I thought I'd start off with this splendid example by Byron:

EPISTLE FROM MR. MURRAY TO DR. POLIDORI

DEAR Doctor, I have read your play,
Which is a good one in its way,
Purges the eyes and moves the bowels,
And drenches handkerchiefs like towels
With tears, that, in a flux of grief,
Afford hysterical relief
To shatter'd nerves and quicken'd pulses,
Which your catastrophe convulses.

I like your moral and machinery;
Your plot, too, has such scope for scenery:
Your dialogue is apt and smart:
The play's concoction full of art;
Your hero raves, your heroine cries,
All stab, and everybody dies.
In short, your tragedy would be
The very thing to hear and see:
And for a piece of publication,
If I decline on this occasion,
It is not that I am not sensible
To merits in themselves ostensible,
But - and I grieve to speak it - plays
Are drugs - mere drugs, sir - now-a-days.
I had a heavy loss by 'Manual' -
Too lucky if it prove not annual,
And Sotheby, with his 'Orestes,'
(Which, by the by, the author's best is,)
Has lain so very long on hand,
That I despair of all demand.
I've advertised, but see my books,
Or only watch my shopman's looks;-
Still Ivan, Ina, and such lumber,
My back-shop glut, my shelves encumber.

There's Byron too, who once did better,
Has sent me, folded in a letter,
A sort of - it's no more a drama
Than Darnley, Ivan, or Kehama:
So alter'd since last year his pen is,
I think he's lost his wits at Venice.
In short, sir, what with one and t'other,
I dare not venture on another.
I write in haste; excuse each blunder;
The coaches through the street so thun der!
My room's so full - we've Gifford here
Reading MS., with Hookham Frere
Pronouncing on the nouns and particles
Of some of our forthcoming Articles.

The Quarterly - Ah, sir, if you
Had but the genius to review!
A smart critique upon St. Helena,
Or if you only would but tell in a
Short compass what - but to resume:
As I was saying, sir, the room
The room's so full of wits and bards,
Crabbes, Campbells, Crokers, Freres, and Wards,
And others, neither bards nor wits:
My humble tenement admits
All persons in the dress of gent,
From Mr. Hammond to Dog Dent.

A party dines with me to-day,
All clever men, who make their way;
Crabbe, Malcolm, Hamilton, and Chantrey
Are all partakers of my pantry.
They're at this moment in discussion
On poor De Staël's late dissolution.
Her book, they say, was in advance
Pray Heaven, she tell the truth of France!
Thus run our time and tongues away;
But, to return, sir, to your play:
Sorry, sir, but I cannot deal,
Unless 'twere acted by O'Neill;
My hands so full, my head so busy,
I'm almost dead, and always dizzy;
And so, with endless truth and hurry,
Dear Doctor, I am yours
JOHN MURRAY.

August 1817.

There's this one by Wendy Cope.
________________________________


Triolet

I used to think all poets were Byronic—
Mad, bad and dangerous to know.
And then I met a few. Yes it's ironic—
I used to think all poets were Byronic.
They're mostly wicked as a ginless tonic
And wild as pension plans. Not long ago
I used to think all poets were Byronic—
Mad, bad and dangerous to know.

(Have you seen this early Eliot?)

NOCTURNE


Romeo, grand serieux, to importune
guitar and hat in hand, beside the gate
With Juliet, in the usual debate
Of love, beneath a bored but courteous moon;
The conversation failing, strikes some tune
Banal, and out of pity for their fate
Behind the wall I have some servant wait
Stab, and the lady sinks into a swoon.

Blood looks effective on the moonlit ground-
The hero smiles; in my best mode oblique
Rolls toward the moon a frenzied eye profound,
(No need of "Love forever?" - "Love next week?")
While female readers all in tears are drowned: -
"The perfect climax all true lovers seek!"


TS Eliot, from <u>The Harvard Advocate</u>, November 12, 1909

(...and to parallel Janet's two posts...)

Waste Land Limericks


In April one seldom feels cheerful;
Dry stones, sun and dust make me fearful;
Clairvoyantes distress me,
Commuters depress me--
Met Stetson and gave him an earful.

She sat on a mighty fine chair,
Sparks flew as she tidied her hair;
She asks many questions,
I make few suggestions--
Bad as Albert and Lil--what a pair

The Thames runs, bones rattle, rats creep;
Tiresias fancies a peep--
A typist is laid,
A record is played--
Wei la la. After this it gets deep.

A Phoenician named Phlebas forgot
About birds and his business--the lot,
Which is no surprise,
Since he'd met his demise
And been left in the ocean to rot.

No water. Dry rocks and dry throats,
Then thunder, a shower of quotes
From the Sanskrit and Dante.
Da. Damyata. Shantih.
I hope you'll make sense of the notes.


Wendy Cope


[This message has been edited by Robert Meyer (edited July 06, 2007).]

Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861)

The Latest Decalogue

Thou shalt have one God only; who
Would tax himself to worship two?
God's image nowhere shalt thou see,
Save haply in the currency:
Swear not at all; since for thy curse
Thine enemy is not the worse:
At church on Sunday to attend
Will help to keep the world thy friend:
Honor thy parents; that is, all
From whom promotion may befall:
Thou shalt not kill; but needst not strive
Officiously to keep alive:
Adultery it is not fit
Or safe, for women, to commit:
Thou shalt not steal; an empty feat,
When 'tis so lucrative to cheat:
False witness not to bear be strict;
And cautious, ere you contradict.
Thou shalt not covet; but tradition
Sanctions the keenest competition.

