Edward Lear B. London 1812-1888 was a poet artist and illustrator. He is well known for his humorous nonsensical writing and especially for his Limericks.
The Owl and the Pussycat 1871 illustration by Edward Lear Here
Perhaps his most famous poem is The Owl and the Pussycat (A Book of Nonsense. Lear started his working life as an artist and illustrator and in 1832 he worked for the London Zoological society, providing illustrations of birds. He drew and painted throughout his career. He wrote travel books as well as publishing his poetry. His poems and Limericks are irreverent and poke fun at life, people and even at himself.
To commemorate the birthday of poet Edward Lear, I thought I’d make a contribution.Feel free to add your own Limerick in the comments and link to me. I’ll publish publishable ones including your own link.
I wrote this short poem years ago for a poetry competition I was running on here. It seems appropriate to republish it today because it is the birthday of the artist American Regionalist Grant Wood (1891-1942).
Here are the other posts that I wrote about him and the Regionalists over on my other blog Echostains
‘It’s American Regionalist artist Grant Wood’s birthday today. As I have already celebrated this artist’s birthday (see this post) and wrote about him at some length, I thought it might be interesting to look at more of the artist’s most famous work – American Gothic.
Grant Wood was born on this day in Anamosa Iowa USA (1891 – 1942) and is famous for painting the American Midwest, along with fellow Regionalist artists Thomas Hart Benton (see this post) and John Steuart Currie….’ here
“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will.” Charlotte Brontë ‘Jane Eyre’ 1847
On this day in 1855, a tiny diminutive woman writer died. She was mourned then, as she is now. Her books have been read, re read, scrutinised, debated, made into films – and even other books. Photo’s of the author are sparse, many have been dismissed, some unproven and still a topic of much debate. Such is the interest, the hunger and the yearning to know more about the elusive Charlotte Brontë and her life.
The story of the Bronte’s is legendary (see links below). The family moved from Thornton, Yorkshire to the tiny village of Haworth in West Riding, Yorkshire 1820. This small village has become enshrined forever with the Brontë story and is now a place of pilgrimage for Brontë fans from all over the world. The story of Charlotte, her father, Reverend Patrick Brontë 1777-1861 (an Irish Anglican minister) and her siblings, Emily B. 1818 -1848, Patrick (Branwell) b. 1817-1848, and Anne b. 1820-1849 is known worldwide. All of the family were talented poets, and writers. They all died young, except Rev Patrick Brontë, who lived until he was 84. Charlotte was the last of her siblings to die. She enjoyed recognition as an author, in her own lifetime. She married Rev Arthur Bell Nichols (married 29 June 1854) and enjoyed a few happy months of marriage until it was cruelly cut short by her untimely death on this day in 1855.
Charlotte, the story teller, whose own story, trials, tribulations in the Victorian literary world, mostly dominated by men is a triumph to women writers, catapulting her from obscurity into the bright lights of London. She stays unchanged, and remains at heart, a dutiful daughter and eventually, a loving wife.
Charlotte Bronte’s death is a poignant tragic story. A marriage cut short by illness. She was pregnant when she passed. She died of Hyperemesis Gravidarum , a pregnancy complication which causes severe vomiting and nausea. Thus making her husband’s loss even more devastating. Her last words to him before she died were:-
Speaking to her husband on her death bed, Charlotte’s final words were: “Oh I am not going to die am I? He will not separate us, we have been so happy.
Charlotte Bronte’s star still shines, the flame of her genius shall never be extinguished. It burns still, ever brighter in her treasured literature.
Jane Eyre 1847
Shirley 1849
Villette 1853
The Professor 1857
Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell (The Brontë sisters) 1846
Much has been written in great depth about the Bronte’s. For well researched analysis
Phyllis McGinley Born today Onterio Oregon (1905 – 1978) Oregon USA was an American author of children’s books and poetry. She specialised in humourous light verse and satire, celebrating suburban life.
McGinley’s father died when she was 12 and the family moved to Utah, where they lived with a widowed aunt. McGinley attended University of Southern California and the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, graduating in 1927.
