Historical persons challenge -- the discussion

[AlwaysHungry]

No title for the guessers, but I did not submit to you, AH, cause some here have seen it and would likely know it as mine. Hope it's ok to post.

By all means, Angeline.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

Springtime on The Ark is one of those poems where I said to myself "I wish I had written that."

I agree, that one is killer. I'm at loss to explain it, but the line about Mrs. Noah blowing a kiss seems more erotic to me than most of the worked-up and sweaty poems here at Lit.

I see that we also have a tribute to a literary figure, at last.

 

[Magnetron]

Turns out I had an infected tooth all this time, not an ear infection. Finally got it pulled yesterday. I just mightbe able to focus now and write something. I too have a literary figure in mind.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

There have been some lovely entries thus far. Plus, I thought that I had a pretty good vocabulary, but this challenge is expanding it. Thus far, I have learned damson, nescience, and paracosm.

 

[pelegrino]

The Paracosm of Ellis Bell
Obviously this refers to Emily Bronte and perhaps her brother Branwell and sisters Charlotte and Anne and the mythical world of island Gondal they created in their teenagehood.
It beautifully depicts the gradual abandonment of that world by Emily in favor of her more dark adult worlds of Wuthering Heights.
The use of the world "paracosm" is very fresh here for referring to the world of Gondal island. It probably does not exist yet in English in a literary sense as per original Greek "Para-cosmos".

[I had in my to submit a small tribute to Emily that I wrote years ago in Greek, but now I will not as the above poem covers me well and it is far better than mine. ]

 

[AlwaysHungry]

#8, the Mother Theresa poem, has a deliciously provocative premise, the mixing of Catholic and Hindu theologies. But I think that poem is flawed by confusing grammar (I know that poems are granted the license to dispense with grammar, but only when it serves the higher idea.)

could it be her beads weren't meant
that heaven's gained when prayer is said?

I got bogged down in the syntax there, which seems awkward.

unanswered when the hour went,
but what she did what makes a saint.

...Likewise there.

 

[butters]

some very interesting writing appearing in this challenge. got 2 phrases into mine then saw someone else had picked joan of arc, so i might go back to my original idea. dunno

From the Earl's Point of View (#!)
puts me in mind of pelegrino, perhaps? i like the more workaday use of language which lends a current feel to the piece despite it addressing a historical situation.

The Librarian (#2)
this captures the intrigue of courtly politics, the care required to play the best hand and reap the benefits. the player as the player as the player.... though of tzara, but think it lacks his trademark control.

Hyperion (#3)
adoring the rich imagery and mellifluous phrasing of this piece. what form is this, with its 4,4,3,3,4 lined verses?

Springtime on The Ark (#4)
again, the modern phrasing makes this piece current, makes a myth/historical event come to life by accessibility. whereas hyperion's language/imagery is suited to its topic, the author of this write couldn't have approached it in any better way (imho); puts us right in there with the crux of life, the straw, blood and shit - all culminating in that wonderfully contrasting image in the final line.

Blues for Number 25 (#5)
i appreciate the control shown in this piece, how form is used as a frame not a prison. it also leaves me curious about the subject-matter, so i hope the author will elaborate when the challenge is done.

 

[butters]

Excerpts from "The Fantastic Story of Saint Sergius & Saint Bacchus" (#6)
well, that's different
this has shades of pel, magnetron and ashesh running through it. parts made me giggle, parts made me wince.

Julius Turing Mourns his Son (#7)
very much liked the paternal voice of grief in this one. reminded me of greenmountaineer's writing but maybe a little over-explained (the inclusion of 'defeating Enigma') for his write. loved the sets of 3:

our beautiful boy,
our brilliant gift,
our monstrous one is dead.

He died too soon,
too sad,
too unfinished.

One could say
he died for England
after all.

i think the overall feel of this (for me) is a shorter piece written longer for the challenge, using additional information/explanation it could work better without. and i think maybe a woman's hand is behind this one

 

[butters]

American Sonnet for Mother Theresa (#8)
some confusion for me in the choice of phrasing in the last line, but i very much like the author's choice of sonnet/subject pairing. i understand the suppositioning, realistic enough given the circumstances and who/how she actually was v the saintly creation of tabloid popularity, and like that the author chose to address that.

The Paracosm of Ellis Bell (#9)
well-executed, interesting peek into the development of a writer. also manages to avoid that killer sing-songy thing of rhyming poetry. choosing to use it serves to underline the youth of the Bronte as she began her literary journey.

 

[butters]

The Maid of Orleans (#10)
is this the work of AlwaysHungry? hmmn. classical approach to styling, language choices leaning to the archaic with a nod to historical timing.... dunno, not familiar enough yet with AH's writing. either way, this was the subject i was going to use, so now i have to think again. besides, only got a couple of lines then time escaped me.

really, really liked the quality of these 4 lines:

Derision wars with beautiful creations,
And neither god nor angel does it trust.
It robs the heart of all that it holds dear,
And wounds both faith and folly with a sneer.

