Many, many years ago when I was twenty-three,
I got married to a widow who was pretty as could be.
This widow had a grownup daughter
Who had hair of red.
My father fell in love with her,
And soon the two were wed.
This made my dad my son-in-law
And changed my very life.
My daughter was my mother,
For she was my father’s wife.
To complicate the matters worse,
Although it brought me joy,
I soon became the father
Of a bouncing baby boy.
My little baby then became
A brother-in-law to dad.
And so became my uncle,
Though it made me very sad.
For if he was my uncle,
Then that also made him brother
To the widow’s grownup daughter
Who, of course, was my stepmother.
Father’s wife then had a son,
Who kept them on the run.
And he became my grandson,
For he was my daughter’s son.
My wife is now my mother’s mother
And it makes me blue.
Because, although she is my wife,
She’s my grandmother, too.
If my wife is my grandmother,
Then I am her grandchild.
And every time I think of it,
It simply drives me wild.
For now I have become
The strangest case you ever saw.
As the husband of my grandmother,
I am my own grandpa!
According to an interview with poet Michael Longley, “writing poetry gives him a better buzz than sex or booze”:
If you have nothing to say don’t force it. The trouble is, you do acquire a lot of skills over the years. It is possible without knowing it to produce forgeries. It is important not to do that. It is better to remain silent rather than fool yourself and others for a while by producing forgeries.
One of the problems is repeating yourself. That doesn’t necessarily mean with regards to subject matter. It is more doing the same trick, as it were, producing the same performance.
Is he talking about poetry or sex? Can’t tell. It seems he prefers the cerebral rush to the carnal, although he does admit to finding shortcuts, thanks to technology that allows him to repeat someone else’s performance:
I get as much pleasure out of music as poetry but I can’t do anything musical except put in the CD!
A portrait of the extraordinary (and ordinary) lives of a whole cross-section of Iraqi women: a sexy painter, a radical Communist, doctors, exiles, wives and lovers. This work delves into the many conflicting aspects of what it means to be a woman in the age-old war zone that is Iraq. An unusually timely meditation on the ancient, the modern and the feminine in a country overshadowed by war.
I noted that the star of the show is, in fact, of Iraqi-American decent:
Originally from Michigan, Heather divides her time between New York and Los Angeles. Her father is from Iraq and her mother is American.
The reviews all seem to be favorable, like this one:
The birth of this play almost reads like poetry: In 1993, against the backdrop of gargantuan portraits of Saddam Hussein’s oppressive face, Raffo discovered in an art museum a painting of a nude woman against a barren tree. Her research revealed that the free-spirited and notorious artist Layla Attar had recently been killed in a bombing raid. Thus began a journey that brought her further into her homeland, back into the arms of her relatives and ultimately into the lives of the numerous Iraqi woman who form the backbone of the show. Some plays seem to slip out of a playwright; others clunk. The rare, exceptional ones seem to burst out as an intense gut reaction – Raffo’s Nine Parts of Desire is such a play.
I always advocate mnemonics for passwords. It is far easier for people to remember a phrase or a poem than a jumble of random characters. I’ve mentioned this before, but my favorite example is “I wish I had a dollar for every star”, which translates into something like Iw1h@$4e*
An editorial in CIO magazine from 2005 suggests considering poetry as a way for a CIO to reach out to his/her audience:
Mnemonic devices became a tool for Livingston to help his students remember the course material and feel more comfortable with difficult subject matter. Although a song may not be the ticket to explaining why the ERP system has crashed, Livingston’s point — that it’s a good idea to think outside the box when facing a communication barrier — ”shouldn’t be lost on CIOs. Use humor, tell a story, write a poem, do whatever it takes, he says, to ease the tension and get them ready to listen to what you have to say.
Funny that the article focuses on easing the pain of a crash, instead of opportunities for stability and improving systems. Perhaps something as alluringly written as Emily Dickinson’s garden poem (There is another sky) would bring users on board for a CRM improvement proposal…
There is another sky,
Ever serene and fair,
And there is another sunshine,
Though it be darkness there;
Never mind faded forests, Austin,
Never mind silent fields –
Here is a little forest,
Whose leaf is ever green;
Here is a brighter garden,
Where not a frost has been;
In its unfading flowers
I hear the bright bee hum:
Prithee, my brother,
Into my garden come!
The cup is half full.
a blog about the poetry of information security, since 1995