PUNS

"Noah's ark was made of gopher-wood, but Joan of Arc was Maid of Orleans."  Archbishop of Dublin, Richard Whatley   "Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana."  Groucho Marx  http://law.fordham.edu/newsroom/14806.htm

NOAH'S ARK RIDDLES

Where were the worms in Noah's ark?  They were in the early birds.

What fruits were on Noah's ark?  Pears (pairs) and apples (with worms inside using them for protection against early birds).

What animal took the most luggage into the ark, and what animal took the least?  The elephant took his trunk; and the rooster had only a comb.

"There's a royalty of falcons, starting with the eagle, who is the emperor.  The gyr falcon is the king, the peregrine is the duke, and so on.  On the bottom of the pecking order is the kestrel, which is considered the knave or servant."  The Air Force Academy Falcons has live mascots. ... the birds were released at the start of the game and at halftime, they'd circle the stadium and return to fist.  Force of Nature (Joe Pickett series, Book 12) by C.J. Box

Do you feel the rhythm?  Or a French rythme, Spanish ritmo, Swedish rytm, Russian ритм (ritm) or Japanese rizumu?  Is there a difference?  Perhaps one way to find out is to have a French conversation, German konversation, Spanish conversación, or Italian conversatione?  For millennia we have been singing, dancing, clapping, drumming and talking to a beat.  Just like the evolution of our DNA, languages have cross-pollinated, overlapped and changed, but at a far more rapid rate than our bodies.  But are linguistic rhythmic patterns really universal?  An extensive 2010 Oxford University study comparing a series of rhythm algorithm measurements for English, French, Greek, Russian and Mandarin found – “surprisingly”, as the study itself expressed – that none of these languages could be separated, and that languages do not have dramatically different rhythms.  It found variants came far more from individual speakers than the rules of the language itself.  Could the instinct for rhythm in language be innate and echo Noam Chomsky’s theory of universal grammar, that we are all essentially hard-wired to form sentences?  The answer lies in the weight of syllables.  Peter Kimpton  Read much more at http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/mar/06/feel-the-beat-how-rhythm-shapes-the-way-we-use-and-understand-language

Like a bowl of roses, a poem should not have to be explained.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti  (b. 1919)  American poet

The crown of literature is poetry.  W. (William)  Somerset Maugham  (1874-1965)  English (French-born) dramatist & novelist

April is National Poetry Month.  

Read about poetic forms from A.Word.A.Day:  

clerihew (KLER-uh-hyoo)  noun  A humorous, pseudo-biographical verse of four lines of uneven length, with the rhyming scheme AABB, and the first line containing the name of the subject.  After writer Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956), who originated it.  Earliest documented use:  1928.  Here is one of his clerihews:  Sir Christopher Wren said, “I am going to dine with some men.  If anyone calls Say I am designing St. Paul’s.”  

epigram  (EP-i-gram) noun  A short witty saying, often in verse.  From Latin epigramma, from Greek epigramma, from epigraphein (to write, inscribe), from epi- (upon, after) + graphein (to write).  Earliest documented use:  1552.   According to the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, What is an epigram? A dwarfish whole;  Its body brevity, and wit its soul.  

cento  (SEN-to)  noun  A literary work, especially a poem, composed of parts taken from works of other authors.  From Latin cento (patchwork).  Earliest documented use:  1605.  

Read The Oxford Cento at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9502E3D71630F931A35757C0A9609C8B63  

limerick  (LIM-uhr-ik)  noun   A humorous, often risque, verse of three long (A) and two short (B) lines with the rhyme scheme AABBA.  After Limerick, a county in Ireland.  The origin of the name of the verse is said to be from the refrain “Will you come up to Limerick?” sung after each set of extemporized verses popular at gatherings.  Earliest documented use:  1896.  

doggerel  (DO-guhr-uhl, DOG-uhr-)  noun  1.  Comic verse that is irregular in rhythm and in rhyme especially for burlesque or comic effect.  2.  Trivial or bad poetry.  Here’s poet John Skelton (c. 1463-1529) defending his doggerels:  For though my rhyme be ragged, Tattered and jagged, Rudely rain-beaten, Rusty and moth-eaten, If ye take well therewith, It hath in it some pith.

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day

From Anu Garg:  I received more than 3000 poems.  Some anticipated my dread at having to slog through the poems:  Logophile Garg, Anu,  Requested a clerihew.  Will he still wish he had, When he gets a myriad?

From Anne Thomas:  An epigram’s witty and terse.  To a clerihew I’m not averse. Still, I’m gonna stick With a good limerick, Although you may think me perverse.

From:  Richard Simonds   Subject:  A poem about pi/pie

Pioem*  Pie I love, I adore blueberry - It filled, sated, How tasty:  Soulfood, delicious Perfect, wonderful And it was Terrific (Four slices)

*a poem where the number of letters in each word follow the numbers of pi -- in this case 314159265358979323846.

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1278  April 1, 2015  On this date in 1826, Samuel Morey patented the internal combustion engine.  On this date in 1854, Charles Dickens' novel Hard Times began serialisation in his magazine, Household Words.