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King James Bible Published

May2

King James I of England established a committee of scholars to produce a new translation of the Bible in English. The Authorized or King James version of the Bible was published on May 2, 1611. The poetry of the KJV has yet to be equalled in any other English translation, IMHO. The Psalms especially are a masterpiece of poetic translation.

1 The earth is the LORD’s, and the fulness thereof;
the world, and they that dwell therein.
2 For he hath founded it upon the seas,
and established it upon the floods.
3 Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD?
Or who shall stand in his holy place?
4 He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart;
who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.
5 He shall receive the blessing from the LORD,
and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
6 This is the generation of them that seek him,
that seek thy face, O Jacob. Selah.
7 Lift up your heads, O ye gates;
and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.
8 Who is this King of glory?
The LORD strong and mighty,
the LORD mighty in battle.
9 Lift up your heads, O ye gates;
even lift them up, ye everlasting doors;
and the King of glory shall come in.
10 Who is this King of glory?
The LORD of hosts,
he is the King of glory.

Wht ringing phrases! I read the NIV most of the time, but there is a a sound and a comfort and an earthiness to the KJV that isn’t in the more prosaic modern translations.

Mother Goose Day

May1

Hear What Ma’am Goose Says!

“My dear little blossoms, there are now in this world, and always will be, a great many grannies besides myself, both in petticoats and pantaloons, some a deal younger to be sure; but all monstrous wise, and of my own family name. These old women, who never had a chick nor child of their own, but who always know how to bring up other people’s children, will tell you with very long faces, that my enchanting, quieting, soothing volume, my all-sufficient anodyne for cross, peevish, won’t-be-comforted little bairns, ought to be laid aside for more learned books, such as they could select and publish. Fudge! I tell you that all their banterings can’t deface my beauties, nor their wise pratings equal my wiser prattlings; and all imitators of my refreshing songs might as well write a new Billy Shakespeare as another Mother Goose; we two great poets were born together, and we shall go out of the world together. No, no, my Melodies will never die, While nurses sing or babies cry. “– From the preface to The Only True Mother Goose Melodies (1843)

And you thought we were through with poetry for a while. My favorite nursery rhyme is one that Organizer Daughter altered when she was little:

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and taco shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.

The Mary in the rhyme was either Mary, Queen of Scots or Bloody Mary (Elizabeth I’s half-sister) or Mary Magdalene. And the silver bells and cockle shells are either decorations on a dress or instruments of torture. The pretty maids? Mary’s ladies in waiting or the guillotine. Take your pick. Admit it. Don’t you like our version better than the original? Taco shells are so harmless, and they have no hidden meaning as far as I know.

For more information on how to celebrate Mother Goose Day, go to the Mother Goose Society website.

The Poet’s Advantage

Apr30

The poet may say or sing, not as things were, but as they ought to have been; but the historian must pen them, not as they ought to have been, but as they really were. — Cervantes

Since when did Cervantes stick to penning things “as they really were”? Or did he consider Don Quixote to be one very long poem?
Engineer Husband and I must get back to reading Don Quixote or else we’ll never get through it by the time we leave this reality to enter into things as they ought to have been. I hope you’ve enjoyed this month of poetry at Semicolon, and tomorrow we return to our regularly scheduled programming, with a poem or two thrown in at irregular intervals. Last call: what is your favorite poem or favorite poet? If you haven’t answered this question already, now is the time.

Arbor Day–April 29th

Apr29

Plant a Tree by Lucy Larcom

He who plants a tree
Plants a hope.
Rootlets up through fibres blindly grope;
Leaves unfold into horizons free.
So man’s life must climb
From the clods of time
Unto heavens sublime.
Canst thou prophesy, thou little tree,
What the glory of thy boughs shall be?

The poet goes on to say that you also plant joy, peace, youth, and love when you plant a tree. You can read the entire poem by clicking on the title above. Those seem like five good reasons to plant a tree on this Arbor Day. Unfortunately, my yard is full of trees, mostly pine trees, and I don’t think I have a place to plant a tree. Maybe I’ll plant a flower or two instead.
Arbor Day is celebrated in most states the first Friday in April.

Creating Silences

Apr28

It is the job of poetry to clean up our word-clogged reality by creating silences around things.
–Stephen Mallarme

I’ve had fun this month quoting people who made fun of modern poetry and commending to you the virtues of plain, understandable rhyming, rymthmic verse. And I must admit that when I first encountered T. S. Eliot in college, I was totally baffled. I wanted The Wasteland to read like a story, a narrative. I wanted it to make sense, logical ordered sense, and when it didn’t, I was ready to abandon Eliot and go back to—well, anything that could be explained in English.
Then, a friend who loved Eliot’s poetry explained something to me. She said it wasn’t a story as much as a series of images strung together. She said to enjoy and appreciate the images that I could identify and leave the rest for another time. So that’s what I did–and what I still do with modern poetry much of the time. And I’ve found some great fragments of poetry that way–although I still couldn’t explain to you what some them mean or why they are meaningful to me.

