Kurt Vonnegut

Joyce Kilmer (1886–1918)

With a little help from Bartleby, unhemmed proudly presents 'Trees', a poem at least one reader already has off pat:

I THINK that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

The afore-mentioned unnamed reader when performing 'Trees' makes a significant improvement by omitting the second, third, fourth and fifth couplets. This gives the thing more oomph, and means that we're not troubled by the idea of trees having hungry mouths and hair-dos (don't buy it), and looking at God the whole time (don't buy it). If you google 'trees', Kilmer's ditty is about the eighth link you get.

stamp of the month

Louis Edouard Fournier

1889, depicting Shelley's 1822 beach cremation. The painting's not square, but cropped, leaving Mary Shelley out of the frame. You can see the picture in full if you go here, or if you do something I've long wanted to do but never done, that is, go to Liverpool.

Odd that Trelawny seems to be examining the dinky screen on the back of his digital camera and that Byron looks like he's sporting the jeans-inside-your-boots fashion that's pretty fashionable in Warsaw.

The internet is unusually unforthcoming about Louis Fournier. Who was he? A one-hit wonder, perhaps.

Richard Holmes doesn't give anything away, but tells us that the 'celebrated' painting shows 'a miraculously undamaged corpse offered up to Heaven on a martyr's pyre, with Trelawny and Byron striking solemn Romantic poses (actually they went swimming), and a pious Mary kneeling on the wind-swept beach in floods of tears (although in fact she was never there at all)'.

Mabel Rankin

Last week, Poland's premier novelty covers band, the Mabel Rankin Beat Quartet, went into a fancy recording studio for the day and laid down six original numbers with the able and amiable assistance of a man called Tomasz, who usually records real musicians. Or adverts for tyres. You can here four of the songs here. Lucky you! (You might also check out EddyFR. I don't know him from Adam. What to make of him?)