They risk sounding "so pseudo."
~ OMK
This is not to say I'm not impressed!
In charting the course of ol' Bilbo's quest
Our Wilbur's the best...
And we're surely blessed.
~ OMK
Now that's a great poem . ABCDABCD. I'll have to try that sometime. Will I be done by June? I'll have to pick up the pace.
WC
Death has no title. He is not Sir.
Lord Reaper in the books does not occur.
He has no exalted manse or social life.
Just a hooded cloak and metal-bladed scythe.
He travels thru the whole breadth of humanity
Among neither rich nor poor is he an oddity.
And yet his presence is glossed over with denial.
Familiarity is considered gauche and out of style.
And yet in good time, all come to meet the Reaper.
Grim tho he may be, that appointment is a keeper.
For some it is a pain of lost potentials, still unmet,
For others, it's a joyous end of pain and old regret.
Are you sure you want to hear from me when I'm depressed?
Yes.
Wilbur, I confess that I'm overwhelmed by all the Hobbit poetry at once yesterday. But I'll do my best to keep up with the story.
Your accomplishment is astounding.
Ref the jumble, the clues were easy enough, and with all the letters, the solution became obvious too. Very timely pun.
Owen, I liked your work at FB; better days are coming, by and by. That's from the Phu Bai song. When you feel better I'll post the whole song.
WC
Owen ~ Beautifully put, so clear in distinguishing some from other some...
Whether it is your depression or our shared lockdown, this one could not be more apt.
Wilbur ~ The rhyme scheme is stolen from Browning's Pippa Passes, familiar to most theater students of my generation.
Notice how certain old forms command focus on extended rhyme schemes by a precise rhythmic throb that keeps the reader/hearer's attention to the rhyme words.
In English verse (maybe German too; I can't speak for French) as long as the line is regular and fairly short, we can retain memory of the end words & wait for them to meet their echoes.
Another obvious form is the limerick (AABBA/3-3-2-2-3). Short lines are the key to rhyming. Blank verse is blank for a reason.
A lot of our poets tried rhyming longer lines, but those are the works that never caught on--except maybe in academia. ("A little learning is a dangerous thing / Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.")
In a master's hands (Shakespeare!) rhymed pentameter works for a while. But it is too thudding if sustained beyond sonnet length.
Notice how in the plays ol' Will avoids rhyme, saving it for final (heroic) couplets.
~ (Prof.) OMK
And remember: we always make exceptions for Ogden Nash.
"There is only one way to achieve happiness on this terrestrial ball,
And that is to have either a clear conscience--or none at all."
Try scanning that!
~ OMK
I just happened to find a diary of Boswell. He wrote a poem every day and the lines were long, approximately like mine today.
Perhaps when telling a story in rhyme the lines are naturally long. And of course often they are carry over lines.
WC
Then again there's Homer and Virgil
I don't count Homer or Virgil as English poets. But as I wrote, many Englishmen did try rhyming the long line. The test is whether they're truly memorable.
I confess I didn't know Boswell as a poet. Why's that, I wonder?
Even Coleridge went with 4-3-4-3. And thus droned on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner...
~ OMK
In the Masters 5-10 years ago a golfer made a 2 on a par 5. In the golfing world that is known as an Albatross (one better than an eagle).
Well that gave him a safe lead but....
A string of bad luck occurred after that. His opponent (Watson) made a miraculous shot out of the woods to turn bogey into birdie and won the tournament.
I actually started a poem paralleling "Rime" something with "The greens were emerald..."
Problem was a couldn't drop what I was doing and finish that endeavor.
The jinxed golfer was a South African name Oosterhuizen(sic)-(Oostie)
You just reminded me of that.
WC
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