A Jovial Oath

By Jove!

Intending lots of poetry . . .

Intending to write poetry is one thing; actually writing it is another. For instance, some will say, your poetry is a joke. I will have already met that criticism by making certain that each poem I write can be read as a joke. This will throw the critic off at the outset, when I smile in complicity and praise the critic's perspiquity.

Yes, I have a bright future before me, indeed. (See the joke?)

Close of an Epoch

Retirement papers to sign.

Just in Case of Interest . . .

 . . . I'll be taking early retirement from Ewha Womans University as of August 31st this year (2021), due to a certain condition that has slowed my typing down considerably and forced me to me to make some decisions about which areas of writing to concentrate on. This blog will take a hit. Entries will generally be short. Like this one.

Self-Satisfied Oath of a Prig:

"My Goodness!"

A Powerful Oath!

"Great Guns!" An oath used by artillerymen.

Another Odd Oath

"Land O'Goshen!"

Snakes Alive!

A variant on yesterday's entry, but with more of the devil in it!

Sake's Alive!

Where did that come from?

Bowdlerize the Language!

Let us rid ourselves of such vulgar expressions as "what the dickens" and use instead more proper expressions, such as "what the chickens," "what the chicks," "what the coc . . ." Oh, never mind." 

Happy Holiday!

Somewhere in the world. Here, we're still working like the dickens.

David Lynn Jones Reappears

The Lady Di informs Us: 

Just a heads up: July 10th [2021] Hardy Arkansas at the Civic Center David Lynn Jones, Tim Crouch and Friends will be playing, I saw them the last of May...so happy. Lynn introduces some new songs and the one he and Tim are working on to release as Bluegrass. Contact me if you need or want any more info on what's happening and I will do my best to find out for you.

Di, I'm sure all of us would love the latest on DLJ. Could you give us a link here?

Update: See my July 1, 2021 entry.

Hurt

When something hurts like the dickens, what is the dickens, and is the verb trasitive or intransitive?

Mere Insanity?

Judgmental : Judgmenthol

Perhaps Alone This Tome Atones . . .

This is perhaps the penultimate academic article I'll write, in the event that my still unpublished Milton paper never sees light. Here you are about to read the opening words from the introduction to my possibly scholarly swan song:

In our time of American literature's various ethnic and multicultural divisions, reflected in a darkened glass through the strife we see daily on the streets of our cities, a visit to an other time of greater unity might be worth the imaginative effort, possibly shedding light on how we Americans have gotten from where we were at mid-twentieth century to where we now find ourselves in our nation and our literature, namely, in a state of brilliant, if exaggerated disjunction, our external and internal borders lit up like glittering cities of glass, lovely, but fragile, crystal cathedrals. But perhaps that is mere simile. Perhaps we are made of stuff less brittle, more flexible than glass . . .

You can find these words of Americana and read further into what I, as an American, have to say about America in the time of that great American, Stephen Vincent Benét (1898-1943), if you look into the journal Foreign Literature Studies, for you'll find within volume 82, on pages 73-105 (May 2021), my full article, made possible by Hankuk University of Foreign Studies through the Institute of Foreign Literature Studies.

Regional Economics

There ain't a dime's worth of difference between a dime and ten cents, excepting the obvious.

Munch-Munch

The chipmunk loves his nuts so muches, he keeps them packed in cheeky bunches, for lunches.

Three-Body Problem?!

The day my physics professor shamelessly introduced our class to the "three-body problem" was the day I dropped physics! I'm not one to debase my mind with such deliberations!

Crunch-Crunch

The squirrel loves his nuts so much

he keeps them packed within a bunch,

for lunch.

Final Exams

You can cheat with cheat-sheets piled high on your shelf,

but in the end find, you've sheet-cheated yourself.

Play Right!

A lie of the mind can only behind.

Forsooth!

The truth of a lie can never be proved; it can only behooved.

Prove It!

"The truth of a life can't ever be proven; it can only be shown." - Jennifer Szalai, NYT, June 2, 2021.

Two States

I grew up along the border of two great states:

The State of Nature

The State of Misery

These two states are better known as:

.                              and                             .

Bad Joke Made Worse

Honest Questioner: How do you get down off a duck?

Smart Alec Respondent: You don't get down off a duck! You get down off an elephant! Hah! Hah! Hah!

Honest Questioner: Huh? Oh yeah, I get it! You first have to mount an elephant . . . but very carefully. Hah! Hah! Hah! Still . . . where does the down come from?

Smart Alec Respondent: . . .

Dad Joke

I once took a jet plane, but I prefer lighter colors.

In Chinese:

Does "Four More Years" sound like "More Years of Death"?

Surname

Is it on-name or above-name?

Postmodern Ethics?

A noughty's an oughty!

Odd Poems

This is naught but a naught-line poem.