It's actually "Mairead." Rhymes with grenade. The way you describe it,
Joe, the reversal doesn't sound all that simple. Have you ever written a
poem that could give offense? Have you ever written a poem that a family
member or friend might object to, or feel bad about? Have you ever felt
that a word or a phrase might give offense? I don't know Wendy Cope but
by all accounts she's a nice middle-class lady who quite knowlingly
writes offensive poetry for a laugh. That's a very unusual mix and it
interests me. Aren't you at all interested in the rhetorical dimensions
of poetry?
Mairead
On Thu, 1 Jun 2000, Joseph Duemer wrote:
> Maried Byrne writes, addressing Mark Weiss:
>
> <<To react as you and Joseph have seems strange -- as if the poem is
> simply what it says: a subject "matter"
> and no more. Surely poetry is much more of a live and subtle issue
> than that.>>
>
> But it is indeed a simple reversal & Cope knows that we know that
> she knows, which is where the putative humor comes from. It just
> doesn't work very well. It is exactly because I believe that poetry
> is live & subtle that I dismiss this poem, it is neither. Even
> invective, if it is effective, imagines the world of that which it
> is attacking with some subtlety. The Cope poem fails as a work of
> imagination.
>
> jd
> ======================
> Joseph Duemer
> School of Liberal Arts, box 5750
> Clarkson University
> Potsdam NY 13699
> 315.268.3967
> [log in to unmask]
> http://web.northnet.org/duemer
> http://www.grammarbitch.com/ppp/index.html
> ======================
>
> Through the loop
> of the rusted padlock
> a blade of green
>
> . . .
>
> In the bed
> of a rusted war truck
> the farmer begins his rice
>
> [John Brandi, from Stone Garland, 1999]
>
>
>
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