[Jan D. Hodge]

An intruder on the island! But such a personality refused to confine herself to a mere quatrain; she insisted on having at the very least a limerick. I say: "Vote her off, for the good of all!"

The evangelist Aimee McPherson
was a truly remarkable person.
......She proved she could handle
......both Gospel and scandal,
and that payoffs increase as things "worsen."*

*In May 1926, she "disappeared" (apparently with an alleged lover) and was thought to have drowned, but reappeared a month later with a sham "kidnapping" story as a cover-up. The story made sensational headlines for months. See, e.g.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aimee_Semple_McPherson

[This message has been edited by Jan D. Hodge (edited June 01, 2006).]

[R E Bolick]

Welcome, Mary, to Quatrain's Island and apologies for overlooking Harriet -- she was good at hiding! No more Afro-American female emancipators.

I love the naturalness of the embedded spoken line, and the way you emphasized it with that opening trochee.

Jan, you are incorrigible. I know of no island isolated enough in Sioux City to which to ban you. So instead, I'm assigning you two quatrain subjects, and yes, the judges have thrown in a Hodge rule. For the Lewis & Clark quatrains, they must be ballad meter and linked by rhyme scheme (your choice), AND they must be able to stand alone as separate quatrains (i.e., no plain enjambment; if there is enjambment, the end of the first quatrain must be a grammatical end, and the beginning of the next, a grammatical start without using conjunctions). Hmph, that should keep you busy. And almost needless to say, the holyroller was cast into perdition, although the judges were laughing their asses off.



Hey, only 26 more quatrains to go to reach 50.

Latest summary of rules:

Must be a deceased American of note.
No more blazers of the Cumberland Gap (Boone)
No more exterminators cum naturalists (Audubon)
No more Vice Presidents who never became President (Agnew)
No more Presidents who were generals with wooden teeth (Washington)
No more father-son President combos (Adamses)
No more South Carolinians (F. Marion)
No more early talkies stars (W.C. Fields)
No more Sixties pop stars (Tiny Tim)
No more cannibals (Alferd Packer)
No more clothing merchants. (Levis, sorry, Wanamaker, Macy, and Roebuck)
No more Vermont poets who couldn't decide between fire and ice (R. Frost)
No more beer brewers (J. Griesedieck)
No more White Mountain painters whose name begins with a "B" (A. Bierstadt, that leaves Thomas Cole et al.)
No more Afro-American female civil rights figures
No more suffragettes who made it onto coins (S.B. Anthony)
No more Texans who ran and lost as VP candidate (L. Bentsen)
No more leading female proponents of birth control (Sanger)
No more boxers who knocked out Archie Moore (Patterson)
No more boxers from Alabama (Louis)
No more lowercase poets (cummings)
No more generals from Michigan (Custer)
No more actors whose real name was Marion (Wayne)
No more Afro-American female emancipators (Tubman)

Relatives by blood or marriage of previously accepted figures are allowed.
No changes to the subject of previous submissions.
Edits to meter, rhyme, diction, and punctuation allowed.
Multiple submissions allowed.
Two quatrains on the same subject will be allowed if submitted by outislanders within 20 minutes of each other.
Hodge rule: two subjects, two ballad meter quatrains, linked by rhyme scheme, any enjambment of the two quatrains must be such that the first ends grammatically and the next starts grammatically without using conjunctions.

ToC so far:

Adams, J.J. & Adams, J.Q.
Agnew, S.
Anthony, Susan B.
Audubon, J.J.
Bentsen, Lloyd
Bierstadt, A
Boone, D.
cummings, e.e.
Custer, G.A.
Fields, W.C.
Frost, R.
Griesedieck, J.
Khaury, Herbert Buckingham (aka Tiny Tim; tentative)
Louis, Joe (ranked most heartwrenching so far)
Marion, Francis
Packer, Alferd (ranked funniest so far)
Parks, Rosa
Patterson, Floyd
Sanger, Margaret
Strauss brothers (Levis, not waltzes)
Tubman, Harriet
Washington, George
Wayne, John

[Jan D. Hodge]

"I'm assigning you two quatrain subjects. . . . For the Lewis & Clark quatrains, they must be ballad meter and linked by rhyme scheme (your choice), AND they must be able to stand alone as separate quatrains"

Did one with both ago, didn't care for it, didn't post it, moved on to other things. But maybe I'll get around to the "assignment" eventually . . .

P.S.: I can be perfectly corrigible when I choose.

[Henry Quince]

Harry Lillis Crosby

Mister Music, the “first hip white,”
could act — and could he sing!
His casual style concealed his art,
and thousands learnt from Bing.


[Edited]
....

Leslie Townes Hope

Gagster supreme, more famed was Bob
than Groucho, Burns, or Benny.
On screen it was Bing who got the girl;
in life they both had plenty.


If the judges are reluctant to accept the Benny/plenny rhyme, they may substitute the colorless “many” for the latter. But I prefer “plenty”.



