[Deborah Warren]

Then She Kissed Me
Apologies to Leigh Hunt

Jenny kissed me when we met,
paparazzi trailing after.
Fame, you tramp, who love to set
traps that snap, I hear your laughter.
Say I’ve loved my wife and son,
was born again at thirty-three,
ran for gov’nor, could have won–
then Jenny kissed me.

[Deborah Warren]

What a delight to stumble on this poem. ‘Jenny Kissed Me’ has been close to my heart since I was in elementary school.

Much depends on the ‘then’ in the last line, for me anyway—most readers undoubtedly twigged much sooner to the real subject of the poem; but since it took me, ever naïve, till the last line, the parody was even better.

Nice that the ‘Then She Kissed Me’ sounds so similar to Hunt’s title, and ‘time’ so similar to ‘fame’, and ‘love to set’ to ‘love to get’; and that Jenny’s kiss plays a different but no less supreme role in this poem than in the original.

[Rick Mullin]

L3--should be "loves", no?

[Roger Slater]

No, Rick, not unless Leigh Hunt got it wrong in the original.

I don't think I've twigged to it even still. Are there real people we are supposed to recognize here? Who?

I might change my mind after I've been twigged, but at this point the poem leaves me saying ho-hum. It's a fun little parody of a famous poem that has been the subject of many fun little parodies, some better and some worse, including a fine one by one of our members who for some reason doesn't like to be reminded of it.

Anyway, it's not exciting me, especially after I read today's other offering.

[Birthe Myers]

Is it maybe the period after after that should not be there? It seems to me it is the paparazzi, which is plural, who love to set traps that snap.

[Janice D. Soderling]

Rick, I think it is read, "time, you who love to get".

as in the original

Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in:

I love the original and have known it by heart since I was a child. Like this one too, even though it hurts a bit to see it travestied.

Whoops Cross-posted with Roger ever on the ball.

Added in: This is surely a dig at one of the U.S. politicians who of late have been exposed as hypocrites. There are so many I can't remember them all, but y'all probably could put names to the one that fits best.

[Rick Mullin]

I'm blissfully ignorant of Leigh Hunt's poem (at least I've heard of Leigh Hunt!). I'm just going on Fame being a singular tramp who "loves" to do things. ...no?

Off the ball,
Rick

[NB--I think this one is (well, obviously it is) too "parlored-up".

[Maryann Corbett]

I hate to go all grammatical on you again, but "love" is correct as is. Fame is being addressed. Read it as "Fame--you tramp--YOU who love to set traps that snap, I hear your laughter." The papparazzi were trailing after the N. when Jenny kissed him. Read it "WITH papparazzi trailing after (us, the kisser and the kissed). The period is in the right place.

The poem is a crisp little parody, treating the standard political pitfall in which a candidate's past affair comes to light. I think about the Clinton/Lewinski mess, but it could be any number of people. The apostrophe to Fama probably alludes to whole slews of old poems. I haven't found anything to pick at.

(Cross-posted with a bunch of people who got here first but read it my way.)

Respectfully disagree with Rick about "parloring up." It wouldn't be a proper parody of the Leigh Hunt poem if it didn't have features of that older style.

[Rick Mullin]

...I don't see a "you". I'm just going with the words on the page? Does it kill the poem to go with "loves"?*

As for parloring-up, well, yes, of course it has to do what it is doing. And I should recuse myself on the grounds of my not being familiar with the source. But who likes exclusionary light verse? (...did I ask that at Eratosphere?~,:^) This glistens in the prophylaxis of literary cleverness. Us knuckle draggers aren't going to go for it. I want big laughs, sister.

RM

*If the answer is "yes", and I can understand it being "yes", then I would say our author still has to make "love" work in his or her own poem.

[Roger Slater]

This is the other parody I referred to in my earlier post:

http://thegladdestthing.com/poems/elvis-kissed-me