Introscimible
 

Intrinsically Evanescent
 

Introscimible by Jack Land


William Makepeace Thackeray
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
George Washington Carver
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Kenesaw Mountain Landis
Capt. Robert Falcon Scott
Francine du Plessix Gray
Hans Christian Andersen
Augustus Saint Gaudens
James Fenimore Cooper
Robert Louis Stevenson
Roy Chapman Andrews
Johann Sebastian Bach
Gerard Manley Hopkins
John Kenneth Galbraith
John Greenleaf Whittier
Alfred North Whitehead
William Carlos Williams
Alexander Graham Bell
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Frederick Law Olmsted
Edna St. Vincent Millay
William Vaughn Moody
Albert Payson Terhune
Oliver Wendell Holmes
James Whitcomb Riley
James Jesus Angleton
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Farrah Fawcett Majors
Norman Vincent Peale
Dame Margot Fonteyn
John Maynard Keynes
George Bernard Shaw
Engine Charlie Wilson
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Edgar Rice Burroughs
William Dean Howells
Margaret Wise Brown
Adam Clayton Powell
William Cullen Bryant
Henry David Thoreau
James Clerk Maxwell
John Crowe Ransom
Katherine Ann Porter
Lady Ottoline Morrell
Erle Stanley Gardner
Sugar Ray Robinson
Josiah Willard Gibbs
Robert Penn Warren
John Singer Sargent
Richard Henry Dana
George Dubya Bush
William Butler Yeats
Robert Beverly Hale
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Oliver Hazard Perry
Peter Bent Brigham
Henry Cabot Lodge
Olivia Newton John
Claire Boothe Luce
Frank Lloyd Wright
Peter Paul Rubens
Joyce Carol Oates
Martin Luther King
Louisa May Alcott
Francis Scott Key
Mary Baker Eddy
Carl Gustav Jung
John Jacob Astor
Ford Madox Ford
Jean Paul Sartre
Edgar Allen Poe
John Stuart Mill
Wild Bill Hickok
Billy Sol Estes

"Sir Arthur Conan Doyle" is a cheat, since you didn't use titles for anyone else. If you left it out, would the poem still make sense? :)

Eddington, Scott, Fonteyn and Morrell
Have all been granted their titles as well...

The poem's title's interesting, too. I found it on a group website but when I tried to link to it - guess what - it had been deleted.

Thoreau's name at birth was David Henry Thoreau.

Thoreau & Bullfrogs (As Seen by a Local Farmer)

"'Henry D. Thoreau -- Henry D. Thoreau,' jerking out the words with withering contempt. 'His name ain't no more Henry D. Thoreau than my name is Henry D. Thoreau. And everybody knows it, and he knows it. His name's Da-a-vid Henry and it ain't never been nothing but Da-a-vid Henry. And he knows that! Why one morning I went out in my field across there to the river, and there, beside that little old mud pond, was standing Da-a-vid Henry, and he wasn't doin' nothin' but just standin' there -- lookin' at that pond, and when I came back at noon, there he was standin' with his hands behind him just lookin' down into that pond, and after dinner when I come back again if there wan't Da-a-vid standin' there just like as if he had been there all day, gazin' down into that pond, and I stopped and looked at him and I says, "Da-a-vid Henry, what air you a-doin'?" And he didn't turn his head and he didn't look at me. He kept on lookin' down at that pond, and he said, as if he was thinkin' about the stars in the heavens, "Mr. Murray, I'm a-studyin' -- the habits -- of the bullfrog!" And there that darned fool had been standin' -- the livelong day -- a-studyin' -- the habits -- of the bull-frog!'"

Quoted in Walter Harding, Thoreau as Seen by His Contemporaries.

No wonder I got fired from a proofreading job once! Anyway, I will now refocus my criticism on the abbreviation of "captain" for Scott.

But I love the message of this poem, that we should all proudly display our middle names.

I'd love to proudly display my middle name or names (that's with or without a split infinitive! ;)) - but I don't have a middle name. Poor me.

But I enjoyed this; it's amusing and clever.

Jayne

I think the message of the poem is the answer to this cryptic clue:

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxarcus Aurelius Antoninu

.
I see dead people. But are they all dead? Must I google? The title is inscrutable. I noticed that Annie titled her first response "Intrinsically Evanescent" which could be a way of describing what the list represents. (I would add "Eclectic".) Is it a celebration of middle names as Roger says? (I don't think so. Bill Hickok was not born Wild. Nor does "Dubya" appear on George W. Bush's birth certificate.) Is it the tapered look? Is it randomness? Is it pointless randomness?

It is shape-driven. There is no rhyme or reason to it except that it tapers; or what we arbitrarily impose on it. It is anti-alphabetical. It made me count. The list reminds me in its own way of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album cover with the montage of famous faces. There are 71 faces on the cover. This has 78 names.

It could be that the N is reciting the names as a kind of scrolling through some list that has significance in some way, shape or form.

Long story: I saw a play entitled, The Method Gun here in Boston a few years back. It was in a Black Box Theatre that sat maybe 75-100 people. As the audience filed in there was a tiny yellow pencil and small square of paper on each seat. Instructions were given to write down in clear letters the name of someone in our lives who had impacted us in a good way. They were then collected from us before the performance began. The play itself was a fantastic piece of meta-art that explored a theatre troupe under the direction (and duress) of a man who used a controversial technique called "The Method Gun" to teach his acting students the art of acting). As the performance came to an end, a screen illuminated the back wall of the stage and a slow scroll appeared of all the names collected from the audience. It was a profound moment for me. I waited for the name I had written down. When it appeared at the top off the screen and slowly scrolled down and out of sight I cried.

I don't know if this poem might do that to someone reading it. I hope so.
I'd suggest double spacing the poem/list.

Incidentally, Jack, you yourself are eclectic here on Eratosphere. Why so mystere? I don't mind it, but why?

.

Yes, that's correct. The source was/is google groups [ usenet ] sci/phys/relativity. Google recently shut down that utility. The particular web page was/is:

https://groups.google.com/g/sci.phys.../c/NOzqcUvM_M4

Likewise, AAPC has been shut down.

https://groups.google.com/g/alt.arts.poetry.comments/