Poetry Friday: The Chaos

A delight for those of us who love words, and anyone who has ever struggled with English spelling and pronunciation! This brilliant poem* was originally written by a Dutch teacher and amateur linguist, Gerard Nolst Trenité, as a part of his book Drop your foreign accent. The book went through eleven editions; the poem appeared as an appendix to the fourth edition and then continued to grow and change –you can easily imagine how new verses must have presented themselves to him once he’d gotten started on the project. There are apparently a number of regional variations as well and I suspect others may have contributed their own bits of inspiration to Trenité's original.

I’ll include just a couple of stanzas here to give you a taste of it.

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
Tearin eye, your dress you'll tear;
Queer,fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
Just compare heart, hear and heard,
Diesand diet, lord and word.

I hadn’t heard of this poem until someone started sharing iton Facebook a couple of weeks ago. In case you missed it there, here’s a link to the whole poem and detailed notes about its origins and the development of this particular version.

Libravox, bless them, offers multiple versions of the poem, a downloadable file of the entire book, and several audio files so you can enjoy different readers’ approaches to the poem. Great fun.

*Purists will argue that this is not actually a poem, as it is devoid of any kind of metaphor or other imagery, and that a rhyme, no matter how clever, does not a poem make. Which is of course true, so The Chaos is perhaps better termed a brilliant exercise of doggerel. But then there is an argument about whether doggerel, done intentionally, is not a form of poetry?

Poetry Friday is being hosted this week at Wild Rose Reader.

Poetry Friday: One More Week!

And we’ll be celebrating our national holiday: Thanksgiving. I’ll only provide a little bit of self-promotion on this topic. Did you know that the reason we celebrate Thanksgiving is because of the efforts of a 19th century widow?

Sarah Josepha Hale, who was also a novelist, America’s first woman editor, the author of Mary Had a Little Lamb, and the mother of 5 children worked for nearly 40 years to get the national holiday made into law. She did live to see the holiday celebrated from the Civil War era until her death. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the law making Thanksgiving a national holiday during World War II, a full 100 years after Hale began her quest.

So, next week, as you travel or host, cook, overeat, clean, and attend Black Friday sales, take a minute to thank Sarah. You can learn more in my book: To My Countrywomen: The Life of Sarah Josepha Hale.

In the meantime, since this is poetry Friday, I looked for a poem that truly expresses what I’ll be feeling next week. Since it’s a long poem, I’ve included just the relevant parts. And, in case you don’t get the connection—I’m cooking.

Thanks, Sarah…

Twas the Nite Before Thanksgiving

by Jolene Christopher

Twas the night before Thanksgiving and all through the kitchen;

I was cooking and baking and moaning' and *****in'.

I've been here for hours, I can't stop to rest,

This place is a disaster, just look at this mess!

Tomorrow I've got thirty people to feed,

They expect all the trimmings - who cares what I need!

My feet are both blistered, I've got cramps in my legs,

The dog just knocked over a bowl full of eggs.

There's a knock at the door and the telephone's ringing.
Frosting drips on the counter as the microwave's dinging.

Two pies in the oven, dessert's almost done;

My cookbook is soiled with butter and crumbs…

Now what was I doing, and what is that smell?

Oh, darn, it's the pies!! They're burned all to hell!!

I hate to admit when I make a mistake,

But I put them on BROIL instead of on BAKE.

What else can go wrong?? Is there still more ahead??

If this is good living, I'd rather be dead.

Lord, don't get me wrong, I love holidays;

They just leave me exhausted, all shaky and dazed.

But I promise you one thing, If I live 'til next year,

You won't find me pulling my hair out in here.

I'll hire a maid, a cook, and a waiter;

And if that doesn't work, I'LL HAVE IT ALL CATERED!

This week's Poetry Friday Round-Up is at Holly Cupala's Brimstone Soup