Friday, May 30, 2008

Poetry Friday -- Imitation and (hopefully) Flattery

Wild Atrocity
by Mary Lee Hahn

Glory be to God for silly things --
For running-dives all in a pile of musky autumn leaves;
For rollercoaster rides in the first car alone;
Wet late-March snowball fights; frisbee flings;
Junk food caloric and sweet -- pizza, french fries, sundaes;
And all jokers, their plots and puns and funny bones.

All things humorous, playful, joking, tickly;
Whatever is unplanned, spontaneous (who knows why?)
With smile, grin; laugh, shout; giggle, groan;
They maintain sanity whose beauty is past lunacy:
PRAISE THEM!



Fried Beauty
by R. S. Gwynn


Glory be to God for breaded things--
Catfish, steak finger, pork chop, chicken thigh,
Sliced green tomatoes, pots full to the brim
With french fries, fritters, life-float onion rings,
Hushpuppies, okra golden to the eye,
That in all oils, corn or canola, swim

Toward mastication's maw (O molared mouth!);
Whatever browns, is dumped to drain and dry
On paper towels' sleek translucent scrim,
These greasy, battered bounties of the South:
Eat them.



Pied Beauty
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.



The roundup today is at Wild Rose Reader.

8 comments:

  1. The Southern one made me laugh to tears. Good old fried food -- truly a great love of the South. And your line about jokers I love -- the punny tricksters in all of our lives are great sanity-keepers, aren't they? This is definitely an excellent form of flattery!

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  2. Love these!
    Glory be to God for all things poetical;
    rhymes, rants, rumminatings
    lollygagging on a friday afternoon
    in breezy sunshine on greeny grass -
    what rolls forth from crazed keyboards -
    Read them!

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  3. These were great! What fun!

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  4. Glory be! I can't think of anything better than fried catfish and some laughter. Maybe a few hushpuppies, too.

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  5. You succeeded in the imitation and the flattery -- fun!

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  6. cloudscome -- LOVE your addition to the collection! I challenge you to take that start, sit down with Pied Beauty, and do a full-blown imitation!

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  7. Oh my Mary Lee I have always admired and adored Hopkins poetry. I don't think I can measure up to that challenge. The way he flings words around! They trip off your tongue and then slam you with layers of meaning. I will try...

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  8. This is wonderful! Mary Lee, your first stanza is to die for. My fingers are itchy... my brain casting about. I want to try this!

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