In Gregory Dowling's "What Makes a Successful Parody" thread over on M on M, I mentioned Francis Heaney and his book "Holy Tango of Literature" ("Holy Tango" being an anagram of "Anthology"). I just had another look, and glory be, isn't the whole lot of it online at
http://www.yarnivore.com/francis/Holy_Tango.htm! His parodies are not just of poets, he does playwrights etc too.
Here are a couple of extracts from the Francis Heaney book:
AN E-MAIL
A. A. MILNE
Whatever I do, there’s always Pooh,
There’s always Pooh and Me.
“Let’s write an e-mail,” I say to Pooh.
“That sounds like a wonderful thing to do,”
He says. I say, “I think so too.”
“Let’s write it together,” says Pooh, says he.
“Let’s write it together,” says Pooh.
(and four more stanzas)
AH, SOB
BASHO
A yellow snake eats
The robin’s lone precious egg—
You motherfucker
SUMO ANNOY
ANONYMOUS
Sumo ar icumen in,
Rude sumo cru.
Spreadeth but and treadeth fut
Wearing not the shu.
Sumo cru!
Al gruntyng on the mat,
Necks bedeckd with du,
Scowlyng faces, lackyng graces,
Surly sumo cru.
Adyu, adyu,
Mor sumo for to vyu,
We wish we naver du.
I started a thread on this about three years ago at GT with people doing their own parodies a la F. Heaney, but it vanished. So here goes again. The idea is to come up with an apt anagram of an author's name and use it as a poem title, then write the poem as a parody of the author's style (not necessarily of a particular poem). The only change I'd like to make from the Heaney model is to omit the author's name and leave people to work it out from the title. And include targets known hereabouts as well.
So, two to kick it off...
WINDY DAY, MOVING HALT
A windy day, high on a hill;
the ruffled Menai Strait below
danced in the sun. But dark and still
on that windy day, high on the hill,
was my ancestor’s grave. I stayed until
I had had enough and was ready to go,
on that windy day, back down the hill
to the ruffled Menai Strait below.
(OK, the initials of the "target" are DGA)
MY TRIUMPH
Her grace rendered me dumb
as sweetly she swooped and soared.
I blew her to Kingdom Come
as a small gift to the Lord.