Thanks for your comments.
Bob,
In my childhood I read a lot of Victorian fantasy--I loved Rider Haggard,
for instance, and his spoof scholarly histories of African civilisations. I
could have made the names more extreme and humorous a la W.C.Fields (who
loved inventing ridiculous names) but I felt that would destroy the tone of
the piece.
Gary,
You wrote:'Maz, an interesting list, fun, but a list. Context for this
alternative universe?'
I see this as the annual address for some imaginary Victorian gentlemen's
club, of inventors, explorers etc. Professor Challenger would probably be in
the audience.
The key item is the 'flying saddlebacks' of course.
Kind regards, Margaret
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Cooper" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, June 26, 2005 10:55 PM
Subject: Re: [THE-WORKS] New sub: Calling the Roll
> Hi Margaret,
> An interesting list - perhaps one of the most interestiung lists I've come
> across in a poem!
> What I like about it as a poem are the line breaks! Putting names at the
> end of lines as often as near the start of lines is an interesting thing
to
> do. And the names are intruiging too!
> I'd love to know what prompted the piece!
> Bob
>
> >From: grasshopper <[log in to unmask]>
> >Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
> >To: [log in to unmask]
> >Subject: New sub: Calling the Roll
> >Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 06:43:25 +0100
> >
> >... .Calling the Roll
> >
> >
> >As another full year ends,
> >let us salute our absent friends:
> >
> >Count Tosselkov who modelled pollen grains to scale in wax,
> >Whistle Murphy, who married seven women, each five years
> >younger than the one before, Cardinal Dab Brockney
> >who catalogued the thirty-nine sexes of angels,
> >the Michel-Burkiss twins who circumnavigated the globe
> >each year while they lived, and were scattered
> >on the trade winds when they died, Ram Shah Pann
> >who enamelled his virile member with turquoise and pearl,
> >Ishmael Serif who perfected pellucid dreaming, Colonel P.D.Beeds
> >who could see colour with his finger-tips, Pierre Chamberlait
> >who conversed with molluscs,the Whittaker cousins who sighted
> >the first green mammal before they were lost in Sumatra,
> >Sugarcane Smith who wrote a twenty-three volume Epic
> >of the Great Venusian Wars and burnt it immediately,
> >Red Haslam who bred flying saddlebacks, James Wade
> >who invented stained-glass bullets, Rabbi Hyram Hite
> >who proclaimed that Doubt is the true foundation
> >of Knowledge, Trapp von Cutler who abducted aliens,
> >and Sydney 'Slim' Milch who pioneered the No-Food Diet.
> >
> >Please charge your glasses, gentlemen;
> >we shall not see their like again.
> >
> >....................................... .(Maz)
>
>
>
> --
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>
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