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Group Writing: Once Upon a Time, There Was an Italian
Ogden Nash is one of my favorite poets and he was a master of doggerel. I love his short verse, such as:
A sardine’s life is bland.
And when on land,
They’re canned.
But what I really want to share today is his brilliant Columbus. Of all the poems I’ve ever memorized, I find this to be the most challenging to recite aloud.
Published in Group WritingOnce upon a time there was an Italian,
And some people thought he was a rapscallion,
But he wasn’t offended,
Because other people thought he was splendid,
And he said the world was round,
and everybody made an uncomplimentary sound,
But his only reply was “Pooh.”
He replied, “Isn’t this fourteen ninety-two?
It’s time for me to discover America if I know my chronology,
And if I discover America, you all owe me an apology.”
So he went and tried to borrow some money from Ferdinand
But Ferdinand said America was a Bird in the Bush
and he’d rather have a Berdinand,
But Columbus’ brain was fertile, it wasn’t arid,
And he remembered that Ferdinand was unhappily married,
And he thought, there is no wife like a misunderstood one,
Just because her husband thinks something is a terrible idea she is bound to think it a good one.
So he perfumed his handkerchief with bay rum and citronella,
And he went to see Isabella,
And he looked wonderful but he had never felt sillier,
And she said, “I can’t place the face but the aroma is familiar,”
And Columbus didn’t say a word,
All he said was, “I am Columbus, the fifteenth-century Admiral Byrd,”
And just as he thought, her disposition was very malleable,
And she said, “Here are my jewels,” and she wasn’t being penurious like Cornelia the mother of the Gracchi, she wasn’t referring to her children, no, she was referring to her jewels, which were very, very, very, valuable;
So Columbus said, somebody show me the sunset, and somebody did and he set sail for it,
And he discovered America and they put him in jail for it,
And the fetters gave him welts,
And they named America after somebody else,
So the moral of Columbus ought to be pointed out to every child and every voter,
Because it has a very important lesson, which is:
Don’t be a discoverer, be a promoter.
Splendid.
There was once an Italian named Columbo,
Who sailed West in three ships less than jumbo.
He got thoroughly lost,
And his ships they got tossed
In an ocean thicker than gumbo.
There once was a poet named Serif,
Who wrote an ode to a beautiful seraph.
The angel was pleased,
But then when she sneezed,
The poet called for the sheriff.
There once was a Douglas named Pratt,
On whose shoulder there lingered a cat.
She nuzzled his ear
When he slipped into gear,
And his pickup quickly went splat.
The absolute best take on Columbus discovering America is the first cut on the album Stan Freberg Modestly Presents The United States of America.
“I ask a simple question, I get a pageant.”
“Why should Spain sponsor you? Why don’t you go to Portugal?” “I did. They bought The Price is Right.”
Rumble rumble rumble! Mutiny mutiny mutiny!
And my all-time favorite: “You mean, on top of everything else, this ship is rigged?”
Fleas by Ogdan Nash:
Adam, had em’
This Comment has
“Shame on you!”
Ricochet readers,
A few of us are planning an intervention for Dick Fulmer, around his increasingly obvious limerick problem.
If you’d like to help out this good man who is wasting his life away because of bad poetic choices, let me know.
Mark
There was an economist named Mark,
Who Ricocheted just for a lark.
He counted the cost
Of the time that he lost
When his posts jumped over the shark.
There once was a consultant named Stephens,
Who just couldn’t count all of the reasons,
That he loved Donald Trump
(That incredible grump),
Whom he believed the man for all seasons.
I’m so glad to see that you have gotten treatment.
Let me know if you come up with some sort of therapy. I’ll be mainlining limericks in the den.
There’s just no rhyme or reason for this.
My favorite Ogden Nash poem:
There once was a poet named Charlotte,
Who rhymed until she was scarlet.
Her words flew so fast,
They went off with a blast,
And the sky was suddenly starlit.
In Baltimore there’s granddad O’Shea,
Who turned old and then he turned gray.
But his business was good,
‘Cause he did what he should,
And he kept the taxman at bay.
The two most obvious rhymes for Charlotte are scarlet and harlot. Thanks for using the former.
Aye, that’s the difference between awfully bad poetry and awfully bad crude poetry. It’s why we appreciate Fulmer’s limericks so much, relative to how they could be, worst case.
That’s what I keep telling my wife, it could be worse.
What we learn at an impressionable young age in American Male Basic Training, we apply under combat conditions reflexively, years later.
Yeah well, when your nickname is “Dick,” you get sensitive to names. That’s why I was horrified when I learned that a coworker had named her daughter “Breezy Snow.” My first thought (unvoiced) was: Why didn’t you just go ahead and name her “Exotic Dancer” and be done with it?
How now varlet?
(Or would it be varlette, which doesn’t scan?)
How about:
“There was a young bard of Japan
Whose poetry never would scan:
When told that the thing,
Ought to go with a swing,
He’d say, ‘Yes, I know, but you see I always try to get as many syllables into the last line as I can.’ “
Here’s one I wrote myself (challenged to create a limerick with the name of a delightful but awkwardly-named city in Wales):
A maiden from near Aberystwyth,
Was fun to go out and get p***ed with,
Now we’re doing St Ives
All the pubs, bars and dives–
She’s the lady to go through the list with.
Good one! (I had to look it up!)
I am enjoying this so much!
I cannot easily write limericks, somehow. I am similarly incapable of crosswords. But I admire those who can do them!
One of my favorites from Ogden Nash:
“God in his wisdom made the fly,
and then forgot to tell us why.”
I’d forgotten about this one!
My introduction to the delights of Ogden Nash’s verse was The Voyage of the Aardvark, a wonderfully ridiculous tale.
This post is part of our July Group Writing theme: “The Doggerel Days of Summer.” Stop by today and sign up for our August theme: “Reeling in the Summer.”
Interested in Group Writing topics that came before? See the handy compendium of monthly themes. Check out links in the Group Writing Group. You can also join the group to get a notification when a new monthly theme is posted.