Just take a good look at Greece. Modern, and ancient, for that matter.
In any event… this is the face of insomnia, and partly why the sonnet project began in the first place. I spend so much time awake while everyone else is asleep.
Daily Archives: Saturday, August 22nd, 2015
The Gods of the Copybook Headings | David Emeron: Sonnets
Since I have recently pushed out a humble sequel: The Knights of the Copybook Headings, I proudly offer up Rudyard Kipling’s Original:
The Gods of the Copybook Headings
- Rudyard Kipling
AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
via The Gods of the Copybook Headings | David Emeron: Sonnets.
Follow-Up on Teaching Sonnets | Wanderings in the Labyrinth
Networking, Moderation, Lucasing, Creativity and other stories| David Emeron: Sonnets
To lucas or not. To moderate or not. To unrestrict or not.
This is a very strange topic. I would not have expected you to take note. Very true regarding creating/over editing. Still it is a rather strange and immediate medium we have here. In the 1800s, one might spend a year or so reworking and otherwise going over a book of poetry before even submitting it to a publisher (for even more re-edits.) I see this current process as a way to watch a work evolve–if anyone might be interested.
You may find this hard to believe, but I do not do that much lucasing–not nearly as much as you might guess. I am not obsessive with it. But when I find an error while reading something aloud (usually to Mrs. Emeron) I take advantage of my notice. There is something about a change in modalities that brings to light things one may have missed. For example, I can go over and over and over a new piece in the editing mode (black print on white) and then look at the published post–even just a glance (white print on black) and I will find things I will have missed before. Reading aloud has a similar effect. Even reading either to myself, or to Mrs. Emeron or to a colleague–all three of these are like different modalities and cause me to see things I did not see before.
I do change things when I notice them, or when the light goes on above my head and I exclaim “Eureka! Why did I not see this before!!”
I do feel a bit lonely for writing as I have been working on other things and using that hiatus to reformat what I already have written. It does please me to fix my excessive punctuation and give my works titles and streamline and fix my “sequences.” But very true, apart from some edits that I perform it is mostly digital grunt work. It is a way I can keep my hand in with what is now very limited time.
Still, I hear that appeals attorney Dr. Alan Dershowitz writes TWO sonnets every day and has for many years–even given his very full schedule. However, Google, Bing, &c. find no mention of it. When looking around to see if any are published, either in book form or web form somewhere, I find nothing, so perhaps the individual who told me this made it all up. One would think one might find at least a few hits on it or a mention of it in wikipedia, but I can find nothing.
If I were, for example, a marxist operative I might tell a poet something like this if I wanted to stop him from writing in the hopes that it would dishearten his attempts. Still I find it hard to believe that anyone, marxist or otherwise would notice, let alone care about, my four hits a day–which is what I receive if I am not actively engaged in the back and forth of the blogosphere.
In any case, my point is that one may write one sonnet every day–or two–no matter what one is doing. One might have to resort to a trick or two–speed writing techniques, I mean. I have, in fact, experimented with these. They do work. I can write a well-formed sonnet in under 10 minutes. But even though they read nicely and one might not be able to tell that they were that quickly written, still, there is no substitute for the type of sonnet that takes days of research and meditation and revision and experimentation to write. Both can be nice to read, but one can generally tell one from the other.
Partly, that is what the “Etudes” series is about: namely concentrating on types of writing and types of sound without worrying too much about what is being written. It is an interesting process because one sees in such cases what simply pops out of ones subconscious.
So in essence, I may spend 10 minutes when that is all I have and longer when I have more time to spend. Still, I admit I have been enjoying the re-editing process, most of which is cosmetic and functional rather than content modifying.
If I had my site hosted elsewhere, I could fix some things more quickly by writing shell scripts. I despair whenever I think that now that I have merged all three sites into one, all the internal links mentioned in posts or comments need to be fixed. There is no way I can do this easily. I simply fix deal links when I notice them, or if someone else brings them to my attention.
Ye Gods! But I do go on!! I think I should repost this as a regular entry. And in fact, I just did so.
David Emeron: Sonnets 
I am at a loss to explain why you eschew iambic pentameter in your form exercise, as you say, “even if the poem makes no sense.” Although “One thing at a time” might be a guess at your answer–which certainly would make a degree of sense. Still the iambic rhythm is most definitely a thing to get ones head around.
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