Metaphorical Headline; Sonnet-Challenge

Before I forget, let me point out that "Minerva" has a sonnet-challenge going this week, in case you're in a 14-line mood:


http://minervadamama.blogspot.com/2009/07/poetry-challenge-5-sonnet.html

Now, on to a headline from The Commercial Appeal, a daily newspaper in Memphis:

"Mayoral Morass Sinks Deeper Into Confusion" (Wed. July 8, 2009, page one).

As with the governor of Alaska, the Mayor of Memphis, Willie Herenton, is a bit unsure not about resigning but about when he's resigning, and the confusion is causing all sorts of political and bureaucratic problems. --Also opportunities: The legendary wrestler (or "wrassler") Jerry Lawler (Andy Kaufman wrestled him--remember?) is going to run in the special election, when and if it takes place.

At any rate, the headline troubled me slightly, with regard to the metaphor. I suppose a morass--or "swampy tract," as the OED online defines it--can sink, insofar as all pieces of land, including soaked ones, have the potential to sink. But maybe the headline-writer (as opposed to the story's writers, Amos Maki and Alex Donlach) was thinking that the situation Herenton has created is sinking into a morass of confusion; or maybe that the mayor's office and the city council are sinking into a morass. But I don't think the morass is meant to be sinking.

Anyway, I enjoyed the story and the swamp of my thinking about this metaphor....I reckon "headline" itself is a metaphor--the top of a newspaper-story or -column (for example) being compared to the head, and thus the need for "capitalization." A capital idea!

Good luck with your sonnet.

Seriously Sick of the Muse

The 19th-century British poet Thomas Hood has a nice little poem in which he expresses weariness with the pressures of writing poetry, with the obligation to be a Serious Poet. The poem, by title, is dedicated to Minerva, Roman goddess/muse of poetry and other arts. The poem also mentions Thyrsis, a singing shepherd in Virgil's poetry, and it alludes to Pallas (Athena), the Greek predecessor of Minerva.

To Minerva

by Thomas Hood

My temples throb, my pulses boil,
I'm sick of Song and Ode and Ballad--
So Thyrsis, take the Midnight Oil,
And pour it on a lobster salad.

By rain is dull, my sight is foul,
I cannot write a verse, or read,--
Then Pallas, take away thine Owl,
And let us have a lark instead.

Thus Hood, on a lark, so to speak, produces an anti-serious-poetry poem.

In honor of Hood and poems written on a lark (to give Minerva a coffee break), a poem that larks about:

Just Between You and Me

I ponder you. You ponder me.
Thus we create a palpable
ponderability,
a kind of interstasis
or interpersonal oasis
that’s both and neither
Other and Self.
Shuck and jive and humming hive,
the twixt between us is alive.


from The Coast Starlight: Collected Poems 1976-2006, Hans Ostrom