L'aura del Campo

Scaddle, stolchy, sloomy. Auden. Two poems.

SPRING: 18 Jalál (26 April)

         Sixth Day of Ridvan          

Today is being brought to you by the colors pink, blue and purple! Three of my least favorite colors; but, hey! ya gotta love the rainbow. .

And the letter S ... as in stolchy, sloomy, snudge, snoachy and scaddle!

W.H. Auden (born 1907) in his poem "A bad night" uses these words. I can't find them in an abridged dictionary, perhaps in the Oxford? I found maunder and plangent but not hirple, bloats, pirries, cag-mag, hoasting, drumble or fribble.

I checked on line at:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com

and found: pirry, sloomy, snudge, cagmag, drumble, and fribble. No luck with: hirple, blout, stolchy, snoachy, scaddle or hoasting.

Auden, who was known for using multi-syllable words of French origen, in a way contrasting with Hopkins use of one syllable stressed Anglo-Saxon derived words, was obviously having fun!

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO SKIP OVER THIS SECTION IN VIOLET UNLESS YOU ARE A WRITER INTERESTED IN AUDEN

Found at:

http://www.audensociety.org/04newsletter.html

Excerpts from an article written by Toby Litt:

From "Acedia" to "Zeitgeist": Auden in the 2nd Edition of the OED

"One of my great ambitions is to get into the OED as the first person to have used in print a new word. I have two candidates at the moment, which I used in my review of J. R. Ackerley's autobiography. They are `Plain-sewing' and `Princeton-First-Year'. . ." (Auden in the Observer Colour Supplement, 7 Nov. 1971).

Auden's wish to be included in the Oxford English Dictionary has been granted, 724 times at least. However not all these citations are for being the first person to have used a new word in print. In most cases his usage merely exemplifies a change or extension of meaning. Only 110 citations are coinages, of which 60 are hyphenated compounds such as "angel-vampire" or "swan-delighting", and which appear in long alphabetical lists of other "angel-" and "swan-" words. A further 22 appearances are under sub-headings, that is, giving an additional definition to a word which already existed. This leaves 28 occasions on which Auden appears at the top of a separate heading as the first person to coin a new word.

... Auden's systematic transference of parts of speech in his last collection is totally overlooked and poems such as "A Bad Night", perhaps by appearing over-eager to reserve their author a place in the OED, are ignored. It is to be hoped that with the growing recognition of the achievements of Auden's later verse, the OED will one day present a more balanced picture of these collections and therefore of Auden's career as a whole.

Among Auden's more notable citations are: the first pejorative use of "queer", the first printed use of "ponce" to designate an effeminate homosexual, of "toilet-humour", of "agent" in the sense of a secret agent or spy, of "dedicated" to mean a person "single-minded in loyalty to his beliefs or in his artistic or personal integrity", of "shagged" meaning "weary, exhausted", and of "stud" for a person "displaying masculine sexual characteristics". Further curiosities are the first printed appearance in English of the surrealist term "objet trouvé" and the first printed use of "What's yours?" as an invitation given by the person buying the next round of drinks.

A further series of entries deals with Auden's figurative use of technical, geological, and scientific terms. Particularly worthy of note besides "eutectic" are "endurance test", "flow sheet", "fertile crescent", and "hanging valley".

Weather where I am: 49º, grey and chilly.

Weather where Kevin is in Cupertino, CA: 64º and sunny.

Got an email from my "little-brother" Kevin Wright. He's doing well. His daughter Maya will be going to school, so he's also getting 'old'. He already had some grey in his hair before he had his two daughters, so he can't blame them ... much .

Sat in the coffeehouse this morning and didn't feel a need to take a nap, so maybe I got a good rest last night? Spoke with Shawna Saubers (who is getting married to Nikola Ristic on May 12th) about "reticular activating systems" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reticular_activating_system as a means of breaking old patterns/habits. It sounds interesting. I need to look up The Pacific Institute http://www.pac-inst.com/ (Lou Tice).

Shawna is one of the mainstays of the French Table and has lived in France. I shared with her my concern about paying for a degree (MFA) I may never be able to pay off. In Europe, this isn't as much of a problem. Perhaps I should just write? Continue to be impoverished? Enjoy life in spite of its limitations?

SENSED

Red roses; white fragrant wild rose; irises and more irises; grey skies; soup; chocolate angel food cake; purple and pink clematis; strewn Kentucky coffeebean flowers; Mexican coffee; Finn's fine whine (he's 3; he's sick).

My friend Ryan (Mr. Phyllis) wants me to look at a script he is filming for class. He is interested in a poem (poems?) for the film. This will make me write. Do I want to write? Deadline is SOON! Do I like deadlines ?

Two related sketches written, worked on, edited today (ouch) for two different contests:

Clematis on the flagpole


Vagrant and fragrant
entwining vine
six petals plucked
spring's vision of time.

Viewed from verandas
or placed in a vase
leapt from spring's palette
big soft pleated plates.

Vast is the seascape
the vanished horizon
but here sails before us
a violet clad mizen. [163.78]

Note: mizen: third mast of a sailboat (yawl, dandy)

Words to be used for

Stormy's poetry newsletter & contest  (ASR) poetry newsletter gift point contest #310188 by Stormy Lady

by April 28th: violet, vine, vase, vanish, vagrant, view, vision

Words to be used for

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by April 30th: plate, petal, leapt, pleat, *palet, *pelta, *lepta.

*These words are difficult. I originally wanted to use them in the poem above. Managed to use the first four but gave up on these three. Then I wrote the poem below.

palet: a bract, palea
pelta: leather shield
lepta: 100 = one drachma (Greece)

Ripples through meadows of apples and wheat


Two lepta for a hundred palets,
from fields of grass the drachmas flowed.

Small mites that gathered like the petals
shorn off the ancient black sheepnose.

My leather pelta shunned your arrows
the pallette of this autumn knows.

I dashed those porcelain plates to pieces
I've leapt in pleated skirts and bows.

And I, enga of your knowing
lay in kåren of your throes. [163.79]

Notes:

This is almost a ghazal (form of poetic couplets where the name of the author is many times part of the last couplet). I'd have to tweak it to make it a proper one. A WDC source on what a ghazal is and how to write one: "WHAT IS A GHAZAL AND HOW TO WRITE IT?"   by Dr M C Gupta

sheepnose = a variety of apple applied to black gilliflower among others.

A link for antique apple varieties: http://www.foodhistory.com/foodnotes/leftovers/antiqueapples.htm

enga = the meadow (på Norsk; ängen in Swedish)
Kåre = male Scandinavian name.
kåren = the breeze or the ripple

New word for me: mizzle! To add to my collection of fizzle, sizzle, drizzle, snizzle.

Both poems are now reviewable and ratable:

"Clematis on the flagpole"  [E]
"Ripples through meadows of apples ..."  [ASR]