Fun verse

Comments by Jeanne

In an earlier post, I wrote about poetry being a thread woven through our lives, whether we realize it or not.  Song lyrics, nursery rhymes, jingles, all of these can be poetry.  We know a lot of poems without really believing they ARE poems.  Another semi myth is that poetry is always Serious Stuff.

Let’s have a show of hands:  how many people know the Ogden Nash poem, “Reflections on Ice Breaking”?

No one?  Really?  Not even if I tell you that the ‘ice breaking’ means social ice breaking?

How about if I tell you that it's just seven words and the first three are "Candy is dandy"?

Nash is one of the great humorist poets in my book.  I am especially fond of his animal poems, such as “The Panther.” It begins this way:

The panther is like a leopard,
Except it hasn't been peppered.

The last two lines left a co-working giggling helplessly. You can read the poem in its entirety here.

 

Shel Silverstein is another author celebrated for his humorous poems.  His sense of humor was on display in books such as A Light in the Attic  and Where the Sidewalk Ends, but he also wrote the songs “A Boy Named Sue” and “Marie Laveau” aka “Another Man Done Gone.”

Dorothy Parker is known for her one liners, but she had a fine way with a poem as well.  Judith Viorst is probably best known for her children’s books such as Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, but she has a wonderful series of poetry books for adults built around ages.  How Did I Get to be 40 and Other Atrocities has one of my favorite poems, “True Love,” which lists all the ways she knows that she and her husband are still in love, including
“When he is late for dinner and I know he must be either having an affair or lying dead in the middle of the street,
I always hope he's dead.”


Even “serious” poets write poems that can induce a smile.  Sure, T.S. Eliot wrote “The Wasteland,” but he also wrote all those wonderful feline poems that were set to music and became the play “Cats.” Want the lyrics?  Just check out Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.

Jud says one of his favorite bits is from a Jefferson Airplane album, spoken between songs:
 [Voice 1] No man is an island! No man is an island!
[Voice 2] He’s a peninsula.