h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Who wrote (some) of the following poem (should be quite easy):

Best Team in Wales

The drowning bones of the starfall
The iceberg-white horses in sea-flesh,
Streaking by the star-struck downy seashore
For danced street dance
With no more tides than a fishing draught-beer drifter
the washerwoman also crying
drinking and crying all night
By the bible-black harbour
A fresh night with deep stars falling about me
I had some bottles
Met a stranger in a mackintosh by the harbour
Swansea have gone down I moaned at him
Swansea have gone to pieces again
I grabbed him
My raincoat flapping in the high wind like the sail of a fishing boat
Swansea have lost again to the cold-blood mercenary crew of Cardiff
Blah-blah another blah-blah year
Of infamy
Bla blah blah shame upon my parents...

At this point falling down to the oceanic star-wet pavement
Stars on the black pavement calling
Stars in the black night calling
The pavement a wet funeral ocean - a swirling mauling dance of the dead
Swansea have lost again
Swansea have lost again
Best team in Wales
Best team in Wales

max boyce?????

If you're going to use that methodology - the elimination of every Welshman you've heard of , one by one, we could be here a long time!

Laugh aloud FUNNY though.


jabs

Is this extract too hard? Or is this poet too hard? Please let me know, and I'll try something simpler if needed, or more clues.. It really could be fun - honest! - and fun is the aim.

Clues - The poet is obviously not English.

He likes a drink, even taking some home from the pub. Was there a lack of drugs?

He comes from the same country as Swansea.

What sort of black is he well-known for?

He wrote only the first few lines here. The rest are more obviously in his style.

Jab

I'll give you more clues/extracts from outside the poem if you need them. Let me know.

founded llaregub

You got 'im. Name please.

Perhaps you could nominate the next one by giving us some of his/her poetry, straight or adjusted a bit?

Jab

Jabs was it written by Dylan Thomas?

"There are fairies at the bottom of my garden,
They really aren't very hard to find" .........

Correct,Taff and TT. Any other poems for us to guess/work out who wrote them?

Paul, yours was Rose Fyleman - somewhat obscure, non? So obscure I didn't notice it.

OK. My turn again.

I wandered lonely as a cloud

As it's easy, name of poet and title of poem please.

"Daffodils," by William Wordsworth.

Your turn, smartipants!

Meanwhile, I'm retirin' G'night folks!

Jabs

Okay, here's a poem by someone who was not thought of as primarily a poet, but his support of other writers was vital to establishing American literature as a force to be reckoned with:

BY the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world

Name the poet. Extra credit if you can name the poem.

Ralph "Where's Waldo?" Emerson

The Concord Hymn
or, the Boing 747 Hymn

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Name of poet and poem please

Errata:

14. Boeing, not Boing!

15. Names, not name.




Back to bed

Errata:

15 and 16.

Nurse, the screens, the tablets!


Jab

"The charge of the light brigade," which Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote when he received a bill from the electric company.

Next poem:

"I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.

"From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair."

Children's Hour by Henry Wadsworth (couldn't spell Wordsworth) Longfellow,

the pitter patter of tiny feet being obviously mice and rats.


Here in England there used to be a programme for children on the radio called Children's Hour, until it was killed off by rubbish children's television. Mind you, it was run by 'Uncle Mac', whose name would have very different connotations these days, especially working for a children's programme. But it was excellent, with poems, stories, letters etc etc.


"You are old, Father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
"And yet you incessantly stand on your head --
"Do you think, at your age, it is right?"

Note the impeccable punctuation, which is a clue to when it was written.


Looks like just you and I are up to this, Paul. I suggest we keep going until one of us declares "BORE!".

Jab