The Puzzle
Puzzle, puzzle, burning bright
In Across Lite overnight,
What constructor's clever eye
Framed your distorted symmetry?
From what distant EBON skies
Came these WONDERS for my eyes?
HOLY COW - to so aspire,
BY THE BY, such creative fire!
Could REN ELATE us with such art?
Could OPRAH twist our ARM or heart?
And when the fills began to beat
Were there rhymes and metric feet?
Where the OMEN, where the chain?
So KEENLY works the puzzler's brain!
IN A JAM of corner's grasp
Foreign words dare cross and clasp.
GABE and EROS thrust their spears,
ISABEL SPEWS forth her tears.
Do we smile, this grid to see?
Do we have HIGH FIVES for thee?
Puzzle, puzzle, burning bright
In Across Lite overnight,
What constructor's clever eye
Framed your distorted symmetry?
Blake's famous poem, THE TIGER, today's unfortunate victim, carries a sign that says, "parody me." It's been done hundreds of times. The original, IMHO, is quite spectacularly awful.
This version is based on a recent LA Times crossword puzzle (Thus. Aug.27) with a cleverly asymmetric grid, by Dan Gagliardo. The deliberately distorted symmetry of the grid inspired this effort. The words/phrases in ALL CAPS are taken from the puzzle grid. Across Light is a software package that enables solving on your computer.
One thing in puzzles I complain about is the crossing of obscurities - in this puzzle it was two foreign language words in the North-east corner. Hence: "Foreign words dare cross and clasp."
For further commentary on this puzzle, check here.
Sunday December 22, 2024 Alan Massengill
15 hours ago
3 comments:
EBON
Thus, ebonics Blake. Actually I concur with your assessment of Blake as somewhat overrated (though in terms of content, not bad).
Ezra Pound wrote some parodies of Blake--EP seemed to find WB a bit naive. EP didn't care for WB's master Milton, either (too "hebraic," or something), pero Maestro Pound no se gusta le lengua ingles...
Not really up on my Pound.
Spanish is rusty, too.
But Maestro Pound didn't like the English language?
JzB the so little time, so much I don't know trombonist
That's it. At least for literary endeavors, Anglo would not suffice, sez Maestro Pound (the real scribe needs a bit of Latin, greek, a romance tongue, etc.).
Actually Latin instruction was commonplace, even in public schools, until about 50 years ago, when US edu-crats (most do-gooder liberals) decided Anglo would suffice (with maybe french or espanol, etc), since Biff and Bunny weren't going to be PB Shelleys (or Ezra Pounds), but doctors, engineers, nurseys.
That vulgar anglo-man TH Huxley said much the same after Darwin--toss the Plato and Plutarch and scripture on the bonfire; give 'em Darwin, Lyell, Newton.
Really, I think students may have been better served with Plato & Co, latin, history, even a bit of belle-lettres, along with mathematics than with that grubby failed preacher Darwin, the la-bor-atory and the techie-or biz major curriculum. Techies have been destroying the world for the last century or so. (Scuzi rant).
Pound also composed a bit of music at times! A bit operatic but interesting.
Post a Comment