Wednesday, September 22, 2010

TWO CLERIHEWS FOR YOU

For the blog Faith and Theology, Kim Fabricious offers a series of clerihews "...for those of you who have trouble reading poetry (or would like to be able to talk about poets without reading them...." Below are two teasers. For the rest, you'll you'll need to visit the blog. It's only right.

W. H. Auden
Sure liked his Gordon’s;
Of course the intoxicated sod
Was also drunk on God.

Wendell Berry
Is very, very
Farmy.
And some would say barmy.

No, I didn't know what a clerihew was before now.

Thanks to Ann V.

UPDATE: I intended to include a link to the definition of a clerihew in my original post, but I neglected to do so. Sorry. The link is there now.

10 comments:

  1. Thank you for that new word and fun little verse about Auden. Am enjoying your blog, Mimi, always surprising.
    Arthur

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  2. Gin and God. . . a good combination, what?

    I love the one about Berry. We're from the same state!

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  3. Susan, clerihews are a wonderful new discovery. Just goes to show, I'm not too old to learn new things. I might even try my hand at writing my own.

    I love barmy Berry, too. So you're mates? You and him?

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  4. Gin and God. . . a good combination, what?

    Absolutely.

    I might even try my hand at writing my own.

    Oh go on! What fun!

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  5. John Stuart Mill,
    By a mighty effort of will,
    Overcame his natural bonhomie
    And wrote Principles of Political Economy.


    That's by Edmund Clerihew Bentley himself. A little closer to theology, or anyway to church matters,

    Sir Chrstopher Wren
    Said "I am going out with some men.
    If anyone calls,
    Tell him I am designing Saint Paul's."


    Not quite theological, but the best I can do on the spur of the moment:

    Oscar Wilde
    Felt himself badly defiled
    And cried "Godamight-
    Y, he called me a
    sodomite."

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  6. Good work, Porlock.

    I'm trying for a clerihew, but I have nothing yet.

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  7. I find myself more drawn to double dactyls when it comes to biographical verse. For example:

    Higgledy-piggledy
    Charles Ellsworth Bennison
    Thinks he is innocent
    And will not quit.

    Episcopalians
    Just want him out of there;
    All other bishops just
    Think he's a sh-t.


    (The last redaction is in deference to Mimi's delicate sensibilities.)




    wv = shisest
    (indelicate rap term)

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  8. Oh dear! Redaction or not, I'm off to the fainting couch. Get me my smelling salts, please.

    ReplyDelete

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