She moved to New York in 1929. She sold poetry and worked at numerous jobs, including being a staff writer for Town and Country magazine. She met her husband Charles L. Hayden in 1934. He worked for the Bell Telephone company in the day and at night, played piano in a jazz band.
They married in 1937 and moved to suburban Larchmont in New York. In around 1956 McGinley published a rhyming children’s story called ‘A year without Christmas ‘. This appeared in Good Housekeeping magazine and a year later published as a book. The actor Boris Karloff narrated it on an LP of Christmas songs in 1968.
McGinley loved her role as housewife, in an age when women were veering away from domesticity, she celebrated it. Her poems, humourous and confessional were mostly ignored by her feminist contemporaries.
She received many honours in her life, including The Pulitzer Prize in 1961 for her book Times Three. Numerous honorary Doctor of Letters Degrees from many Universities and she was the first to be awarded the Poetry Prize for a collection of light verse. She explained her definition of light verse in The Writer Observed :-
“The appeal of light verse is to the intellect and the appeal of serious verse is to the emotions.”
I don’t necessarily agree with this. I have read a lot of weighty words that actually say nothing and vice versa.
This poem resonates with me. I no longer listen to the news as it triggers and frustrates me. But Daniel seems so far removed from it all and carries on with his breakfast, he even reaches for the butter whilst reading about famine. He goes to work vaguely depressed about his coffee. But life goes on
Daniel at Breakfast
his paper propped against the electric toaster (nicely adjusted to his morning use), Daniel at breakfast studies world disaster and sips his orange juice. the words dismay him. headlines shrilly chatter of famine, storm, death, pestilence, decay. Daniel is gloomy, reaching for the butter. he shudders at the way war stalks the planet still, and men know hunger, go shelterless, betrayed, may perish soon. the coffee’s weak again. in sudden anger Daniel throws down his spoon and broods a moment on the kitchen faucet the plumber mended, but has mended ill; recalls tomorrow means a dental visit, laments the grocery bill. then having shifted from his human shoulder the universal woe, he drains his cup rebukes the weather (surely turning colder), crumples his napkin up and, kissing his wife abruptly at the door, stamps fiercely off to catch the 8:04
This is me! Much too gregarious and people pleasing for my own good? Or maybe I am cringe worthy conscious of those pregnant pauses and need to fill em🤔
Reflections at Dawn
I wish I owned a Dior dress Made to my order out of satin. I wish I weighed a little less And could read Latin. Had perfect pitch or matching pearls, A better head for street directions, And seven daughters, all with curls And fair complexions. I wish I’d tan instead of burn. But most, on all the stars that glisten, I wish at parties I could learn to sit and listen.
I wish I didn’t talk so much at parties. It isn’t that I want to hear My voice assaulting every ear, Uprising loud and firm and clear Above the cocktail clatter. It’s simply, once a doorbells’ rung, (I’ve been like this since I was young) Some madness overtake my tongue And I begin to chatter.
Buffet, ball, banquet, quilting bee, Wherever conversation’s flowing, Why must I feel it falls on me To keep things going? Though ladies cleverer than I Can loll in silence, soft and idle, Whatever topic gallops by, I seize its bridle, Hold forth on art, dissect the stage, Or babble like a kindergart’ner Of politics till I enrage My dinner partner.
I wish I did’nt talk so much at parties. When hotly boil the arguments, Ah? would I had the common sense To sit demurely on a fence And let who will be vocal, Instead of plunging in the fray With my opinions on display Till all the gentlemen edge away To catch an early local
Oh! there is many a likely boon That fate might flip me from her griddle. I wish that I could sleep till noon And play the fiddle, Or dance a tour jete’ so light It would not shake a single straw down. But when I ponder how last night I laid the law down. More than to have the Midas touch Or critics’ praise, however hearty, I wish I didn’t talk so much, I wish I didn’t talk so much, I wish I didn’t talk so much, When I am at a party.
I just like the nostalgia of all this, the creepers, the season and the comfort of the mundane, predictable and reassuring. The contrast between then and now is 😳
The 5.32
She said, If tomorrow my world were torn in two, Blacked out, dissolved, I think I would remember (As if transfixed in unsurrendering amber) This hour best of all the hours I knew: When cars came backing into the shabby station, Children scuffing the seats, and the women driving With ribbons around their hair, and the trains arriving, And the men getting off with tired but practiced motion.