From Eliot’s The Hollow Men:

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but with a whimper.

Now I call that creating silences around things!

Two Fools: The Poetry of Love

Apr26

I am two fools, I know,
For loving, and for saying so,
In whining Poetry. –John Donne

The Bait
by John Donne

Come live with me and be my love
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands and crystal brooks,
With silken lines and silver hooks.

There will the river- whispering run
Warmed by thy eyes more than the sun
And there th’ enamoured fish will stay,
Begging themselves they may betray.

When thou wilt swim in that live bath,
Each fish, which every channel hath,
Will amorously to thee swim,
Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.

If thou, to be so seen, be’st loth,
By sun or moon, thou darken’st both
And if myself have leave to see,
I need not their light, having thee.

Let others freeze with angling reeds,
And cut their legs with shells and weeds
Or treacherously poor fish beset,
With strangling snare or windowy net.

Let coarse bold hands from slimy nest
The bedded fish in banks out-wrest;
Or curious traitors, sleave-silk flies,
Bewitch poor fishes’ wand’ring eyes.

For thee, thou need’st no such deceit,
For thou thyself art thine own bait:
That fish, that is not catch’d thereby,
Alas, is wiser far than I.

Ah, yes, compare your beloved to superior fish bait. That’ll capture her heart.

So Cold No Fire Can Ever Warm Me

Apr25

If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know about it. Is there any other way?–Emily Dickinson

Miss Dickinson deserves her reputation as one of America’s greatest poets. Her somewhat eccentric life makes her poetry even more interesting, but it could stand alone without the added controversies of her mysterious reclusiveness and her perhaps non-existent love life. So here’s Emily’s blog entry for the day:

The only news I know
Is bulletins all day
From Immortality.

The only shows I see,
Tomorrow and Today,
Perchance Eternity.

The only One I meet
Is God, -the only street,
Existance; this traversed

If other news there be,
Or admirabler show –
I’ll tell it you.

Better to Have Loved and Lost

Apr24

The Great Minimum by G.K. Chesterton

It is something to have wept as we have wept,
It is something to have done as we have done,
It is something to have watched when all men slept,
And seen the stars which never see the sun.

It is something to have smelt the mystic rose,
Although it break and leave the thorny rods,
It is something to have hungered once as those
Must hunger who have ate the bread of gods.

To have seen you and your unforgotten face,
Brave as a blast of trumpets for the fray,
Pure as white lilies in a watery space,
It were something, though you went from me today.

To have known the things that from the weak are furled,
Perilous ancient passions, strange and high;
It is something to be wiser than the world,
It is something to be older than the sky.

In a time of sceptic moths and cynic rusts,
And fatted lives that of their sweetness tire,
In a world of flying loves and fading lusts,
It is something to be sure of a desire.

Lo, blessed are our ears for they have heard;
Yea, blessed are our eyes for they have seen:
Let thunder break on man and beast and bird
And the lightning. It is something to have been.

Shakespeare + Poetry = Sonnets

Apr23

Happy Birthday, William Shakspeare or Shakesper or Shakespeare !

Sonnet: poem of 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter, restricted to a definite rhyme scheme. There are two prominent types: the Italian, or Petrarchan, sonnet, composed of an octave and a sestet (rhyming abbaabba cdecde), and the Elizabethan, or Shakespearean, sonnet, consisting of three quatrains and a couplet (rhyming abab cdcd efef gg). Variations of these schemes occur, notably the Spenserian sonnet, after Edmund Spenser (rhyming abab bcbc cdcd ee).

My favorite Shakespearean sonnet (because I have an odd sense of humor):

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

My favorite set of lines memorized from a Shakespeare play (for membership in the 600 Club):

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Lee Bennett Hopkins and Poetry for Children

Apr22

Don’t dissect poetry, enjoy it every day! There shouldn’t be a day without poetry – it fits into every area of the curriculum, every area of life. It’s very important. –Lee Bennett Hopkins


Lee Bennett Hopkins, collector of poems, teacher, anthologist, poetry promoter, has written and published over 50 books, mostly books of poetry for children. He’s collected books of Christmas poems, Thanksgiving poems, Halloween poems, and Valentine poems. He’s published short anthologies of baseball poems, animal poems, weather poems, school poems, space poems, and poems about famous Americans. And I missed his birthday on April 13th.

And these are my favorite classic poetry books for children:

I Can’t Said the Ant by Polly Cameron
Hailstones and Halibut Bones by Mary O’Neill
If Wishes Were Horses and Other Rhymes illustrated by Susan Jeffers (out of print)
Lavender’s Blue: A Book of Nursery Rhymes compiled by Kathleen Lines
The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown
Over in the Meadow illustrated by John Langstaff

I also recommend Mr. Hopkins’ subject anthologies. Find a subject that interests you or your children, and Lee Bennett Hopkins has probably edited a book of poems on that subject.