Post-Independence Day thoughts

Well, a bunch of folks (maybe some of you) grabbed copies of The Un-Realized YOU and By the People, for the People over the holiday weekend -- if you read, I hope you enjoyed! Me, I've been thinking about poetry; in particular that uniquely English-language strain of poetry known as nonsense poetry (although quite often it is nothing of the kind). Two poems keep running through my mind as both marvelous examples of the genre, but also as truly great poems --- for their sense of spirit, their mood, and their overall structural and thematic integrity.

The first is, to my thinking, one of the great English poems of the last 200 years: The Hunting Of The Snark by Lewis Carroll. If you've never read it, you should. And if you can get your hands on The Annotated Snark with the marvelous explanatory commentary by Martin Gardner, do so!

The second poem is more nonsensical, but also more moving in a moody, subconscious way: the Jumblies (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/...) by Edward Lear. This is simple rhymes that verge on a trail to nightmare land, tinged with humor and sorrow. Read it aloud to someone you love. (or for a metatextual cross-referencing experience, go find the Paul Bowles collection which took its name from the poem's refrain, Their Heads are Green and Their Hands are Blue: Scenes from the Non-Christian World by Paul Bowles).

Happy page-turning!