Armour on Light Verse
SHIPLEY, JOSEPH T.
Armour on Light Verse Writing Light Verse. By Richard Armour. The Writer. 122 pp. $2.95. Reviewed by Joseph T. Shipley Formerly lecturer on poetry N. Y. C. Board of Education of backwardness...
...Armour will properly retort that the best light verse dwells not on the passing events of its day but among the contemporary manifestations of permanent foibles and functioning...
...The first point is debatable, but the second seems to have some truth...
...Thus, it is a pleasure to recommend his renewed reflections on the art and practice of light versifying...
...China is passionately devoted to peace, for what other country...
...While there are thus many illustrations of light versifying, to teach the art is more difficult than to encourage the practice...
...However, the material has value as a record of the impact made by Red China on an ex-statesman of France...
...for only that modernization can bring her closer to us...
...The practice of writing light verse is discussed under its various aspects, from the finding of an idea through its expression and titling to the final quest of a market...
...Amid his "Title Tattle" are lists of titles involving five different kinds of wordplay (not all at once...
...His book on Writing Light Verse is a combination anthology and guide to the best...
...She must be helped to accomplish her modernization...
...While he has himself given us many examples of the former sort, he has also provided ample store of the more lasting...
...Eisenhower's first breaking ninety at golf is more important than the first break of the sputnik into outer space, are gathering dust on undisturbed shelves...
...economically and politically...
...He is too experienced and practical a politician to be intoxicated merely by the words and obvious successes of Peking...
...One of his chapter heads says "Easy Doesn't It...
...I have found few chinks in his armour...
...China is passionately devoted to peace, for what other country, eager to make up for such immense backwardness by a superhuman effort...
...I still enjoy reading how Jack found that beans may go back on a chap, "The Sycophantic Fox and the Gullible Raven," and others of the leisurely school of light verse...
...The Chinese know how to wait," Faure warns and "their waiting is an active waiting which makes time work for them...
...I think much of these earlier writers will still be read when the verses pointing out that, say, Mr...
...He realizes that "Communism in China is sharply distinguished from Communism in the Soviet Union, but it is by methods, stages and institutions, not by aims or doctrines...
...The fun with tricky rhymes—and the finding of them, as when the notion that "even royal highnesses have trouble with their sinuses" gave being to an 18-line piece of triple rhymes—and final cappings of climax spring from a combination of the writer's arduous endeavor and inborn and long-bred personality...
...such a policy is the "policy of the best chance...
...Yet the French leader's impressions of Red China do not suggest a total approval of the Mao regime...
...Reviewed by Joseph T. Shipley Formerly lecturer on poetry N. Y. C. Board of Education of backwardness that has existed for several centuries...
...et the French leader's impressions of Red China do not suggest a total approval of the Mao regime...
...stages and institutions, not by aims or doctrines...
...Faure recalls...
...By frequently giving an earlier version of one of his own poems, then the change that supplied the punch and enabled the sale...
...Faure recalls...
...First, to quote the author again...
...She must be helped to accomplish her modernization...
...Always there are words of wit and wisdom...
...The reader is led to believe that the French visitor is quite favorably impressed with Mao...
...True, these are not in the hurried or clipped mode of our moment— though we do linger for an Ogden Nash...
...Armour encourages the aspirant to continue his travail...
...However, the material has value as a record of the impact made by Red China on an ex-statesman of France...
...Hints as to technique are amply supplied: the versifier can learn...
...SINCE RICHARD ARMOUR'S first poem appeared in THE NEW LEADER —"By all means...
...Second...
...Let's print it"—I have long and delightedly watched his progress...
...He challenges seriously such common fallacies as "Communism in China cannot be pure Communism...
...On one point I should like to join issue with the author...
...He is too experienced and practical a politician to be intoxicated merely by the words and obvious successes of Peking...
...Faure's desire for a policy of reconciliation with Communist China appears to be based on two strong convictions...
...the poet, as has been remarked, must be born...
...The first point is debatable, but the second seems to have some truth...
...For the past few years at least, time seems to have worked for Peking...
...I said then...
...That alone is enough to explain certain original aspects of Chinese Communism...
...has such need of peace...
...But to declare that "the old-time jingle masters, full of prunes and prosody, are pretty tedious reading today"—are those "prunes" there for the alliteration?—is to preen and prophesy one's own soon oblivion...
...These serious, if not too sober, thoughts of a gifted practitioner are dotted with samples of successful verse, both that of other masters as well as his own...
...Oh yes, the chant that lingers in my head since boyhood has a negative in its first line: "It wasn't the cough that carried him off . . ." of backwardness that has existed for several centuries...
...for only that modernization can bring her closer to us...
...economically and politically...
...He is also sure that "China will not diverge from the path of political dictatorship and collective economy and that there is no indication of any third way...
...Not to mention W. S. Gilbert, whom Armour lists as a surviving exception...
...eager to make up for such immense backwardness by a superhuman effort...
...such a policy is the "policy of the best chance...
...First, to quote the author again...
...He refers to the "verbose versifying" of Thomas Love Peacock and the "labored opening" of a poem by C. S. Calverley...
...Specialists on Chinese Communism will probably find little in this book that is new...
...That alone is enough to explain certain original aspects of Chinese Communism...
...The reader is led to believe that the French visitor is quite favorably impressed with Mao...
...There is something of the humanist in this revolutionary...
...For the past few years at least, time seems to have worked for Peking...
...There is something of the humanist in this revolutionary...
...The Chinese know how to wait," Faure warns and "their waiting is an active waiting which makes time work for them...
...Specialists on Chinese Communism will probably find little in this book that is new...
...He is also sure that "China will not diverge from the path of political dictatorship and collective economy and that there is no indication of any third way...
...Second...
...Faure's desire for a policy of reconciliation with Communist China appears to be based on two strong convictions...
...He challenges seriously such common fallacies as "Communism in China cannot be pure Communism...
...has such need of peace...
...He realizes that "Communism in China is sharply distinguished from Communism in the Soviet Union, but it is by methods...
...There is also the title that is longer than the poem: "A Gardener's Observation on the Truly Terrible Results of the Original Sin": "There wasn't a weed in/The Garden of Eden...
Vol. 42 • February 1959 • No. 6
