Comments on: ha! the blog of my enemy is failing.

By: Davey

Davey — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 05:00:18 +0000

Didn’t Laurie Duggan (or perhaps it was someone else) also write a poem called “‘The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered’ Has Been Remaindered” …?

Call me old-fashioned, but I think that’s a brilliant parody, as is Karen’s poem, naturally.

By: faith

faith — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 04:12:30 +0000

Quite something to not only blog poetry but elicit poetry in comments! Parody upon parody

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:58:39 +0000

That is brilliant Tim T.

By: Karen (miscmum)

Karen (miscmum) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 08:22:13 +0000

I wonder who could be disdainful to such a poetic clarification of events?

By: TimT

TimT — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 05:07:33 +0000

1)
A parody of an old parody
Was blogged, to general hilarity.
But TimT commented,
And said he dissented
From the widespread acclaim of this parody.

2)
Now matters get really pedantic.
And TimT got nervous and frantic:
He posted again
Risking disdain,
Disputing his comment’s semantics.

By: Maxine

Maxine — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 04:37:16 +0000

Tim puts foot in mouth
In view of whole blogosphere
Apologises

By: TimT

TimT — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 04:32:35 +0000

Really? That’s interesting Karen. I thought the joke would still be widely appreciated.

Actually it’s probably time for me to be pedantic about my own blog comment because I ended up typing the reverse of what I meant – ie, this sentence:

‘Dunno, I reckon this parody poem only works if you remember that the original poem by Clive James was itself a parody of biblical revenge verse’

I meant to say that the poem only works if you’re *not* aware of what James’ original poem was parodying. (I think so because a parody of a previous parody quickly becomes a self-referential exercise, not interesting or amusing outside of a narrow sphere of reference.)

Anyway. Foot. Mouth. etc.

I hereby throw my previous blog comments open to parodies in the form of limericks, haiku, or pre-Biblical epic verse.

By: Karen (miscmum)

Karen (miscmum) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 04:01:12 +0000

TimT- I wasn’t aware of the connection between James’ original and biblical revenge verses. Thanks for mentioning it.

By: TimT

TimT — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 03:24:40 +0000

Here’s Clive’s poem.
http://torch.cs.dal.ca/~johnston/poetry/bookofmyenemy.html
And you’ll find the revenge verses that was based on in the Book of Psalms (though revenge verse begins early in the Bible – the vengeance ‘Song of Deborah’, in the book of Genesis, might be one of the oldest passages in that ancient book).

I’m not sure if Clive had anything particular in mind when he wrote it.

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 03:02:37 +0000

I didn’t know anything about the original and the poem still worked for me. I guess it depends on who is defining ‘works’ (what does that mean?) I loved it. It made me laugh and like all the best trouble-making poems, it’s impossible to tell if it’s a mirror or a window.

By: TimT

TimT — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 02:48:47 +0000

Dunno, I reckon this parody poem only works if you remember that the original poem by Clive James was itself a parody of biblical revenge verse, such as you would find in the psalms.

Okay, pedantic criticism done for the day. I’ll go back to my hymn books and psalmodies now.

By: Koraly

Koraly — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 00:33:33 +0000

funny