[This message has been edited by Henry Quince (edited June 02, 2006).]

[R E Bolick]

Welcome back, Henry, sporting a nice pair of quatrains.

I don't quite follow the third line about Bing's concealing his singing. He crooned in plenty of the "On the Road" movies, no? For now, I'll add him to the list, but if you could clarify or edit?

Mr. Hope goes right in. No problem with the slant rhyme (or perfect rhyme for those of us who pronounce "20" and "plenty" and "Internet" as if there were no "t" in the middle). I did wonder though about the third line's bump over "it was." In olden days, 'twould be 'twas, but that can be avoided by using the "historical present" so that the line becomes "On screen it's Bing who gets the girl."


Jan, I will put a candle in the window for you in hopes of your return over the plains, down the rivers, along the turnpike, appearing on the horizon with the ghosts of Lewis & Clark.

Latest summary of rules:

Must be a deceased American of note.
No more blazers of the Cumberland Gap (Boone)
No more exterminators cum naturalists (Audubon)
No more Vice Presidents who never became President (Agnew)
No more Presidents who were generals with wooden teeth (Washington)
No more father-son President combos (Adamses)
No more South Carolinians (F. Marion)
No more early talkies stars (W.C. Fields)
No more Sixties pop stars (Tiny Tim)
No more cannibals (Alferd Packer)
No more clothing merchants. (Levis, sorry, Wanamaker, Macy, and Roebuck)
No more Vermont poets who couldn't decide between fire and ice (R. Frost)
No more beer brewers (J. Griesedieck)
No more White Mountain painters whose name begins with a "B" (A. Bierstadt, that leaves Thomas Cole et al.)
No more Afro-American female civil rights figures
No more suffragettes who made it onto coins (S.B. Anthony)
No more Texans who ran and lost as VP candidate (L. Bentsen)
No more leading female proponents of birth control (Sanger)
No more boxers who knocked out Archie Moore (Patterson)
No more boxers from Alabama (Louis)
No more lowercase poets (cummings)
No more generals from Michigan (Custer)
No more actors whose real name was Marion (Wayne)
No more Afro-American female emancipators (Tubman)
No more crooners who also acted in screen comedies (Crosby)
No more comics who stand on stage with a golf club (Hope)

Relatives by blood or marriage of previously accepted figures are allowed.
No changes to the subject of previous submissions.
Edits to meter, rhyme, diction, and punctuation allowed.
Multiple submissions allowed.
Two quatrains on the same subject will be allowed if submitted by outislanders within 20 minutes of each other.
Hodge rule: two subjects, two ballad meter quatrains, linked by rhyme scheme, any enjambment of the two quatrains must be such that the first ends grammatically and the next starts grammatically without using conjunctions.

ToC so far:

Adams, J.J. & Adams, J.Q.
Agnew, S.
Anthony, Susan B.
Audubon, J.J.
Bentsen, Lloyd
Bierstadt, A
Boone, D.
Crosby, Bing
cummings, e.e.
Custer, G.A.
Fields, W.C.
Frost, R.
Griesedieck, J.
Hope, Bob
Khaury, Herbert Buckingham (aka Tiny Tim; tentative)
Louis, Joe (ranked most heartwrenching so far)
Marion, Francis
Packer, Alferd (ranked funniest so far)
Parks, Rosa
Patterson, Floyd
Sanger, Margaret
Strauss brothers (Levis, not waltzes)
Tubman, Harriet
Washington, George
Wayne, John

[Henry Quince]

Bob,

Crosby was a pioneer of the relaxed, conversational style of singing — crooning, which we now take for granted. It all seemed very casual, but he worked hard to create that impression of perfect ease. The art was largely concealed: ars est celare artem. But I can see I need to think over how to clarify that line.

What you call a “bump” I call an anapest! If you see the need to eliminate them, what about Music, the first or But his croon or but in life?

Henry



[This message has been edited by Henry Quince (edited June 02, 2006).]

[Roger Slater]

Saturday Night

Gilda Radner was the best.
Everybody knew she
was funnier than all the rest,
including John Belushi.

[Catherine Chandler]

Edited back to say, sorry, I didn't realize someone had already written one for Harriet Tubman. Sorry. Here's mine anyway for all it's worth.


Harriet Tubman

This locomotive pulled no car
nor rode the silver rail.
This coach to Canada preferred
to walk the Freedom Trail.

Catherine

[This message has been edited by C. Chandler-Oliveira (edited June 02, 2006).]

[Mary Moore]

John Philip Sousa’s marches
held listeners in thrall.
Gave rise to many fallen arches
but lifted spirits of all.


Amelia Mary Earhart was
a heroine to women
but her trans-Pacific flight
ended in her swimmin’.



[This message has been edited by Mary Moore (edited June 17, 2006).]

[John (adamsj) Adams]

Orval Faubus

Had he maintained his principles
He'd be one of the greats.
As it was, he got his hiney
Kicked by kids and Daisy Bates