‘Tis National Poetry Day,
You should really write a ditty,
Because if you don’t celebrate the verse,
It would be ever such a pity
(with apologies to E.G. Thribb)
Yes, I know its nothing to do with comics or SF or our usual topics, but it is National Poetry Day in the UK and before you say ‘I don’t like poetry’ consider the number of times you have become annoyed with people who declare a similar blanket statement of ‘I don’t like comics’ while you chastise them (rightly) for deciding on an entire, diverse medium, usually based on very little actual reading. It’s a diverse artform, from the epic, heroic poetry of Homer to the nonsense verse of Edward Lear (recently translated to comics so well by the great Hunt Emerson) to the lyrics of the Beatles. And its a form of word-dancing which has attracted more than a few SF&F and comics writers over the years too, such as Thomas Disch, Lewis Carroll, Neil Gaiman… In fact I seem to recall reading in Hy Bender’s Sandman Companion that for a page set to poetry in the Sandman Neil and the artists even arranged the frequency of the comics panels to subconciously echo the timing of the verse in the dialogue boxes – poetry sneaking in by the back door.
Thu, Oct 9, 2008
Books