Category Archives: Poems, prose & song

Lou Reed’s Heroin

loureed

“Heroin”

I don’t know just where I’m going
But I’m goin’ to try for the kingdom if I can
‘Cause it makes me feel like I’m a man
When I put a spike into my vein
Then I tell you things aren’t quite the same

When I’m rushing on my run
And I feel just like Jesus’ son
And I guess I just don’t know
And I guess that I just don’t know

I have made big decision
I’m goin’ to try to nullify my life
‘Cause when the blood begins to flow
When it shoots up the dropper’s neck
When I’m closing in on death

You can’t help me not you guys
All you sweet girls with all your sweet talk
You can all go take a walk
And I guess I just don’t know
And I guess I just don’t know

I wish that I was born a thousand years ago
I wish that I’d sailed the darkened seas
On a great big clipper ship
Going from this land here to that
I put on a sailor’s suit and cap

Away from the big city
Where a man cannot be free
Of all the evils in this town
And of himself and those around
Oh, and I guess I just don’t know
Oh, and I guess I just don’t know

Heroin, be the death of me
Heroin, it’s my wife and it’s my life
Because a mainer to my vein
Leads to a center in my head
And then I’m better off than dead

When the smack begins to flow
Then I really don’t care anymore
About all the Jim-Jims in this town
And everybody putting everybody else down
And all of the politicians makin’ crazy sounds
All the dead bodies piled up in mounds, yeah

Wow, that heroin is in my blood
And the blood is in my head
Yeah, thank God that I’m good as dead
Ooohhh, thank your God that I’m not aware
And thank God that I just don’t care
And I guess I just don’t know
And I guess I just don’t know

— Lou Reed, March 2, 1942 – October 27, 2013

TGIF: That Gerund Is Funky (4 Oct)

