A Poem A Day

[essayfaire]

I'm re-posting my World Poetry Day stuff here.  It got ignored in the amateur poets thread.  Apologies if you've already seen it.

 

[inkstainedruth]

@Mercian -- Okay, now the image is showing.  And yeah, that looks like a Vector. I've got a four nib unit Vector calligraphy set, but have never tried anything beyond the IF nib.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

ETA: Could have been worse.  Yesterday I was trying to look up how to get someplace and had to contact one of the people running the event, because the street address didn't match the described location (a college's "Convocation Center") on Google Maps (telling her that it won't be the FIRST time Google has gotten something WRONG).  And the woman sent me back a map of the campus, with specific directions on how to get there (apparently the main road across campus in "authorized vehicles only).  She then posted the campus map and written directions onto a mailing list (hoping that she had managed to actually get the map part to load in the message -- which she fortunately had).

 

[Mercian]

Ok, so this is technically a song, rather than a poem per se, but I likes it!

 

 

It is ‘The Cold Song’ from Henry Purcell’s ‘semi-opera’ King Arthur, or The British Worthy.

The music is by Purcell, the words were written by the former Poet Laureate John Dryden.

 

The rushed scrawl was done, impatiently, with a rotring ArtPen that has a 1.5mm nib;

the paper is a sheet from a WH Smith A4 wide-ruled (8mm) refill pad of 70gsm paper;
the ink is from a cartridge of Waterman ‘Florida Blue’.

For some years now this ink has been sold as ‘Serenity Blue’. But I bought my cartridges back when it was still ‘Florida Blue’ 😁
My bottle of it is ‘Serenity Blue’, and the ink is still the same.

[essayfaire]

@MercianI seem to remember some big literature prize going to a songwriter....

[inkstainedruth]

True -- Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature a couple of years ago.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Mercian]

Are all y’all happy for me to put more song lyrics in this thread?

Or ought I start a new one for those?

 

I ask this because, while I do like some songs that have cheerful/funny lyrics, most of the poems that I know/like are downright flippin’ depressing!

😁

[essayfaire]

1 hour ago, Mercian said:

Are all y’all happy for me to put more song lyrics in this thread?

Or ought I start a new one for those?

 

I ask this because, while I do like some songs that have cheerful/funny lyrics, most of the poems that I know/like are downright flippin’ depressing!

😁

I'm fine with it, but then I like some pretty depressing songs!

[txomsy]

Yeah, from my point of view, it is great to see this thread go on.

[Mercian]

Thank you both 😊

 

For today though, I have another actual poem:

 

This is Lewis Carroll’s famous piece of ‘nonsense verse’ Jabberwocky.

 

 

Carroll invented many of the ‘nonsense’ words in this poem, but a couple of them have actually ’gimbled’* their way in to the English language 😁

The paper is a piece of uncoated A4 paper from a narrow-ruled (6mm line-separation) pad that I bought for a course back in 1997. No mass per m² is marked.

The ink is Pilot ‘Blue/Black’, from a cartridge.

The pen is my recently-acquired Pilot Metropolitan, fitted with a stubby ‘CM’ nib.

 

I really like this nib; it is narrow enough that I can write comfortably with it, and it is delightfully smooth (when held at the correct angle).

That said, I do think that the pen’s feed needs to be slightly ‘wetter’ in order to allow this nib to really ‘shine’.

 

But then, when thinking about writing, I do usually enjoy myself better when it’s wetter, so maybe that observation is only accurate for me?

 

Slàinte,

M.

 

* admittedly, that particular one has not. Yet… 😉

[Mercian]

‘The Tiger’, by William Blake.

Because Stripy Cat is ♥️ 😊

 

Also because this famous poem is immediately striking and also rewards deeper, more-contemplative reading.

 

 

Blake engraved this poem more than once, and different copies contain varying punctuation.

I have retained some elements of Blake’s 18th-century punctuation, but have updated the spelling of the name of the eponymous stripy cat (from “Tyger” to ‘Tiger’), updated the spelling of some other words, and have replaced Blake’s “sieze” with the currently-accepted spelling ‘seize’.

 

I wanted to end the final line of this poem with an ‘interrobang’ - a relatively-new punctuation mark that is a combination of a question mark with an exclamation mark - but I find it very difficult to draw one without it looking like a badly-botched attempt at a ‘P’ 😞
I also note that the iPad on which I am typing this cannot produce one ☹️

Unlike e.g. my ‘Android’ phone, which does enable one to type an interrobang (when long-pressing the ‘?’ on its ‘virtual keyboard’).

Harrumph!

 

Paper: an A4 sheet of wide-lined (8mm line separation) 70gsm paper from a ‘WH Smith’ brand refill pad.

Pen: Pilot Metropolitan with ‘CM’ nib.

Ink: Pilot ‘Blue/Black’ from a cartridge.

[Mercian]

This poem is by Roger McGough.

The poet actually visited my school when I was about ten or eleven years old (maybe twelve?). We were all gathered for a special Assembly, and he read some of his poems to us.

 

Anyway, here is his poem ‘Comeclose and Sleepnow’:

 

 

The paper on which I scrawled this is an A4 sheet of wide-ruled (8mm) 70gsm paper from a ‘WH Smith’ refill pad;

The ink is Ecclesiastical Stationery Supplies Registrars’ Ink (aka ESSRI);

The pen is my 1960s English Parker Duofold Junior.
No width-grade is marked for its nib. I estimate it to be a ‘vintage’ ‘M’ - i.e. similar to a modern ‘F’.

