{"id":2720,"date":"1997-10-19T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1997-10-19T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/1997\/10\/19\/paean\/"},"modified":"2018-01-14T17:12:08","modified_gmt":"2018-01-15T01:12:08","slug":"paean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/1997\/10\/19\/paean\/","title":{"rendered":"P: Verse Doodles"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Now and then one feels inspired to feast upon morally uplifting poetry that one can really sink one's teeth into\u2014great classical works from the Western canon, perhaps, such as Paradise Lost<\/cite> or \"The Song of Hiawatha.\"<\/p>\r\n

Then again, sometimes ya just wanna kick back and relax with a light-verse snack.<\/p>\r\n

If you're in the mood for Deep Meaningful Verse this week, you'd better try elsewhere<\/a>. But if you feel like munching on a quick bowl of doggerel (and I use the word in the nicest possible sense), seasoned with a pinch of rhyme, a dash of rhythm, and plenty of silliness, you've come to the right place.<\/p>\r\nThis week's poems are mostly in praise of various things\u2014even if the praise is sometimes puzzling or ambiguous. This one, for instance, appeared anonymously one day on the chalkboard in the drama room at my high school:\r\n

\r\n

Beez R Nice
\r\nThey look like rice
\r\nThey don't eat mice
\r\nThey ride on bic-
\r\nycles.<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

Some years later, during a dinner which involved a certain red root vegetable, a pastiche on the above came to me; my dinner companions were, alas, not amused.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\n

Beet Poetry<\/h3>\r\n

Beets R Neat
\r\nThey're very sweet
\r\nThey're quite a treat
\r\nThey're not like meat
\r\nThey taste all-reet.<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\u2014JEH<\/p>\r\n

If one may praise the lowly beet, why not other lowly creatures?<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

oh glug, oh glug
\r\nhow beautiful is the slug
\r\nas it crawls on the ground
\r\nthinking thoughts profound
\r\noh glug, oh glug, oh glug<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\u2014Mya Rorer<\/p>\r\n

This one isn't in quite the same vein, but it more or less fits the ambiguous-praise theme anyway:<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

There was a little girl, and she had a little curl
\r\nRight in the middle of her forehead
\r\nAnd when she was cold, she was very very cold,
\r\nBut when she was hot, she was torrid.<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\u2014Nao Parkhurst<\/p>\r\n

Mason Williams<\/a> wrote a number of poems, in a particular form, in praise of such oddities as lunch toters, toad suckers, and moose goosers. He recorded them on a 1964 album called Them Poems<\/a><\/cite>. The form has inspired numerous imitations and parodies, of which the following is my favorite:<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\n

Artichokes<\/h3>\r\n

(after Mason Williams)<\/p>\r\n

Look at them artichokes
\r\nAin't they fun?
\r\nSittin in a choke field
\r\nSoakin' up sun.

\r\nLook at them artichokes
\r\nAin't they the most?
\r\nEverybody's eatin' em
\r\nOn the left coast.

\r\nWhat to do with artichokes?
\r\nHere's the way to treat 'em:
\r\nPull the little leaves off,
\r\nDip the ends and eat 'em.<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\u2014Arthur Evans<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

Reader comments and addenda page<\/a><\/p>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2-uppercase-1"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2720"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3280,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2720\/revisions\/3280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}