Yes, I would remember my life like this, she said: Autumn, the platform red with Virginia creeper, And a man coming toward me, smiling, the evening paper Under his arm, and his hat pushed back on his head; And wood smoke lying like haze on the quiet town, And dinner waiting, and the sun not yet gone down.
I love this poem (and Maya Angelou). The bird imprisoned in his cage, beats his wings against the bars of his cruel confinement. But his song carries and is heard by other birds who also long for freedom – and he invites them to join him until their song is heard. This poem is about longing for freedom of self, of self expression and of Civil Rights. It is a powerful message.
This poem was written in 1969 and is also the title of Maya Angelou’s autobiography about her early years aged 3 – 16. ‘I know why the caged bird sings is the first of a seven volume series. These books chart some of her childhood and life. There is no embroidery, she speaks straight from the heart. Her life story is an inspiration to all that fight for their rights to be recognised. Her books are about her personal life, travel and racism. Many awards and honours have been bestowed upon her. Links to her interesting life below.
Maya Angelou b.1928-2014 Missouri U.S. acclaimed poet, writer, memoirist and Civil Right activator.
‘I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings’
by Maya Angelou
A free bird leaps on the back
Of the wind and floats downstream
Till the current ends and dips his wing
In the orange suns rays
And dares to claim the skyBut a BIRD that stalks down his narrow cage
Can seldom see through his bars of rage
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
Of things unknown but longed for still
And his tune is heard on the distant hill for
The caged bird sings of freedom.
The free bird thinks of another breeze
And the trade winds soft through
The sighing trees
And the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright
Lawn and he names the sky his own.
But a caged BIRD stands on the grave of dreams
His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings with
A fearful trill of things unknown
But longed for still and his
Tune is heard on the distant hill
For the caged bird sings of freedom.
Romanic poet Ina Donna Coolbrith b.1841-1941 Illinois,was the first female Poet Laureate of California 1915-1928. Her subject matter focused on nature, love and losses – Californian Romanticism.
Coolbrith was an advocate of women’s rights, lending her voice to their cause and to social justice. She was a prominent figure on the Californian cultural scene and her poems of nature and the Californian landscape give her affinity to other romantic poets like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
This joyful and exuberant poem was written and to me, just wafts the sweet air of Spring. The poem is full of light, renewal, hope and Featherlight freedom❤️
Meadowlarks
Sweet, sweet, sweet! O happy that I am! (Listen to the meadow-larks, across the fields that sing!) Sweet, sweet, sweet! O subtle breath of balm. O winds that blow, O buds that grow, O rapture of the Spring!
Sweet, sweet, sweet! Who prates of care and pain? Who says that life is sorrowful? O life so glad, so fleet! Ah! he who lives the noblest life finds life the noblest gain. The tears of pain a tender rain to make its waters sweet.
Sweet, sweet, sweet! O happy world that is! Dear heart, I hear across the fields my mateling pipe and call. Sweet, sweet, sweet! O world so full of bliss— For life is love, the world is love, and love is over all.
I was looking at a meme about the idea that we are ghosts inside a meat coated skeleton, made from stardust, riding a rock whilst hurtling through space, and I thought ‘there’s a poem in there somewhere’ 🤔 So here it is.
I see a bit of sunshine and at once my spirits are uplifted and borne away on a sunlit day, so artfully. Let’s hope there’s more of it around the corner. I was reminded of this poem I wrote, so I’ve revisited it.
Elizabeth Bennet turning down Mr Darcy’s proposal of marriage in an unladylike manner
‘From the very beginning—from the first moment, I may almost say—of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish distain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of the disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world on whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.”
Where? Chapter 34 Pride and Prejudice First proposal was at Hunsford Parsonage when Darcy was visiting his aunt at Rosings Park.
Why? A misjudgement of character and a propensity to misunderstand? A judgement administered at Elizabeth by Mr Darcy
How? Maybe Darcy has been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair offine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow or love works in mysterious ways….