 

The more that I use this pen with this ink, the more that I like it 😊

That said, I have not yet tried to clean it out. Attempting to do that may perhaps change my opinion.
I hope that it doesn’t 🤞

 

The shadow-casting lighting for this photograph was provided by a mysterious, yellow-coloured, shiny object that was visible in the sky over England today.
Our ancient tribal lore contains tales of this mysterious object, which gets referred-to as Ol’ Yellerface. It is both venerated and feared, in equal measure.

 

[yubaprof]

 

 

Very nice, Mercian, thank you for posting it. Also, you have nice writing, it is not a "scrawl."

[Mercian]

6 hours ago, yubaprof said:

 

 

Very nice, Mercian, thank you for posting it. Also, you have nice writing, it is not a "scrawl."

Thank you 🙂

[Mercian]

Well, after England spent three consecutive days(!) under the merciless glare of the Great Yellow Eye, today ‘normal service’ has been resumed. So…

 

 

Spike Milligan’s ‘Rain’ sometimes gets called ‘There are holes in the sky’, but this is the title under which he published it.

 

 

When zoomed-in this close, one can really see the flaws in my attempt at writing in a ’serif typeface’. Apart from the shakiness - which will, I hope, decrease as my speed increases with practice - I am particularly conscious of the difficulty that I have with the letter ‘a’.
I probably ought to increase the size of my writing, and attempt to write the letter as the glyph that appears in this typeface - ‘a’ -rather than as the single loop with a vertical line forming its right side that I was taught in Primary School.

 

In my defence, your Honour, many a work that is still in-progress can look like nothing but an appalling mess 😉

In this case, it looks like one because it still is an appalling mess! 😁

 

Pen: 1960s Parker Duofold Junior ‘M’;

Ink: ESSRI;

Paper: a sheet of 70g/m² wide-ruled (8mm line separation) A4, taken from a WH Smith refill pad.

[Mercian]

Here are the lyrics to the song ‘London’, by 1980s Mancunian band The Smiths.

 

After I previously uploaded a copy of Mr. Blake’s poem ‘London’, I thought that this might provide an interesting contrast, as it is slightly more optimistic about ‘the Great Wen’ than is his poem.

 

Although ok, yeah, it does still contains themes of the destruction of family-ties and the slew of toxic emotions that our capital city notoriously prompts 😁

Ink: Pelikan Edelstein Sapphire;

Pen: Pelikan Souverän M805;

Paper: an A4 sheet of 70gsm wide-ruled (8mm) paper from a WH Smith refill pad.

[Mercian]

Now another one by Spike Milligan:

 

 

This is another poem from his book Silly Verse for Kids.

I have omitted its ‘P.S.’, because I think that it detracts from the work’s pleasingly-pithy poetic gestalt. 

 

On a personal note, I need to practice my ‘serif handwriting’ more, not only to be able to incorporate the serifs less-awkwardly, but especially so that I write with e.g. uniform letter heights.

And I definitely need to work on my ‘a’ 🙄

 

Ink: Pilot Blue/Black;

Pen: Pilot Metropolitan, ‘CM’ nib;

Paper: a sheet of Rhodia 80g/m² ‘High Grade Vellum’, taken from a N^o. 13 bloc pad.

[Mercian]

Ok, here’s another one; Achetez mes soupirs, by Alain Bosquet.

 

First, here it is in the original French:

 

 

And now, here it is in my amateurish ‘translation’:

 

I have some tension in my shoulders today, and I scrawled this in an impatient rush, right after writing-out the original in French with my larger-&-heavier M800.

 

The tension and/or the hurry, coupled with the more-responsive pen with its narrower nib, have made the handwriting here really awful! 🫣

 

I perhaps ought to re-write it later, when I am less-scrunched-up, more patient, and able to take my time.
Or I may just leave this ugly mess here, as a demonstration of the perils of trying to write in an un-relaxed hurry 🤔

[Lithium466]

I like your translation.

[dftr]

On 4/5/2023 at 4:29 AM, Mercian said:

Well, after England spent three consecutive days(!) under the merciless glare of the Great Yellow Eye, today ‘normal service’ has been resumed. So…

 

 

Spike Milligan’s ‘Rain’ sometimes gets called ‘There are holes in the sky’, but this is the title under which he published it.

 

 

 

When zoomed-in this close, one can really see the flaws in my attempt at writing in a ’serif typeface’. Apart from the shakiness - which will, I hope, decrease as my speed increases with practice - I am particularly conscious of the difficulty that I have with the letter ‘a’.
I probably ought to increase the size of my writing, and attempt to write the letter as the glyph that appears in this typeface - ‘a’ -rather than as the single loop with a vertical line forming its right side that I was taught in Primary School.

 

In my defence, your Honour, many a work that is still in-progress can look like nothing but an appalling mess 😉

In this case, it looks like one because it still is an appalling mess! 😁

 

Pen: 1960s Parker Duofold Junior ‘M’;

Ink: ESSRI;

Paper: a sheet of 70g/m² wide-ruled (8mm line separation) A4, taken from a WH Smith refill pad.

 

Your slight imperfections in script are what give it character and set it apart from a machine/AI writing.  

I would not be concerned over this.  As for your 'a' it's very legible.  You may try different styles though to see 

if one appeals to you.  It can be tricky b/c what you do for 'a' may carry over to 'g' and 'd'

Subjectively, I like your script and the poems go well.