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Ken, since your name rhymes with "tarmac" , maybe you can at least one airport in New Jersey. Think, the good sound, "The plane is now arriving at Womack", etc. s > Mark Weiss wrote: > >> Here's an aspect of meter that we never covered during any of the past >> donnybrooks: its usefulness for marching. No army ever advanced to >> free verse. So, earlier today, as I slogged through the day-old snow >> in the improbable forest that borders my lodgings, I realized that I >> was keeping cadence by humming, over and over, "I think that I shall >> never see-ee-ee/ a pome beauteeful as a tree-ee-ee." Curse you, Joyce >> Kilmer! >> >> Mark > > Desultory comments--my office was shut down today. > > Marching verse. "The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold and his > cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold." Nice beat but can you dance > to it? > > Or this-- > > "Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard. > And he taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred. > He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there > But the landlord's black-eyed daughter, > Bess, the landlord's daughter, > Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair." > > Actually that's less of a marching tune than the Byron, Noyes was really > going for it and it's way more sophisticated than I remembered, > considering I haven't read it since high school. "The Highwayman" is as > hammy as hell and was turned into an appropriately hammy movie in 1951. > Dan O'Herlihy who I recall had some swash and buckle. Would've been a > perfect role for Flynn. > > My equivalent: coming out of a concert or opera humming a tune. Unless > you're James Levine, you can't come out of the opera whistling passages > from Lulu or Satyagraha </html/compositions/satyagraha.html> either > (actually with some Glass like "Contrary Motion" you've got a prayer > because it keeps looping). For that matter try whistling some Bartok, > Duke Bluebeard's Castle. People will look at you funny. > > Joyce Kilmer has more stuff in New Jersey named after him than half a > dozen former Governors. That tells you the level of politics in this > state. He was born in New Brunswick and graduated from Rutgers. He has > a school named after him (at least one) and a rest stop on the Jersey > Turnpike. There's a memorial forest in North Carolina named for him' > God knows why it's in N.C. except maybe it was in Jersey and was paved > over to put up a parking lot. > > In grammar school, where I didn't learn any, we had to sing "Trees." > Every time we got to the word "breast" we all sniggered. I just went > back and read the poem. It's every bit as bad as I remembered. The Old > Formalism, perhaps? *I* deserve stuff named after me, only my stuff > doesn't rhyme and when I say "breast" it's not going to get a laugh out > of anyone. I hope. > > Ken