Updating the Goose

I’ve used this cartoon on the Treasury of Laughter before, of course. But it fits in so well with the next little bit, well, I just can’t resist.

Revamping those old Mother Goose tales, of course, is an old saw of the creative writer. Why, here’s Walter de la Mare telling us all about Jack and Jill:

Up to the top of the haunted turf

They climbed on moonlit hill;

Not a leaf rustled in the underbrush,

The listening air was still.

And only the noise of the water pail

As it struck on a jutting stone,

Clattered and jarred against the silence

As the two trod on alone.

Up to the moonlit peak they went;

And, though not a word would they say,

Their thoughts outnumbered a poet’s love-songs

In the first green weeks of May.

The stealthy shadows crept closer;

They clutched at the hem of Jill’s gown;

And there at the very top she stumbled,

And Jack came shuddering down.

Their cries rang out against the stillness,

Pitiful and high and thin.

And the echoes edged back still further

As the silence gathered them in.

There, typical pap and – whoah.

Yikes. Yeah, I guess, if you parse the words and read it without a sing-song voice, the original rhyme to jack and Jill is pretty macabre. Seeing it in this situation, of course, twists the situation enough to make the eerie situation of the original peek out of the simple, familiar words.

Makepeace. How Ironic.

So, where’s the fun in a novel that involves unrequited love, a pistol sabotaged with chicken blood, and a hero who sheds his passion and becomes a respectable citizen?

Well, if you’re talking about Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s “The Sorrows of Young Werther,” the fun is in William Makepeace Thackeray’s satirical treatment of the novel in the sixteen-lined poem “Sorrows of Werther.”

Here’s the poem, in full:

Werther had a love for Charlotte

Such as words could never utter;

Would you know how first he met her?

She was cutting bread and butter.

Charlotte was a married lady,

And a moral man was Werther,

And for all the wealth of Indies

Would do nothing for to hurt her.

So he sigh’d and pin’d and ogled,

And his passion boil’d and bubbled,

Till he blew his silly brains out,

And no more was by it troubled.

Charlotte, having seen his body

Borne before her on a shutter,

Like a well-conducted person,

Went on cutting bread and butter.

Thackeray makes a wonderful mockery of the heavy Sturm und Drang vibe of Goethe’s novel, boiling down Werther’s gleeful angst into a handful of wonderful English contracted nouns that kind of poke a pin into the dreary world that is youthful agony.

That’s the gift of the poet, and probably one of the reasons Robert Newton Peck urges serious fiction writers to write a poem a day, just to get into the habit of really playing with language in a narrow, harrowing kind of way.

WARNING: Tight Rhymes Ahead

Though I profess to be a fan – and practitioner – of free verse, there’s something to be said for the tight structure of rhyme. Though free verse imports its own rhythm when the author does it right – consider Meredith Wilson’s “Doesn’t Know the Territory,” for one:

I’ll confess the main reason I prefer the structure of rhyme over free verse is that you don’t necessarily have to launch into The Poet’s Voice to read it and make it sound good; the sound naturally carries through.

Maybe that’s why I enjoy Newman Levy’s poetry from The Treasury of Laughter.

But before we get to the poetry, here’s actually one of the funniest bits Louis Untermeyer wrote to introduce one of his subjects:

Newman Levy, born in New York in 1888, contributed to P.P.A.’s column while in college, and won a watch for the collaboration in 1912. Nine years later he won another watch, this time unassisted. Plentifully supplied with watches, Levy discovered it was later than he thought; he also discovered that he could get paid for writing.

Now on to the poetry. Note the tight structure, which works well for him:

On the isle of Pago Pago, land of palm trees, rice and sago,
Where the Chinaman and Dago dwell with natives dusky hued,
Lived a dissolute and shady, bold adventuress named Sadie,
Sadie Thompson was the lady, and the life she lived was lewd.

She had practised her profession in our insular possession,
Which, to make a frank confession, people call the Philippines.
There she'd made a tidy profit till the clergy, hearing of it,
Made her life as hot as Tophet, driving her to other scenes.

So this impudent virago hied herself to Pago Pago
Where the Chinaman and Dago to her cottage often came.
Trade was lucrative and merry, till one day the local ferry
Brought a noble missionary, Rev'rend Davidson by name.

Full text of levy’s poem is here, though you’ll noticed it’s not faithfully reproduced. Untermeyer has this poem laid out at four lines per block, not the eight shown on the page. As I’m sure he’s working from original material, I’ll go with Untermeyer’s version of the thing.

I love this kind of intricate structure within a structure, and faithfully try to replicate it in my own poems. Unfortunately, I don’t have characters like Sadie and the Rev’rend Davidson to work with (at least not yet) so my poems are not as good as these.

Oliver Wendell Holmes is Content You're Reading His Poetry

Are you content?

I’m not. Well, almost. Good enough for government work contentment, that’s what I’ve got. But like Mr. Burns, I’d give up all of my billions for just a little bit more.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., understands that contentment without being content about it is part of human nature. Witness this snatch from his poem of that title:

Man wants but little here below.
Little I ask; my wants are few;
I only wish a hut of stone,
(A very plain brown stone will do,)
That I may call my own; --
And close at hand is such a one,
In yonder street that fronts the sun.
Plain food is quite enough for me;
Three courses are as good as ten; --
If Nature can subsist on three,
Thank Heaven for three. Amen!
I always thought cold victuals nice; --
My choice would be vanilla-ice.
I care not much for gold or land; --
Give me a mortgage here and there, --
Some good bank-stock, some note of hand,
Or trifling railroad share, --
I only ask that Fortune send
A little more than I shall spend.

The full poem can be found here. Or, if you’re in the mood for magenta, here.