August’s poem (more Mother Goose)

A colleague of Karin’s asked if I fought in the Vietnam War.

I didn’t. I was born in 1981.

POTUS 45’s house was raided by the FBI. Makes you wonder where they got the warrant, Karin’s colleague said.

From the judge, Karin told him. (We don’t watch all those crime shows for nothing.)

On Facebook, one of my friends has been comparing Trump’s “martyrdom” to that of William Wallace, in Braveheart.

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R.I.P. Raymond Briggs, author-illustrator of The Snowman and other books, whose work I didn’t encounter until I had children. He illustrated a rather large volume of Mother Goose. Like Rosemary Wells, he got his texts from the Opies (Iona & Peter).

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There was a little man, and he had a little gun,

And his bullets were made of lead, lead, lead;

He went to the brook, and shot a little duck,

Right through the middle of the head, head, head.

He carried it home to his old wife Joan,

And bade her a fire for to make, make, make,

To roast the little duck he had shot in the brook,

And he’d go and fetch her the drake, drake, drake.

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I am now going to discuss some formal qualities of this fine poem, which I hardly ever do; my remarks will be obvious ones. Each odd-numbered line slant-rhymes its own middle. But the even-numbered lines don’t just rhyme each other: they beat their ending-sounds to death. The effect is tidy and off-kilter – and almost sickeningly jaunty for something that treats the cold-blooded murder of little animals.

Briggs’s (Quino-like) drawing of the bullets replicates this monstrous jollity.

The Opies transcribed lots of chants used for schoolyard games like “Miss Suzie,” jumping rope, etc. This poem has a similar feel, though I’d lay ten to one it was written by an adult.

March’s poem

“I yuv pacifiers,” says Samuel, who has long been weaned of them. I caught him pulling a pacifier out of Daniel’s mouth and taking a little “drag” from it.

Lately he’s been reciting: “Dickory dickory dock / The mouse ran up the clock …”; and, especially, “Dickory dickory dare / The pig flew up in the air / The man in brown / Soon brought him down / Dickory dickory dare.” (Wells’s illustration shows a wallpaper pattern of pigs flying WWI planes, as in Porco Rosso.)

Today, Samuel began composing a new poem: “Dickory dickory dickens.” Karin & I extended it: “Someone let loose the chickens / The chickens were sad / Because they were bad / Dickory dickory dickens.”

But none of them is March’s poem. That is a poem of Blake’s, the one made into the hymn “Jerusalem.” Like a pop song, it pleases each person who gives it his own interpretation. Is the poem about industrialization? The C of E? You can mean it however you like, so long as it is about England (or “England”).

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And did those feet in ancient time,

Walk upon Englands mountains green

And was the holy Lamb of God,

On Englands pleasant pastures seen!

And did the Countenance Divine

Shine forth upon our clouded hills?

And was Jerusalem builded here,

Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold;

Bring me my Arrows of desire:

Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!

Bring me my Chariot of fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight,

Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:

Till we have built Jerusalem

In Englands green & pleasant Land

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February’s poems

More of Iona Opie’s and Rosemary Wells’s Mother Goose.

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Oh, the brave old duke of York,

He had ten thousand men;

He marched them up to the top of the hill,

and he marched them down again.

And when they were up, they were up,

And when they were down, they were down,

And when they were only halfway up,

They were neither up nor down.

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From Wibbleton to Wobbleton is fifteen miles,

From Wobbleton to Wibbleton is fifteen miles,

From Wibbleton to Wobbleton, from Wobbleton to Wibbleton,

From Wibbleton to Wobbleton is fifteen miles.

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If these two poems are about “relations of ideas,” this one is about “knowledge by acquaintance”:

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Whose little pigs are these, these, these?

Whose little pigs are these?

They are Roger the Cook’s,

I know by their looks –

I found them among my peas.

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Or perhaps the speaker is not identifying which pigs they are, so much as deciding what will become of them.

Now, a more famous poem:

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Baa, baa, black sheep,

have you any wool?

Yes, sir, yes, sir,

Three bags full.

One for the master,

and one for the dame,

And one for the little boy

Who lives down the lane.

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This is Samuel’s favorite in all of Mother Goose. He recites it with gusto (goose-toe). Yessir! Yessir!

Karin admires it, too. I like it that the sheep is implying: I do have wool, but not for you.

But this is not the only way of reading the poem. In Wells’s pictures, the sheep appears to be conversing with the little boy. I have wool for YOU, the sheep means (this is a more tender interpretation).

My favorite is this poem about a donkey:

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If I had a donkey

that wouldn’t go,

D’you think I’d beat him?

Oh, no, no.

I’d put him in a barn

and give him some corn,

The best little donkey

that ever was born.

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January’s poems

The previous entry got many, many more views than my entries usually get. It’s gratifying, but I can’t rely on McKenzie and Uncle Fred for copy every time.

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“After Henry” by Joan Didion (R.I.P.) is the Library of America’s newest Story of the Week.

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This Christmas, Karin’s friend Nora bought some Mother Goose books for Samuel. They are illustrated by Rosemary Wells and edited by Iona Opie (who, along with Peter Opie, compiled that pleasing folk-book, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren).

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My mother said

That I never should

Play with the pixies

In the wood;

The wood was dark,

The grass was green,

Up comes Sally

With a tambourine;

I went to the river,

I couldn’t get across,

I paid ten shillings

For an old blind horse;

I jumped on his back

And off in a crack,

Sally tell my mother

That I’m coming right back.

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I could read these rhymes to Samuel all day long.

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Donkey, donkey, old and gray,

Open your mouth and gently bray,

Lift your ears and blow your horn

To wake the world this sleepy morn.

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Karin bought some cheap musical instruments for Samuel. I played “Mary Had a Little Lamb” on the recorder for him. He thought it hilarious and walked around panting the notes like a laryngitic dog (which is how that recorder sounds, more or less).