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

The poem in 559 is "The Aged Pilot Man," by Mark Twain, an author whose work I love dearly. His brother Henry was working on a ship on the Mississippi. The boiler blew up, and Henry ultimately died. It was surely one of the most traumatic events of Twain's life. Danger on a ship was a very real thing for Twain.

This next poem is about a well-known painter who woulod celebrate his birthday today if he were still alive. He also wrote poetry, but I cannot find any of his poems. He is mentioned along with Van Gogh and Matisse in Cle Porter's song "Can Can." Author and title, please...

"the lay of the land he loved,
its dumbstruck vanity polite and brute.
The bather in his sketchy suit.
The skull upon the mute pull of cloth.
In your taxing and tearing, tugging at art"

On post 559, I was betting you'd get that one, paulh.

The original text is to be found in Mark Twains' "Roughing It" in chapter 'LI'. He makes some mildly self deprecatory remarks introducing it. The poem relates to a voyage of discovery on the Erie canal.

Getting rather crowded here all of a sudden. Good to see.

Paul, you might have tidied up all the loose ends by identifying the extract in #552 as being from Sylvia Plath's "Tulips".

Your piece was from "Advice to a Friend Who Paints", the artist in question being 'shy' Cezanne, whose 174th(?) birthday was honoured by Google.

Here's a new one - although very old and out of copyright.

I wrote some lines once on a time
In wondrous merry mood,
And thought, as usual, men would say
They were exceeding good.

They were so queer, so very queer,
I laughed as I would die;
Albeit, in the general way,
A sober man am I.

I called my servant, and he came;
How kind it was of him
To mind a slender man like me,
He of the mighty limb.

"These to the printer," I exclaimed,
And, in my humorous way,
I added, (as a trifling jest,)
"There'll be the devil to pay."

He took the paper, and I watched,
And saw him peep within;
At the first line he read, his face
Was all upon the grin.

He read the next; the grin grew broad,
And shot from ear to ear;
He read the third; a chuckling noise
I now began to hear.

The fourth; he broke into a roar;
The fifth; his waistband split;
The sixth; he burst five buttons off,
And tumbled in a fit.

Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye,
I watched that wretched man,
And since, I never dare to write
As funny as I can.

You've answered the question, "What is the height of the Ridiculous"?
It's a poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes. I'm assuming that this is Holmes senior, who was a writer, not Holmes Jr, who was a U.S. Supreme Court Justice.

The above poem ("Height of the Ridiculous") is kind of an extreme example of the impediments that a would-be writer must face. Here's a poem that illustrates another impediment:

"I never had the writers block.
Too many thoughts moored at my dock.
Ideas and dreams come way too easy
some are smart, while others cheesy.

I often wonder why writers cry
they can't think of the how or why
their stories or their poems stop
in midstream, with creative drop."

Who wrote it?

Paul - That's "Writer's Block - No such thing" by Michael Charles Messineo - I think he's exclusively an internet poet - Google backs me up here - but of course there's nothing wrong with that.

WFAT - sorry about 552. It's a poem, 'Tulips', one of the best written by one of my favourite poets - Sylvia Plath. I knew it but it somehow didn't get posted. It relates to her stay in hospital after a miscarriage. Such clear and powerful imagery.

Now, the beginning of another modern poem: Poet and title please:

the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,


and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too
much

That's Charles Bukowski's "Alone With Everybody", Jabs.

How about this one?

As one of some fat tillage dispossessed,
Weighing the yield of these four faded years,
If any ask what fruit seems loveliest,
What lasting gold among the garnered ears, --
Ah, then I'll say what hours I had of thine,
Therein I reaped Time's richest revenue,
Read in thy text the sense of David's line,
Through thee achieved the love that Shakespeare knew.
Take then his book, laden with mine own love
As flowers made sweeter by deep-drunken rain,
That when years sunder and between us move
Wide waters, and less kindly bonds constrain,
Thou may'st turn here, dear boy, and reading see
Some part of what thy friend once felt for thee.

That's brilliant love poem, WFAT . I've always found love poems the hardest to pull off.

It's a Shakespearean sonnet written by Alan Seeger, entitled - 'With a Copy of Shakespeare's Sonnets on Leaving College'. I know nothing about Alan Seeger except that he's American and I've heard of him.

This is the beginning of a modern poem that lays me out with emotion whenever I read it, it's so good:

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille day, yes
it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton
at 7:15

As usual, Poet and Title please.

Extra Clues to 569:

1. In the poem lots of the art world is mentioned. This is not showing off but part of the poet's daily life. By the following year he was Assistant Curator of Painting and Sculpture Exhibitions for the Museum of Modern Art in NY.

2. Nowhere mentioned explicitly is that the poem is an elegy for Billie Holliday, the great jazz singer. This might help to explain it.

That's Frank O'Hara's "The Day Lady Died". Interesting - but not exactly emotion recollected in tranquility. I see O'Hara was run over and killed by a dune buggy while sleeping on the beach.

