Poetry Friday: Calef Brown's Crazy and Brilliant Wordplay

I have only two things to say about Hypnotize a Tiger: Poems About Just About Everything: 

1. Calef Brown is a genius with wordplay, in the tradition of Lewis Carroll. 

2. If you've liked Brown's previous books, you'll love this one:
(138 pages of nonsense!)

Here are three samples:

JURASSIC BBQ

Giant prehistoric critters
once used volcanic craters
to cook gigantic fritters
and titanic taters.
This was disrupted
by massive eruptions,
resulting in fossilized critter matter
embedded in petrified fritter batter.

***

SIR PARROT 

I handed Sir Parrot 

a packet of suet. 

He started to chew it

but just couldn't do it. 

Instead of the suet, 

I gave him some millet. 

He shuffled his feet 

and proceeded to spill it. 

Instead of the millet, 

I offered a pellet. 

He narrowed his eyes 

and would not even smell it. 

"This food," said Sir Parrot, 

"if that's what you call it,

is very unpleasant,

so open your wallet

and kindly provide me 

with ten dollars cash.

I'm off to the village

for bangers and mash." 

***

And here is my personal favorite
(a little ditty, pure nonsense, untitled, written in the margins of the book): 

Those that are gnome-schooled

are required to recite the Pledge of Wee-Gents,

sometimes at huge events.

***

What's not to love about a mind that can come up with
"the Pledge of Wee-Gents" when writing a poem about gnomes? 
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The Poetry Friday round-up is hosted this week by the wonderful Sylvia Vardell, recently returned from her trip to South Africa. Head over to her blog, Poetry for Children, to see what other people have posted. 

Poetry Friday: Gabriela Mistral

The Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral was the first South American to win the Nobel Prize (in 1945), and she remains the only South American woman to have done so. She was an educator, a social activist, a diplomat and a poet. She won the Chilean National Poetry Prize with her first book when she was just 25, but it's her second book - Ternura [Tenderness] - that I'm recommending for my poetry Friday post today. It contains some wonderful poems for children - familiar nursery rhyme rhythms, but slightly strange images - well, like our own English nursery rhymes, actually (don't look to nursery rhymes for sweetness and light!) 

Here are two of my favorite Mistral poems for children, translated by the wonderful Ursula LeGuin, who captures perfectly the rhythms and music of the originals.  Definitely check out Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral, translated by LeGuin - it contains many of the children's poems by Mistral (called lullabies, Tell-a-World poems, "Trickeries," and "round dances") as well as a good selection of her most famous poems for adults, and an introduction that explains LeGuin's approach to translating Mistral. Hope you enjoy these.

LA RATA

Una rata corrió a un venado
y los venados al jaguar,
y los jaguares a los búfalos,
y los búfalos a la mar…

Pillen, pillen a los que se van!
Pillen a la rata, pillen al venado,
pillen a los búfalos y a la mar!

Miren que la rata de la delantera

se lleva en las patas lana de bordar,
y con la lana bordo mi vestido
y con el vestido me voy a casar.

Suban y pasen la llanada,
corran sin aliento, sigan sin parar,
vuelan por la novia, y por el cortejo,
y por la carroza y el velo nupcial.

THE RAT

A rat ran after a deer,
deer ran after a jaguar,
jaguars chased buffalo,
and the buffalo chased the sea...

Catch the ones who chase and flee!
Catch the rat, catch the deer,
catch the buffalo and the sea!

Look, look at the rat in front,
in its paws is a woolen thread,
with that thread I sew my gown,
in that gown I will be wed.

Climb up and run, breathless run,
ceaseless chase across the plain
after the carriage, the flying veil,
after the bride and the bridal train!

Gabriela Mistral - First Communion

 

***

DAME LA MANO

                        A Tasso de Silveira

Dame la mano y danzaremos;
dame la mano y me amarás.
Como una sola flor seremos,
como una flor, y nada más.

El mismo verso cantaremos,
al mismo paso bailarás.
Como una espiga ondularemos,
como una espiga, y nada mas.

Te llamas Rosa y yo Esperanza;
pero tu nombre olvidarás,
porque seremos una danza
en la colina, y nada mas.

GIVE ME YOUR HAND

                       For Tasso de Silveira

Give me your hand and give me your love,
give me your hand and dance with me.
A single flower, and nothing more,

a single flower is all we’ll be.

Keeping time in the dance together,
singing the tune together with me,
grass in the wind, and nothing more,
grass in the wind is all we’ll be.

I’m called Hope and you’re called Rose;
but losing our names we’ll both go free,
a dance on the hills, and nothing more,
a dance on the hills is all we’ll be.

Gabriela Mistral 1889-1957

        You can read a wonderful essay about Gabriela Mistral at The Poetry Foundation website. 

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The Poetry Friday round-up this week is being hosted by Catherine at Reading to the Core. Head over there to see what other people have posted.

There Isn't Time...

The title of this children's poem by Eleanor Farjeon says it all.  I offer it up as a late (as usual) contribution to Poetry Friday:


There Isn't Time

There isn't time, there isn't time
To do the things I want to do,
With all the mountain-tops to climb,
And all the woods to wander through,
And all the seas to sail upon,
And everywhere there is to go,
And all the people, every one,
Who lives upon the earth, to know.
To know a few, and do a few,
And then sit down and make a rhyme
About the rest I want to do.

                    ---Eleanor Farjeon


[...the rest I want to do? Maybe read a few of those books in the stack by my nightstand. And get my garden back under control at the end of a brutally hot summer. And write a few poems....and, yes, wander in those woods Farjeon mentions...and...and....]

The Poetry Friday round-up is being hosted today by Heidi over at My Juicy Little Universe. Head over there to see what other people have posted.