 

[butters]

Radium Girls (#11)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undark

although i knew the story of the radium girls, somehow the phrase 'Undark clock' was entirely new to me and leapt off the screen hitting my imagination square on. what a great word -undark! so, thankyou whoever wrote this one, you taught me something new as well as filling my mind with striking images:

admiring their luminous eyelids
and glow-in-the-dark fingernails
as they smile like schoolgirls
holding their hands toward
the sky to shield their faces
as the world ends in a
white-hot instant on a
clear Hiroshima morning.

do i think you need the last line 'Oh, those radium girls.'? newp.

 

[butters]

Sen no Rikyū (#12)

feels like a man behind this write, but whom?
the clipped language and broken layout lend a brittleness to the overall mouthfeel' of this cool piece, lending flavour of the culture/times. the shattering of the teapot (we get shards of sound/flavour/touch) works together with this, making for the kind of complex layering i enjoy finding in a write.

having said all that, i've not had time to go find out who this is about but it appears to be a japanese (samurai?)poet whose outspokenness annoyed his emperor. it got me hunting enough to find this, which is another new thing i've learned

"It is commonly pointed out that hara-kiri is a vulgarism, but this is a misunderstanding. Hara-kiri is a Japanese reading or Kun-yomi of the characters; as it became customary to prefer Chinese readings in official announcements, only the term seppuku was ever used in writing. So hara-kiri is a spoken term, but only to commoners and seppuku a written term, but spoken amongst higher classes for the same act."[4]

could the poem have finished here? it felt the natural end for me, but then i'm sooooo helpful at chopping off the ends of other people's writes and fail to cut my own:

The tea at

my last ceremony
was bitter. Yet, I served it well.

that comma after 'Yet' = brilliantly placed imo. lends just that perfect pause - space for the sense of pride/stubbornness to overlap the rueful acceptance of inevitability. rabbiting on, sorry, but those lines, with the name of the saurai-poet (did all samurai's write a poem before seppuku?) would work as a perfect little ku-poem all on their lonesome!

The tea at my last
ceremony was bitter.
Yet, I served it well.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

Radium Girls (#11)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undark

although i knew the story of the radium girls, somehow the phrase 'Undark clock' was entirely new to me and leapt off the screen hitting my imagination square on. what a great word -undark!

Thanks for that bit of research - you rescued me from a false interpretation of the poem. I thought that "Radium girls" was an irreverent reference to the women whose work led to the discovery of nuclear fission, a grouping of scientists that included Marie Curie and particularly Lise Meitner, who should have received the Nobel Prize that went to Otto Hahn.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

Sen no Rikyū (#12)

having said all that, i've not had time to go find out who this is about but it

If you google the title, the name of the person comes right up.

 

[butters]

If you google the title, the name of the person comes right up.

ha, was too busy musing on cutting people's poems up

googled, thanks!
sometimes it's good to look out rather than in, lol.

 

[butters]

Thank you. I'll do that for the short poems Attila and Boadicea, but The Song of King Alfred is longer.

Attila
by oggbashan©

I am the last "wife" of Attila the Hun:
I wanted my life to be short but fun.

I thought sex with the Hun would be great -
just one brief hour and Attila's the LATE.

Now they want me to take all the blame:
For quenching Attila's great flame.


Boadicea
by oggbashan©

I was the husband of the great Boadicea
She was a good wife but now - O dear!

I died supported by her passion and love
But I'd hardly call her a peaceful dove

We were civilised, I had a long Roman name
Now my wife is a warrior of international fame

The Romans asked for more taxes - she replied "Go to Hell!"
To persuade her they whipped her, raped her daughters as well

You just don't DO that to our blue-blooded bitches
Queens of the Iceni, horsewomen, post-graduate witches

She's painted with woad, renamed herself Boudicca
Sharpened her weapons, revived the arts of Wicca

She's rallying her armies, adding scythes to her wheels
She'll give the Roman taxmen no doubt how she feels

Ere long she will join me, her witch wisdom knows
But not 'fore she's slaughtered thousands of foes

Our rulers must remember not to over-tax the Brit
Else meet "Death or Glory" mid tons of horse-****.

loving the boudicca piece, oggs shades of the poll tax in that last couplet

 

[butters]

P.K. Page (#13)
who wrote this? i love it. seriously, seriously, love it.

nothing gets in the way of the deft imagery and impact on the senses. this one i wouldn't dream of changing, not one word.

tzara? angeline? grr, i need to know and lack patience. as a poem, best one so far imo. how far it fills the brief may be debatable, but her volume and quality of work must have influenced many people.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

We now have three and possibly four tributes to literary figures. Entry #14 is ambiguous -- I can't tell whether it is a tribute to William Carlos Williams, or to the anonymous dude who invented the wheel.

There is also a surprising preponderance of poems about religious/mythological figures, although some of them (Mother Theresa, Joan of Arc) could be considered political as well. I guess Turing could be considered either political or scientific. But of course, in my world, everything is political.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

I am planning to post a list of those persons who have contributed poems, as an aid to the identity guessing. But I will delay until sometime late next week, to give a few stragglers time to submit their poems.