tgif

Welcome to “TGIF: That Gerund Is Funky”, a new weekly feature on Glossophilia. Every Friday, you’ll find a digest of some of the week’s best offerings about language, literature, grammar, usage and abusage — on the web and on the wire. Some of it will make you laugh, some might make you cry. Some will be genuinely useful, a lot of it won’t, and there will be stuff you just won’t believe. Enjoy (it).

~~~~~~~

On Facebook, Grammarly posted some incorrect word definitions offered by creative and lateral-thinking students. One of my favorites is Adamant: “pertaining to original sin” …

The Guardian reassured us that there are 10 grammar rules we no longer need to worry about. And one of those is starting sentences with a conjunction; another is all about what you should and shouldn’t end them with.

You think “OMG” or “srsly” are 21st-century inventions? You might have to think again, as Jen Doll, in The Atlantic‘s October issue, takes a look at the not-so-recent history of today’s hottest expressions (not yet online).

The Associated Press reported on the rise in heritage language programs — and why the need for them has grown. “Dorothy Villarreal grew up dreaming in Spanish, first in Mexico and later in South Texas, where her family moved when she was six. She excelled in school — in English. But at home life was in Spanish, from the long afternoon chats with her grandparents to the Spanish-language version of Barbie magazines she eagerly awaited each month. She figured she was fluent in both languages. Then the Harvard University junior spent last summer studying in Mexico and realized just how big the gaps in her Spanish were.”

Pride’s Purge offered us a very useful document: a pocket guide to Toryspeak – ie. what Tories (aka members of the British Conservative Party) say vs. what Tories mean. When they say they’re reforming the NHS, what do they REALLY mean? And what does everyone understand by it?

Keith Houston gives us a sneak peek [see Stealth Mountain below] of his new book, Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks, when he describes “four scandalously overlooked typographic outliers” in the Financial Times.

You might not want to try singing like David Bowie – but now you can read like him. As part of the exhibition “David Bowie Is”, which recently opened at the Art Gallery of Toronto, a list of the legendary singer’s top 100 books has been compiled. Open Book Toronto has the list.

The writer Margaret Atwood is among a group of prominent Canadian women who have launched a campaign to make the English-language lyrics to Canada’s national anthem more gender-neutral, as the BBC reports.

Oliver Moody wrote in The Times (UK) that “many teachers do not have adequate knowledge of English grammar to teach the new curriculum, according to the architect of a government-funded teaching programme. Bas Aarts, a professor of English linguistics at University College London, … said that the English tests for pupils up to the age of 14 introduced by Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, demanded more knowledge of grammar than many teachers possess.”

mental_floss brought us 9 colorful words and phrases from Breaking Bad‘s final season. (Here’s what I learned: The next time someone offers to send you on a trip to Belize, run in the other direction. Fast.)

On The Guardian‘s U.S. comment site, self-confessed accent geek Erica Buist asks whether Britain is becoming a nation of accent snobs. If we Brits don’t take the trouble to pronounce foreign words like bruschetta correctly, do we have the right to judge those who communicate less comfortably in English?

If you read literary fiction, you’ll become more empathic. That’s what a new scientific study shows, according to a New York Times science blog post. Apparently “reading literary fiction – as opposed to popular fiction or serious nonfiction – leads people to perform better on tests that measure empathy, social perception and emotional intelligence.” Um – do we really need scientists to tell us that? I hear a big resounding ‘duh!’ echoing through the chattering book groups of the world …

And finally, I think I’ve found my favorite Tweeter. Here is how Stealth Mountain @stealthmountain advertises his or her mission: “I alert twitter users that they typed sneak peak when they meant sneak peek. I live a sad life.” The replies to Stealth’s tweets are even funnier than the tweets themselves. Thanks to Reddit for the tip-off.

Prince Charles reads Dylan Thomas on National Poetry Day (UK)

thomas

To mark the occasion of National Poetry Day in Great Britain, Prince Charles has recorded himself reading one of his favorite poems: Fern Hill, by Dylan Thomas. It is appropriate that the Prince of Wales should have chosen a piece in which the Welsh poet reminiscences about his childhood visits to an aunt’s farm in Carmarthenshire.

You can hear Prince Charles’s recording at the BBC’s web site.

Fern Hill

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and
cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was
air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the
nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking
warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace.

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would
take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

— Dylan Thomas

Here are some other poems that have been featured recently on Glossophilia:

I Hear America Singing — by Walt Whitman

Blackberry Picking — by Seamus Heaney

The Throne — by Carol Ann Duffy

Mother of Beauty — by Flo Wen

New Year on Dartmoor — by Sylvia Plath

New Year’s Eve — by Thomas Hardy

 

The best grammar and English usage books: praise from high places

books

I’m a big fan of these books about English usage and grammar. And I’m in good company: each book has enjoyed its own celebrity or high-profile endorsements — some surprising, and some surprisingly witty, given the subject matter of the texts. But even the best linguists can’t please everyone, and a couple of critics were happy to prove this point too …

H. W. Fowler’s A Dictionary of Modern English Usage:

