Sam Smith - Attended last night an enjoyable program in which three journalists discussed the many ways that art and literature impact our lives. Was particularly pleased to find the role of poetry in journalism making it into the discussion since it was a matter I had raised some years ago:
Sam Smith - For a brief time in the early Sixties I worked for Roll Call newspaper on Capitol Hill. The editor, Sid Yudain, gave me considerable leeway including letting me write occasional poems.
The most impressive one, lengthwise at least, was called A Representative Christmas List It was an ode containing the name of every member of the House of Representatives. The poem took a full page in Roll Call, with the print superimposed on a screened clip-art picture of Santa Claus. It committed such unpardonable offenses as rhyming bacchanal with the Chesapeake & Ohio Park Canal.
About 390 names into the poem, I ran short of ideas and copped out with "we might write a line that ran " and then listed most of the remaining names followed by "You see it's going to rhyme but will it scan?" Then I closed out with:
Forget about that, let's dance the flamenco
We made it from Abbott all the way to Zelenco
Only Christmas Day will tell
Whether Santa did as well.
I would continue to write columns and verse for Roll Call using a pseudonym throughout my time in the Coast Guard, and including this one:
I like to go down to the zoo
And there I sit and watch the gnu.
I've also noticed recently
the gnu has started watching me.
For hours we just share a stare
A happy unproductive pair
Economists we might impress
With our total uselessness.
Still it's the G-N-U for me.
Let others boost the GNP
1 comment:
Hopefully the government will learn that GNU's are more imoportant in keeping communities prosperous than GNP. Without healthy ecosystems the economy crashes. But we shall probably need to wait until the orange headed one takes his rightful place in the penitentary.
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