 

[Angeline]

P.K. Page (#13)
who wrote this? i love it. seriously, seriously, love it.

nothing gets in the way of the deft imagery and impact on the senses. this one i wouldn't dream of changing, not one word.

tzara? angeline? grr, i need to know and lack patience. as a poem, best one so far imo. how far it fills the brief may be debatable, but her volume and quality of work must have influenced many people.

I really like it, too. I thought maybe GM or perhaps AH. I know Tzara has written about Rilke before, but it doesn't quite feel like his lines to me.

We now have three and possibly four tributes to literary figures. Entry #14 is ambiguous -- I can't tell whether it is a tribute to William Carlos Williams, or to the anonymous dude who invented the wheel.

There is also a surprising preponderance of poems about religious/mythological figures, although some of them (Mother Theresa, Joan of Arc) could be considered political as well. I guess Turing could be considered either political or scientific. But of course, in my world, everything is political.

When I first read #14 I thought of Tibet and prayer wheels, but now I think it's an ode to the wheel. I love that it ends with WCW, great ending and sly homage.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

Another religious/mythological tribute, this time to Prometheus, enters the fray. There is a famous tribute to Prometheus by Goethe; I attempted a translation of it a few years back:

Prometheus
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

So cover up thy heaven, Zeus,
With cloudy mist!
And like a boy, who chops
The heads from thistles,
Dispatch the oaks and mountaintops!
Yet must thou permit me
To keep my world,
And my rude dwelling,
That thou didst not build,
And my warm hearth,
Whose cheerful glow
Fills thee with envy.
*
I know nothing shabbier
Under the sun than ye godlings!
Ye nourish mis'rably,
With sacrifices
And with prayer-breath,
Your poor Majesty,
And but for fools' hope
From children and beggars,
All of you would famish.
*
Back in my childhood,
I didn't know up from down,
And I cast erratic glances
Up yonder, as if yonder were
An ear to hear my lamentation,
A heart like mine,
One to take pity on the trampled.
*
Who helped me
Stand against the Titans' insolence?
Who rescued me from certain death,
From slavery?
Hast thou not done it all thyself, my
Sacred glowing heart?
Though glowing young and good,
Deceived, and thankful to
The sleeping ones up yonder?
*
I revere thee? What for?
When hast thou eased the afflictions
Of the oppresséd ones?
When hast thou silenced the tearful
Cries of the anguished ones?
Was I not once forged into manhood
By omnipotent Time
And by Fate everlasting,
Both my masters, and yours, too?
*
Thou wert deluded
To think I should hate this living,
To deserts flee--
Just because not all my youthful
Morning-dreams did blossom?
*
Here I sit, forming humans
In my own image,
It will be a race like me,
For suffering, weeping,
Enjoying and rejoicing, and
Pay thee no attention,
Like me!

 

[butters]

aha, prometheus! 15's got some cracking imagery -the contrast and turmoil of that night sky, man on the cusp, the new predator. and what's not to love about sweet roasting meat? i can see the slick white of bone lit up by the flame and the lightning's flash, the spark in his eye! cinematic stuff

 

[Tzara]

P.K. Page (#13)
who wrote this? i love it. seriously, seriously, love it.

nothing gets in the way of the deft imagery and impact on the senses. this one i wouldn't dream of changing, not one word.

tzara? angeline? grr, i need to know and lack patience. as a poem, best one so far imo. how far it fills the brief may be debatable, but her volume and quality of work must have influenced many people.

I like this poem a lot as well. It's based on a quite lovely glosa by Page that uses Rilke as its texte. My first thought was that, since Page was Canadian, it might be by Tess or Champie, but as Angie said about it being by me (which it isn't), it doesn't seem quite in the style of either of them. I could be wrong about that, though.

It sounds something like gm to me, but I'd guess it's probably by someone else. Who, though, I have no idea.

 

[pelegrino]

When Herc Battled That Jerk

Very fresh and much light shedding on well known but perhaps misrepresented facts up to now.

"That's what you get for mything with me!

Yes, Heracles had a speech impediment "

Those two lines nearly choked me.

I'm not quite sure but I can see Magnetron everywhere in this one.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

Some miscellaneous notes: I received a PM from the author of "Radium Girls," offering this clarification: "the title Radium Girls was a reference to the women who pioneered nuclear research like Marie Curie (and her daughter Irene, Lise Meitner, etc), as well as the actual radium girls and all of the women who fell victim to that same science (i.e. Hiroshima)."

I like the fact that the "Prometheus" poem celebrates the emergence of man as a species distinct from the animal kingdom, by his use of fire (although the poem presents it somewhat more primally than that.) What I miss, though, is the political implication of the Prometheus myth -- Prometheus taking the side of the common man against the aristocracy of the gods, and being willing to endure perpetual torture just for the pleasure of defying Zeus. He's my kinda guy.