“Why must you write intensive here? Intense is the right word. You should read Fowler’s Modern English Usage on the use of the two words.'” — Winston Churchill, in a letter to the Director of Military Intelligence about the plans for the invasion of Normandy

“Reading Fowler provides instruction and knowledge and direction, but the whole of it is a sensual delight.” — William F. Buckley

“[Fowler] has afforded me endless amusement and instruction through my very long life.” — Jessica Mitford

Strunk and White: The Elements of Style

“If someone wants to toss it in the box with me when I go six feet under, that would be fine; it might actually assure my passage through the Pearly Gates, since Saint Peter no doubt is a gentleman of impeccable grammatical taste, not to mention style.” — Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post‘s book critic

“An aging zombie of a book . . . a hodgepodge, its now-antiquated pet peeves jostling for space with 1970s taboos and 1990s computer advice.” — Boston Globe, reviewing The Elements of Style Illustrated in 2005

Paul Brians: Common Errors in English Usage

“Let’s just say that Common Errors in English Usage is the most cheerfully useful book I’ve read since the Kama Sutra.” — Scott Simon, host of NPR’s Weekend Edition

Bryan Garner: Garner’s Modern American Usage

Garrison Keillor has called it one of the five most influential books in his library.

Mark Davidson: Right, Wrong, and Risky

“When I was nineteen I traveled by bus to New York with a copy of Roget’s Thesaurus on my lap, educating and delighting myself along the way. Now with Mark Davidson’s wonderful Right, Wrong, and Risky, I long for a similar trip in which to instruct my mind and free my spirit.” — Ray Bradbury

Lynne Truss: Eats, Shoots & Leaves

“If Lynne Truss were Roman Catholic I’d nominate her for sainthood.” — Frank McCourt, author of Angela’s Ashes

“Of course, I knew how it would appear to other people. ‘At the age of 48, she wrote a book on punctuation.’ If you were to read that thumbnail sketch in a novel, you would know everything you needed to know about this character’s tragic lack of ambition (and ignorance of the book trade).” — Lynne Truss, on writing her own runaway bestseller

“An Englishwoman lecturing Americans on semicolons is a little like an American lecturing the French on sauces. Some of Truss’s departures from punctuation norms are just British laxness.” — Louis Menand, New Yorker

Happy Birthday, Peter Rabbit!

peterrabbit     “First he ate some lettuces and some French beans;                                                                    and then he ate some radishes;”

While in her 20s, Beatrix Potter sent illustrated story letters to the children of her former governess, Annie Moore. On this day 120 years ago, 4 September 1893, she wrote to five-year-old Noel telling the tale of a rabbit named Peter (Beatrix based the anthropomorphic character on her childhood pet bunny, Peter Piper). The letter, which was intended to cheer up and pass the time of the poorly boy, included sketches illustrating the story. Peter Rabbit first appeared in print in The Tale of Peter Rabbit in June 1902, when a trade edition of the tale (including sketches from the original letter) was published by Frederick Warne & Co; by the end of that year, 28,000 copies were in print. Over the years, The Tale of Peter Rabbit has sold more than 40 million copies worldwide. Peter Rabbit appeared in five more of Potter’s books between 1904 and 1912, and as of 2008 the Peter Rabbit series has sold more than 151 million copies in 35 languages.

Happy birthday, Peter Rabbit!

I Hear America Singing — Walt Whitman

waltwhitman

I Hear America Singing

by Walt Whitman

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The woodcutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day-at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

Seamus Heaney: 13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013

Heaney

Blackberry Picking

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer’s blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard’s.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn’t fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they’d keep, knew they would not.

— Seamus Heaney, 13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013

 

“Be advised my passport’s green.
No glass of ours was ever raised
to toast the Queen.”

A letter of note (with advice for writers) from E. B. White

E B White

E. B. White, the American writer best known for his children’s books Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little, was also a co-author of the authoritative language manual The Elements of Style (more commonly known as Strunk and White). The distinguished author contributed for several decades to The New Yorker, and it was on the letterhead of this storied publication that White sent a tardy reply to a letter from one of his fans, “Mike”, who had written to White asking for his advice on what an author had to do in order to get a book published.

Visit Without ellipses to read White’s considered reply …

White did actually share some of his more profound thoughts on the art of writing and those who attempt it. Here are some of his more pithy remarks on the subject:

“It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.”

“Commas in the New Yorker fall with the precision of knives in a circus act, outlining the victim.”

“Semi-colons only prove that the author has been to college.”

“I can only assume that your editorial writer tripped over the First Amendment and thought it was the office cat.”

“I don’t know which is more discouraging, literature or chickens.”

“A writer’s style reveals something of his spirit, his habits, his capacities, his bias … It is the Self escaping into the open.”

“I admire anybody who has the guts to write anything at all.”

“A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word to paper.”

“Trust me, Wilbur. People are very gullible. They’ll believe anything they see in print.”

“Writing is both mask and unveiling.”

“Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.”

“Writing is hard work and bad for the health.”