Poetry Nook

A poem by Longfellow retelling Marco Polo's story of the destruction of the Caliph in Baghdad by Alau, better known as Hulagu Khan, grandson of Chinggis Khan. His brother was Kubla Khan who did "a stately pleasure-dome decree" in another pretty good poem.

"I said to the Kalif: 'Thou art old,
Thou hast no need of so much gold.
Thou shouldst not have heaped and hidden it here,
Till the breath of Battle was hot and near,
But have sown through the land these useless hoards
To spring into shining blades of swords,
And keep thine honour sweet and clear.
* * * * *
Then into his dungeon I locked the drone,
And left him to feed there all alone
In the honey-cells of his golden hive:
Never a prayer, nor a cry, nor a groan
Was heard from those massive walls of stone,
Nor again was the Kalif seen alive.'
This is the story, strange and true,
That the great Captain Alau
Told to his brother, the Tartar Khan,
When he rode that day into Cambalu.
By the road that leadeth to Ispahan."

The Poetry Nook

[I am clearing out files on my little NEO. I don't think I have posted this before, but if I have, forgive me.]

Berryman
by W. S. Merwin

I had hardly begun to read
I asked how can you ever be sure
that what you write is really
any good at all and he said you can't

you can't you can never be sure
you die without knowing
whether anything you wrote was any good
if you have to be sure don't write

This morning, while I was having my coffee and cereal, I idly picked up a book of poetry Carmen was reading. Good Poems for Hard Times. Opened it up to a poem called "Minnesota Thanksgiving" by John Berryman. I read it because it had "Minnesota" in it.

.

The Poetry Nook

In researching that last post I came across an article about salads, where the writer warned against provoking a "leptin-resistance cascade". This inspired Valerie, a reader, to create this little poem.

“Leptin-resistance cascade?”
It sounds fun … like a parade.
A gay cavalcade
Or a waltz in a glade
Or a sip of some pink lemonade -

While the traffic is stayed
Rousing airs could be played
And promises made
Cost-benefit weighed
If “pro-leptites” could only be swayed.

Oxymoron?

Paging through an old New York Review of Books this afternoon, listening to Ennio Morricone music, I find an ad for a book that sounds almost an impossible concept: Hitler's War Poets.

Is it even possible for such a regime to have real poets?

Probably, I am afraid. But I wouldn't be the one to judge.

the book cover has a portrait of an intellectual looking man, sensitive face and glasses, wearing the uniform of the Death's Head division of the SS. Oh well. Ars longa.

Poetry Monday

Not because it is Monday or because I simply love poetry but because I stumbled across it on Andrew Sullivan's page and it struck a chord. A poem by Emily Dickinson (one of the chief virtues of Sexual Personae was that it made me want to read Dickinson).

I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there ’s a pair of us — don’t tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

Leonhard Euler - or, I'll read the damndest things

Now I know next to nothing about math. Almost flunked basic math as a freshman. But I found this interesting post on Jack's Cantànima blog about the famous mathematician Leonhard Euler.
I of course had no idea who the guy was but read the post anyway. As far as I know I had never heard the name Euler in my life.

And then today on NRO's The Corner I discovered two limericks by John Derbyshire designed to help you learn how to pronounce his name (Derbyshire, btw, seems to be pronounced Darb-a-sher).


Shame to Waste a Rhyme

Leonhard Euler
Could never resist a spoiler.
If you tried to work out e^(pi*i)+1
He'd yell: "It's zero! Ja!—ruined your fun!


Further Pronunciation Advice

That math whiz Euler (Leonhard)
Had a great mind, but a peon heart.
His life was spare and frugal,
His sex life strictly conjugal.

So this is what math nuts do for fun. Maybe I should start doing some silly poems about historical events. I once had some students come into my office at Hamline University and do a rap bio of Augustus Caesar. And I like songs with historical lyrics.