You're sure to have heard of Allan Seeger, Jabs - I've quoted him on here before (I have a rendezvous with Death). An American in Paris at the start of WW1, he joined the Foreign Legion and was killed in action in 1916, aged 28. His Wiki entry is, like his life, short but interesting. He wrote a lot of "Shakespearean" sonnets - that was his style. They're generally pretty good or better.

For this one, in addition to Poet and Title, can you tell me how it came to be written?

He's called The General from the brazen craft
And dash with which he sneaks a bit of road
And all its fares; challenged, or chafed, or chaffed,
Back-answers of the newest he'll explode;
He reins his horses with an air; he treats
With scoffing calm whatever powers there be;
He gets it straight, puts a bit on, and meets
His losses with both lip and £ s. d.;
He arrogates a special taste in short;
Is loftily grateful for a flagrant smoke;
At all the smarter housemaids winks his court,
And taps them for half-crowns; being stoney-broke,
Lives lustily; is ever on the make;
And hath, I fear, none other gods but Fake.

That one's London Types: Bus Driver, by William Ernest Henry, feted in his time but now forgotten - at least, I've never heard of him. His bus driver still a very recognisable type, well delineated in the poem.

He also wrote the (rabble) rousing 'Invictus' too - "I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul." He was a busy boy - Poethunter alone has 172 poems by him.

I have no idea why 'Bus Driver' was written. Do tell the story!

This the beginning of a 20th c. autobiographical poem:

Deeply morbid deeply morbid was the girl who typed the letters
Always out of office hours running with her social betters


Poet and Title please.

The poet is Stevie Smith.
The poem is "Deeply Morbid."

[You just sense that some tragedy will happen to her, probably on a beach with a riptide or so,ething like that...]

Here's a poem on my least favorite topic....


I do not like the southern snow
It's days are too few
And remind me of that woman
Who left me in the Spring

That poem is called "Southern Snow (or Bitter Winter)" and was written by John W Davis - but not 'the' John W Davis (I've never heard of him, either). The aberrant apostrophe rather spoils it for me.

I can't believe you've never heard of W E Henley, Jabs - if only for 'Invictus', which I'd have thought was very well known. He had a difficult life, suffering from tubercular arthritis, which led to his left leg being amputated below the knee. Supposedly he was the inspiration for the character Long John Silver.

'Bus Driver' was written to accompany one of a series of 13 wood engravings - entitled 'London Types' - by William Nicholson.

So, to whom are the following lines attributed?

Fill with mingled cream and amber,
I will drain that glass again.
Such hilarious visions clamber
Through the chamber of my brain —
Quaintest thoughts — queerest fancies
Come to life and fade away;
What care I how time advances?
I am drinking ale today.

It sounds delicious in any event.

No ostensible title, apart from the first line. This by The South's own poete maudit - which is why he's so popular in France - Edgar Allan Poe. A very good example of his work too, IMO - lots of derangement and general mauditery. Thanks for bringing this to my attention, WFAT.

Now, an hermetic poet after mine owne heart: poet and title please:

As Parmigianino did it, the right hand
Bigger than the head, thrust at the viewer
And swerving easily away, as though to protect
What it advertises. A few leaded panes, old beams,
Fur, pleated muslin, a coral ring run together

That's "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror" by John Ashbery. Maybe I'll read it when I have a year or two to spare. It looks rather impenetrable.

It's not 100% certain that those "Lines on Ale" were written by Poe, although it seems to be generally accepted that they were. The original manuscript supposedly hung on the wall of the Washington Tavern in Lowell, Massachusetts for many years and was apparently last seen around 1892. The lines were recalled from memory by a bartender many years afterwards, so there is some doubt about their authenticity - and accuracy.

So where might this be found and who is the author?

In controversy with the facile tongue --
That bloodless warfare of the old and young --
So seek your adversary to engage
That on himself he shall exhaust his rage,
And, like a snake that's fastened to the ground,
With his own fangs inflict the fatal wound.
You ask me how this miracle is done?
Adopt his own opinions, one by one,
And taunt him to refute them; in his wrath
He'll sweep them pitilessly from his path.
Advance then gently all you wish to prove,
Each proposition prefaced with, "As you've
So well remarked," or, "As you wisely say,
And I cannot dispute," or, "By the way,
This view of it which, better far expressed,
Runs through your argument." Then leave the rest
To him, secure that he'll perform his trust
And prove your views intelligent and just.

That's the definition of "controversy" in Ambrose Bierce's "Devil's Dictionary."

We got 12 to 15 inches of snow last night, bringing the total for the season up to 50 inches (normal average snowfall for this time of the season would be about 20 inches here in Boston). When I look at my front yard, I think of scenes from "The Day After Tomorrow."

I don't want to keep harpingo n the snow issue, but it's what I'm up against, so here's a snow poem that isn't as drastic as what I have:

"The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes -- or it prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face
Lighting a little Hour or two -- is gone."

[There isn't really a title as such, but if you can give the original poet and the translator, that would be ifne]