Dear Matthew,
You might like to know that there is a Scots expression (not, I think, still
current), 'pap o the hass', which refers to the uvula. 'Hass' being the
neck, or the gullet, and 'pap' being the nipple. I've felt for some time it
ought to be at least a greeting ('Pap o the hass to you!') or, at best, a
toast ('Stin igia sas!' 'Na zdarove!' 'Slainge!' 'Pap o the hass!'
I'm writing a lot of narrative in the older verse forms at the moment, hence
the need to do my scales at every opportunity. Perhaps the book I'm working
on would benefit from a series of short 'explanations' of the verse forms it
employs, as appendices. In which case I'd stuff this extra stanza in as its
new penultimate one:
It maks ye rax for far mair rhymes
at a faster pace than the sad hauf-mimes
o normal formal verse: its chimes
can syncopate;
it's bagpipe ragtime, bop's sublime
Scots drinkin mate.
Which sentiment is probably limping along long after and far below the Auden
line that's at the front of Brodsky's essays:
"Blessed be all metrical rules that forbid automatic responses,
force us to have second thoughts, free from the fetters of Self."
It's a take on the predictability of form argument that's sometimes
overlooked.
Best,
Bill
-----Original Message-----
From: Francis M (HaSS) <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 03 April 2000 11:10
Subject: RE: Verse Forms (oops)
>Don't worry, it happens all the time, particularly with the irritating
>format our system here uses for names - I'm surprised people don't address
>me as (Hass). I'd just emailed our system manager to ask if there was any
>way I could change my user name (or the way it appears on emails), but he
>said it had to be that way round so the address book could be in surname
>order. Your verse history is a tour de force - it only seemed to take you
>about an hour. You ought to publish it.
>
>And yes that would be my brother - Richard Francis is not quite such a
>reversible name but it does get him mixed up with the horsey thriller
writer
>Dick. At one time he put an imaginary H in the middle, like the S. in Harry
>S. Truman.
>
>Best wishes
>
>Matthew Francis
>[mailto:[log in to unmask]
>01443 482856
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: William Herbert [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
>Sent: 31 March 2000 17:26
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Verse Forms (oops)
>
>
>Herbert Bill would sorry say like to
>reminding him of Yoda still are you.
>Brother your he even knows thinks he
>Manchester from h.D. examined P
>Writing Creative Lancaster at
>feeling Bill is Herbert like a prat.
>Pixies The lead singer from the swopped
>his what names round, and that's now dropped
>at me in mess look you askance is:
>Apologies to Matthew Francis.
>
>
>
>Dear Matthew,
>
>Here comes the bauld stanzaic lore
>that maks aa modernistics snore:
>a man caad Sempill fur a splore
> wrote 'Habbie Simson',
>a piper's elegy -- and more:
> oor bards saw crimson.
>
>(That's bagpipes, by the wailin way --
>whit is a tonedeef boy tae say?)
>It's hauf-lament and hauf in play
> that gees the twist:
>a fact that in his morbid lay
> auld Wordsworth missed.
>
>But Allan Ramsay and young Rab
>(Rab Fergusson) jist hud tae grab
>it fur the Scots Revival. Rab
> (that's Burns -- keep up!)
>wha paid fur Fergusson's grave slab
> wiz jist a pup.
>
>"The Daft Days", "Caller Oysters", "To
>the Tron-Kirk Bell" showed whit tae do:
>Burns took the habbie til a new
> heicht wi the likes
>o his addresses tae a crew
> o subtle tykes.
>
>The Deil, a moose, a daisy, drink;
>the haggis (whit wid veggies think?);
>there's Death and Dr Hornbook's jinks
> and Holy Willie;
>a louse, his mare, his mates, mair drink,
> and bein silly.
>
>
>The habbie sometimes taks Burns' name
>because ut's apt fur Burns-like games
>but, Matthew, it wad be a shame
> if that wiz aa:
>the fitbaa needs nae player's fame,
> sae pass the baa!
>
>Best second go,
>
>Bill
>
>
>***************************
>Bill Herbert
>[log in to unmask]
>[log in to unmask]
>http://www.trace.ntu.ac.uk/poets/Herbert/lobsters.htm
>
>
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