These are great!

I've been reading the light verse of the English poet Peter Russell (in his book "Malice Aforethought". This is one I've liked.

THE BOARD'S BLARE

Our Starver, Art without leaven,
Bellowéd be thy Fame;
Thy lingam come; thy will be gun,
On Campus as it is in Tavern.
Give us this day our Big Success.
Review at length our vacuousness
As we review those who evacuate with us.
And read us not in Profundity;
But circulate widely our drivel:
For Thine is the Foundation,
The Grants and the Glory,
For Sabbatical after Sabbatical.
Eh, men?

Robert, Michael and Andrew,
Terrific contributions. What can one say? More than I have time to say at the moment.
It's my experience that the alleged general lack of interest in poetry is because so much poetry is serious and self obsessed. I have seen people who never normally read poetry spend hours pouring over anthologies of humorous verse. Thanks for posting these.
Janet

The Ghost in the Martini
by Anthony Hecht

containingOver the rim of the glass
Containing a good martini with a twist
I eye her bosom and consider a pass,
containingCertain we’d not be missed

containingIn the general hubbub.
Her lips, which I forgot to say, are superb,
Never stop babbling once (Aye, there’s the rub)
containingBut who would want to curb

containingSuch delicious, artful flattery?
It seems she adores my work, the distinguished grey
Of my hair. I muse on the salt and battery
containingOf the sexual clinch, and say

containingSomething terse and gruff
About the marked disparity in our ages.
She looks like twenty-three, though eager enough.
containingAs for the famous wages

containingOf sin, she can’t have attained
Even to union scale, though you never can tell.
Her waist is slender and suggestively chained,
containingAnd things are going well.

containingThe martini does its job,
God bless it, seeping down to the dark old id.
(“Is there no cradle, Sir, you would not rob?”
containingSays ego, but the lid

containingIs off. The word is Strike
While the iron’s hot.) And now, ingenuous and gay,
She is asking me about what I was like
containingAt twenty. (Twenty, eh?)

containingYou wouldn’t have liked me then,
I answer, looking carefully into her eyes.
I was shy, withdrawn, awkward, one of those men
containingThat girls seemed to despise,

containingMoody and self-obsessed,
Unhappy, defiant, with guilty dreams galore,
Full of ill-natured pride, an unconfessed
containingSnob and a thorough bore.

containingHer smile is meant to convey
How changed or modest I am, I can’t tell which,
When I suddenly hear someone close to me say,
containing“You lousy son-of-a-bitch!”

containingA young man’s voice, by the sound,
Coming, it seems, from the twist in the martini.
“You arrogant, elderly letch, you broken-down
containingBrother of Apeneck Sweeney!

containingThought I was buried for good
Under six thick feet of mindless self-regard?
Dance on my grave, would you, you galliard stud,
containingSilenus in leotard?

containingWell, summon me you did,
And I come unwillingly, like Samuel’s ghost.
‘All things shall be revealed that have been hid.’
containingThere’s something for you to toast!

containingYou only got where you are
By standing upon my ectoplasmic shoulders,
And wherever that is may not be so high or far
containingIn the eyes of some beholders.

containingTake, for example, me.
I have sat alone in the dark, accomplishing little,
And worth no more to myself, in pride and fee,
containingThan a cup of luke-warm spittle.

containingBut honest about it, withal . . .”
(“Withal,” forsooth!) “Please not to interrupt.
And the lovelies went by, ‘the long and the short and the tall,’
containingHankered for, but untupped.

containingBloody monastic it was.
A neurotic mixture of self-denial and fear;
The verse halting, the cataleptic pause,
containingNo sensible pain, no tear,

containingBut an interior drip
As from an ulcer, where, in the humid deep
Center of myself, I would scratch and grip
containingThe wet walls of the keep,

containingOr lie on my back and smell
From the corners the sharp, ammoniac, urine stink.
‘No light, but rather darkness visible.’
containingAnd plenty of time to think.

containingIn that thick, fetid air
I talked to myself in giddy recitative:
‘I have been studying how I may compare
containingThis prison where I live

containingUnto the world . . .’ I learned
Little, and was awarded no degrees.
Yet all that sunken hideousness earned
containingYour negligence and ease.

containingNor was it wholly sick,
Having procured you a certain modest fame;
A devotion, rather, a grim device to stick
containingTo something I could not name.”

containingMeanwhile, she babbles on
About men, or whatever, and the juniper juice
Shuts up at last, having sung, I trust, like a swan.
containingStill given to self-abuse!

containingBetter get out of here;
If he opens his trap again it could get much worse.
I touch her elbow, and, leaning toward her ear,
containingTell her to find her purse.

The problem is that so much "humorous" verse falls into two categories: cornball, unoriginal, un-witty observations put in rhyme and meter (i.e. not funny), or overly subtle/elliptical literary in jokes (i.e. not funny). We need more good examples to inspire us.

When I was editing Folly I learned that many poets don't know what satire is. Which is weird, because you see satirical humor on TV all the time.

Rose,
the one kind of "humorous poem" that I really can't stand is the metrical joke with the punch line. The doggedly measured out shaggy dog story rendered into verse.
The reason I posted poems above that have many layers and are not visibly "funny" is because I think that humour has many faces and above all is in the style". The voice.
I weep for "Folly" there is nothing filling its place. Nothing with such a broad sweep and wide understanding of humour. I think you underestimate what it was you achieved. I have definitely lost heart since you closed shop.
Janet