Do i have the power to end a thread? ^^

OK, now I'm just Kansan again...

Fella wot did em jis died, right?

Joe(why did i spell that sentence like that?)Nation

BOOKEND; Brief Candles

By HENRY TAYLOR
Published: December 27, 1998
A few writers have invented forms, or the names for them, in ways that lodge those writers more or less durably in our literature. Gelett Burgess (1866-1951), the inventor of the purple cow he never saw, also coined the term ''blurb.'' Adelaide Crapsey (1878-1914), an American, invented a five-line verse form, derived in part from Asian models as she understood them; she called it the cinquain, and it is still practiced now and then. In our own time, Anthony Hecht, Paul Pascal and John Hollander have given us the double dactyl. And Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956), who was famous as the author of ''Trent's Last Case,'' gave his middle name to a ragged little verse form that came into being, it is said, during a chemistry class the young Bentley was attending at St. Paul's School:


Sir Humphry Davy

Abominated gravy.

He lived in the odium

Of having discovered Sodium.


Bentley published three collections of clerihews: ''Biography for Beginners'' appeared in 1905, ''More Biography'' in 1929 and ''Baseless Biography'' in 1939. But what established the form and its name was the thoroughness with which it inspired later writers, including W. H. Auden, William Jay Smith and Roy Blount Jr.

Just one of these little poems can slip into the body, like a virus, and within minutes spawn offspring:

Edmund Clerihew Bentley

let his middle name fall gently

upon this odd verse form. Perhaps he

foresaw the case of Adelaide Crapsey.

Adelaide Crapsey

induces narcolepsy;

most of her cinquains

fade as invisible ink wanes.


One of the small mysteries of poetic inspiration is what causes a name and a particle of whimsy to collide. Once the infection has set in, the verses burst out randomly:

Alexander Graham Bell

has shuffled off this mobile cell.

He's not talking any more,

but he has a lot to answer for.


The exigencies of rhyme often have much more to do with the direction of the poem than the facts of a subject's life:

Preston Sturges

was subject to urges

whose nature and history

remain shrouded in mystery.

Tommaso Landolfi

was disdainful of golf. He

considered putting

more vulgar than rutting.


Novice versifiers, incidentally, are sometimes resentful that rhyme pushes them toward saying things they had not intended to say. More practiced poets sometimes claim not to have this problem. I admit to having been pushed, but with gratitude rather than resentment.

When the subjects have something in common, as in Roy Blount's clerihews on old-time baseball players, a certain neo-Aristotelian unity might sustain a series. And so, with the deepest respect for the dignity of the institution, I have taken up the present Justices of the Supreme Court. Some of their names rhyme more readily than others, so the series presents a fairly wide range between loony fabrication and pertinence to actuality. Perhaps it should be noted here that a few years ago. Justice Breyer did in fact receive a call from a tabloid reporter asking if he were a space alien. The reporter told him that a dozen or so Senators had already admitted they were.

William Rehnquist

grew testy when quizzed

concerning how sober

a judge ought to be the first week in October.

Stephen Breyer,

when a tabloid called to inquire

whether he is a space alien,

felt sure he is an earthly mammalian.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

said ''Titanic,'' in truth, made her wince. ''Berg

phobia?'' inquired a reporter.

''No,'' she said, ''I just wish it were shorter.''

Anthony Kennedy

was startled: when had he

removed his tie?

And why?

Sandra Day O'Connor

was just about to don her

robes when her clerk

simply went berserk.

Antonin Scalia

sings ''The Rose of Tralee'' -- a

treat for all students

of his jurisprudence.

David Souter

booted up his computer

and discovered that sex is

treated dryly in LEXIS.

John Paul Stevens

is one of the evens

against the odds, standing unbent

by his dissent.

Clarence Thomas

preserved and protected his early promise

by making sure he never strayed

into discussions of Roe v. Wade.


An institution of greater age, if less consistent dignity, is the Poet Laureateship of England, which includes these peaks and valleys:

John Dryden

wasn't the sort you'd confide in;

there was no limit to the secrets he'd tell

in lyrics set to music by Henry Purcell.

Laurence Eusden

is said to have abused an

embarrassing quantity of sack;

it got so bad people quit keeping track.

Thomas Warton

never met Dolly Parton.

It made him quite surly

to have been born too early.

Henry James Pye

is extremely difficult to justify;

none of the writing he managed to do

has been reprinted since 1822.

William Wordsworth

considered four-and-twenty birds worth

a walk as far as the banks of the Wye.

There are some things money just can't buy.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

once solved an enigma: When is an

eider most like a merganser?

He lived long enough to forget the answer.

Robert Bridges

lived into the era of fridges

but doubted they were worth their price.

He hadn't much use for ice.

Sir John Betjeman

was not at all an edgy man;

relaxed, remote, he loved to pose

in Henry James's morning clothes.

Once the virus has taken hold, it is hard to shake it off. Thinking of synonyms for ''conclusion'' seems not to help. Who was that bishop, and what was it he had had enough of, when with a wave of his crosier he brought it to closure? Is it overkill (a leftover from the cold war) to say goodbye to a deceased former premier of a former union of republics?

Nikita Khrushchev,

bodiless as loose chaff,

within a narrow clerihew

there's room at last to bury you.


Henry Taylor received the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. His latest collection is ''Understanding Fiction: Poems 1986-1996.''

d(bunny rabbit)Lowan
had a funny habit of going
on tangents, tears and angles
wearing sox on her ears. And bangles.


Joe(you're my first)Nation

not really...





no offense, joe.

R(none taken)P

i ain't writing no poem
at work or at home
for no wabbit
dag-nabbit

Region Philbis was terribly loath,
Whether in verth or in prothe,
To have his writing judged, dagnabbit,
For which, of courth, he blamed a wabbit.

d-wabb wrote:

Region Philbis was terribly loath,
Whether in verth or in prothe,
To have his writing judged, dagnabbit,
For which, of courth, he blamed a wabbit.

i have contemplated this offering for a few days now, and have recently had an epiphany...

i want to change my name to Eduardo.
yeah, i think this is something i really need to do.

Eduardo.

say it slowly --

Ed... waaaaaaaaaaaaaaar... dohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...







that sounds cool...