Template for a Conversation With a Single Friend (rondeau)

Template for a Conversation With a Single Friend

I'll call you back when Junior is in bed

(addressed to Isa/Janet/Winifred).

My hands are full of turkey parts and string;

I know you want to talk about the thing

that happened at the staff retreat with Ted.

 

I have to see the kids are bathed and fed.

Of course I'd rather talk to you instead.

I'm sure he doesn't view it as a fling--

I'll call you back.

 

I'm sure he only means to clear his head.

You can't expect a man to go to bed

with someone from the office and then ring.

You have a lot to give. Stop hollering,

stop saying that you wish that you were dead.

I'll call you back.

 

-Alexandra Oliver

 

I pulled this book off my shelf and was browsing through when I saw this witty rondeau. Having posted Leigh Hunt's half a rondeau, Jenny Kiss'd Me, not so long ago, when I saw this, I thought that's the ticket. Though the title poem is awfully good, too, and well, a whole bunch of the others as well. The book won the Pat Lowther award for best book by a female Canadian poet in 2014.

 

Who exactly is it that's hollering? I'm voting for Junior, with the narrator carrying on two conversations at once, but I suppose it could be Janet.

 

Alexandra Oliver is a contemporary Canadian poet.

 

And why did I have the book off the shelf? Consider this a teaser for a longer post on Ontario publisher Biblioasis... 

 

The Termite

 

The Termite

Some primal termite knocked on wood

And tasted it, and found it good,

And that is why your Cousin May

Fell through the parlor floor today.

 

-Ogden Nash

 

OK, obviously feeling a bit lazy this evening, but if you didn't already know the poem, you should! And if you do, it likely amuses you to be reminded, right?

 

Good Intentions is Ogden Nash's book of 1942. 

It's Spin Win Sunday!

Hubert and Gumby are crowded round for the results:

It's number 9, which means Virginia Woolf's The Years. An excellent choice. The spin gods have a certain liking for Virginia--this is the second time they've landed on her; the first was A Room of One's Own. 

Do you know this one? Do I have a treat in front of me? 

Did you spin and did you get something good?