[This entry is cross posted at ordinary-times.com]

As a kid, I had a lot of Doonesbury books. Zonker was my favorite character. I particularly liked his professional tanning arc, prepping for the George Hamilton Classic. There was one strip where he was laying out for two panels with his tanning coach by his side. In the third, he sighs and says, “The thrill is gone, Bernie,” to which Bernie responds in the fourth, “It’s just a passing cloud.”

There are deficiencies in describing a comic strip where nuances may be lost, so trust me when I tell you that it was funny. As to the story, Zonker took a break from the rigors of training, refreshed, and got back to it. He won the Hamilton.

Sometimes you need a break in order to do well in the long run. Piss Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday.

First, read this.

***

“He brake the ice for our quainter poets that now write.” – Robert Tofte, 1615

from The Steel Glass
George Gascoigne (c.1535-1577)

O knights, O squires, O gentle bloods yborn,
You were not born all only for yourselves:
Your country claims some part of all your pains.
There should you live, and therein should you toil
To hold up right and banish cruel wrong,
To help the poor, to bridle back the rich,
To punish vice, and virtue to advance,
To see God serv’d and Belzebub suppres’d.

Continental poems had been translated into English in blank verse. There were dramas written in it as well, but above is the opening of first known original English poem written in blank verse. It’s not great. In his book Blank Verse: A Guide to Its History and Use, Robert Shaw faults first word repetition as seen in the lines above, and in these he gives as example:

Continue reading →