In the past, I have posted about double dactyls here and here. In 1966, or 1967, When Hecht and Hollander published their book of Double Dactyls, Esquire magazine held a competition where readers could submit their own double dactyls.   I wrote the three that follow, but I didn't have the courage to submit them. Jiggery-Pokery!…

Not long ago, I posted about the influence that poetic form has on the effect of a poem.   At that time I said that I intended to do further experiments with translation of a poem from one form to another.   Here is my next attempt. The starting point is a light verse I posted almost…

I have written about my approach to translation from one language to another here.  Recently, it occurred to me that recasting a poem from one form to another in the same language is also a form of  translation. Let me illustrate. In April of this year, I posted my translation of the introduction to Baudelaire's…

My late wife used to describe me as a combination of a poet and an engineer.   She was right.  Sometimes, for me, the sense of having created art is the primary motivation; and sometimes, the process of writing a poem has its own rewards; its own satisfactions; its own frustrations. For example, I imagined the…

It occurred to me that although I have posted a sample illustration from my book of verse for children, A is for Arnyx, I haven't posted any examples of the verses themselves.   Here are three of them,   The first, The Arnyx,  was also the first to be written.  I made up the name "Arnyx" and…

The following variation was written a few years later than the Variations I describe  here.   The theme it varies is from the "To the Reader" introduction to Les Fleurs du Mal, or rather from my translation of "To the Reader,"  which I may share at some point.   It’s true, my friend, you have free…

In 1969, I was working for System Development Corporation in Santa Monica, in the job I wound up in after I was almost sent to Vietnam.   (I'll write about that and about the complicated mix on anti-war revulsion and sense of duty that I felt at the time in conjunction with a forthcoming poem).  1969…

Here I go again.   I said here that I didn't write songs, and yet here is yet another verse turned into a song, this one from the early 70's. Intro: My mother made me take you out She said that you were very sad, Because your mother and your dad Had perished in a roundabout.…

As I have indicated here , I grew up in a household that loved verse.   My mother was an actress, who appreciated recitations.   My father was a college professor turned rocket scientist who loved to recite.   I grew up with W S Gilbert, and Lewis Carroll and Ogden Nash.   In those days,…

I've been struggling lately to write the introductions to a set of more serious poems.  I'll get there, but meanwhile, a brief excursion.  President Obama has been showing a hint of passion lately, but for most of his two terms in office, the following clerihew applied: Barack Obama Avoided drama. When Republicans began to whine,…