Garrison Keillor, American humorist, is still with us. While the Prairie Home Companion is no longer on our radio, he's written a memoir as well as The Lake Wobegon Virus where he takes us back to his small prairie town. You can read the first Chapter HERE.
And he writes every day: you can sign up for the daily Writer's Almanac HERE. It describes the Almanac as a uniquely calming combination of history and poetry.
Today's writing includes this quoted poem of the day by William Carlos Williams.
This is Just To Say
I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox
and which you were probably saving for breakfast.
Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold
Keillor references the parodies of this poem. The parodies began in the 1960s with Kenneth Koch’s “Variations on William Carlos Williams.” Here's the first as an example:
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting. . .
Over time, the poem became a high school exercise example and students wrote their own versions. It has been taken up by many people and Here is a New York Magazine article on the poem with examples of recent Twitter parodies.
Perhaps we could find the little poem in the Little Library in Grimsby Beach on Betts Ave.
Spike Milligan wrote a number of silly poems. His most famous poem, On the Ning Nang Nong, was voted the UK's favourite comic poem in 1998 in a nationwide poll, ahead of other nonsense poets including Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear. This nonsense verse, set to music, became a favourite Australia-wide, performed week after week by the ABC children's programme Playschool. Milligan included it on his album No One's Gonna Change Our World in 1969 to aid the World Wildlife Fund. In December 2007 it was reported that, according to OFSTED, it is amongst the ten most commonly taught poems in primary schools in the UK.
On the Ning Nang Nong On the Ning Nang Nong Where the Cows go Bong! and the monkeys all say BOO! There's a Nong Nang Ning Where the trees go Ping! And the tea pots jibber jabber joo. On the Nong Ning Nang All the mice go Clang And you just can't catch 'em when they do! So its Ning Nang Nong Cows go Bong! Nong Nang Ning Trees go ping Nong Ning Nang The mice go Clang What a noisy place to belong is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!!
A Silly Poem Said Hamlet to Ophelia, I'll draw a sketch of thee, What kind of pencil shall I use? 2B or not 2B?
The ABC 'Twas midnight in the schoolroom And every desk was shut When suddenly from the alphabet Was heard a loud "Tut-Tut!"
Said A to B, "I don't like C; His manners are a lack. For all I ever see of C Is a semi-circular back!"
"I disagree," said D to B, "I've never found C so. From where I stand he seems to be An uncompleted O."
C was vexed, "I'm much perplexed, You criticise my shape. I'm made like that, to help spell Cat And Cow and Cool and Cape."
"He's right" said E; said F, "Whoopee!" Said G, "'Ip, 'Ip, 'ooray!" "You're dropping me," roared H to G. "Don't do it please I pray."
"Out of my way," LL said to K. "I'll make poor I look ILL." To stop this stunt J stood in front, And presto! ILL was JILL.
"U know," said V, "that W Is twice the age of me. For as a Roman V is five I'm half as young as he."
X and Y yawned sleepily, "Look at the time!" they said. "Let's all get off to beddy byes." They did, then "Z-z-z."
