I'm Ogden Nash

[G-Fafif]

A is for Atlanta
Aaah, here's the rest:

[url]http://mets2005.myblogsite.com/blog/_archives/2005/5/24/881652.html[/url]

[Valadius]

C is for Carter
Known as "The Kid"
Played with a smile
That he never hid.

[Valadius]

D is for Darling
Smart as can be
Ladies would scream
As he worked 1-2-3.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Is this more Nashy?

D is for Darling
Too much did he think
Till his sinker would rise
And his riser would sink

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

The form and content are both great--if I were to tinker with anything I'd start trying to fix the inversion in the 2nd line, which sounds too artsy-fartsy for my taste. I'm probably going to make this worse, because I'm dropping the witty chiasmus in your final two lines altogether, but

D is for Darling
who thought so damned much
that the weakest of batters
became, to him, clutch.

Not very good, but I guess I will almost rather have a worse poem than one that employs an unneeded inversion. Maybe that's just me, but so many would-be poets rely on it heavily, and I never want to see one again.

[A Boy Named Seo]

D is for Darling
From Hawaii he hails
Thought way too much
We can blame it on Yale

Does Hawaii screw it up? Or the tense in hails/Yale? Who and what?

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

D is for Darling
Stolen from Texas
If arms were like cars
He'd be a new Lexus

Arm like a Lexus
Head like a Pinto
A darling collision
They often got into

[metirish]

Good stuff guys..

A is for Alexander
The great he was not
Traded to the Cubs
For Turk and a guy named Rojas

[seawolf17]

"Scansion" and "chiasmus" in the same thread? Is this an ENG 388 class?

Irish, I like the sentiment, but "not" and "Rojas" definitely do not rhyme.

[Guest Edgy DC]

B.B., Blaine Beatty
Billy Beane and Bob Bailor
Double-B Mets
Oft' fail, sorry sailor!

Bruce Berenyi, Bruce Bochy
And Bruce Boisclair
Bruised hearts of Met fans
Dumb 'nough to care

Bohanon, Buchanan
Brians, theme both
Brett Butler, Billy Baldwin
Rarely did show'th

Double-B's back in time
Going back to the 'hood
With Bobby Bonilla
Suddenly lookin' good

[Benjamin Grimm]

Some of these entries are exceeding Nash's four-line standard.

Anyway, here's my attempt at Bonilla:

B is Bonilla
With plugs in his ears
He knew that the boos
Would drown out the cheers

[metirish]

A is for Alexander
Played second base quite well
Traded to the cubs
For Turk and a guy named Mel.

[Guest SwitchHitter]

A is for Ashby
No-hit battery mate
First Astro to homer
From both sides of the plate

Oh, wait......


(Actually, I did a whole Astros alphabet when I read Nash to my kids at bedtime and they asked, "Which ones of those are Astros?" and I had to tell them that none were. This is an excellent thread.)

[Benjamin Grimm]

="metirish"]A is for Alexander Played second base quite well Traded to the cubs For Turk and a guy named Mel.

I think to get the right sound, you need to limit to five (maybe six) syllables per line.

Maybe...

A, Alexander
Played second quite well
Swapped to the Cubs
For Wendell and Mel

[seawolf17]

Sorry, Annie, but since you started it:

A is for Aurelio
Gave up the first run
Calhoun let two more in
And their season was done.

[Valadius]

Are we going to choose one quatrain for each letter to use in a Mets Nash poem? If so, are we going to choose from among our submitted entries now or later?

[Guest SwitchHitter]

We're going to let Bret choose.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Later. For now, let's keep piling them up.

F is for Flynn
His glove, though a goodie
Was exceeded by far
By his love of Woody

[Benjamin Grimm]

E is for Everett
Was rough with his kid
He said he didn't
The Mets said he did

[Valadius]

E is for Elster
Much talent untapped
His biggest mistake?
He wouldn't adapt.

[Valadius]

F is for Franco
The better of two
He gave us a show
Whenever he threw.

[Valadius]

G is for Gooden
Known as Doc K
A spectacular kid
Let his skills waste away.

[A Boy Named Seo]

Mr. Q,

Here's my revised homework. Mex/vexed? The tense would still be jacked up, though. Bah.

---

B is for Benson
An 'Ace in the Hole'
His fastball's from Pittsburgh
His wife's off the pole

B is for Bell
Yacht sits in the sound
From fast start, to slump,
To 'Operation Shutdown'

A is Alfonzo
Chic in thirteen
6 hits ag'in Houston
The best Avi'd seen

A is for Allen
Who'd drink til he's wrecked
Got shipped to St. Louie
For an 8-ball-whacked Mex

D is for Darling
From Hawaii he hails
Thought way too much
We can blame it on Yale

Now can I go to recess? I better get a 'B' or mom'll be pissed.

[Benjamin Grimm]

D, Doc and Darryl
They filled us with hope
Then brought us all down
By doing the dope

[Valadius]

H, for Hernandez
Though there have been three
Mex was the best
We all can agree.

[Valadius]

I is for Izzy
Who once pitched at Shea
The trade for Bill Taylor -
The end of Gen K.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

="A Boy Named Seo"]D is for Darling From Hawaii he hails Thought way too much We can blame it on Yale Does Hawaii screw it up? Or the tense in hails/Yale? Who and what?

Well, you're doing the inversion-in-the-2nd-line thing again.

You would never (as in literally never) say to someone "From Santa Monica I hail", would you, Seo? I'll bet your fee for uttering that sentence with a straight face is pretty high.

So why put in it in verse? Because it somehow seems "poetic"? Poets last tried a straight-on, no-irony inversion sometime in the late 1930s, but word is sometimes slow getting out.

Now then, "Hails" and "Yale" doesn't work, but it hasn't anything to do with the tense. (Verbs have tense--"Yale" is a noun.) It doesn't work because you've got that nasty "s" on the end of "hail" and nothing is going to make "-ails" rhyme with "-ale," nothing.

So you've got a couple of options: you can try a different rhyme:. (Example:

Fernandez was known as 'Sid the Squid,'
Though he looked more like "Sid the Whale"
Like Darling, home to stubby Sid
Was Honolulu, though not Yale)

Or you might try an elision (a phrase that omits an easily understood word) that would use a possessive form of "Yale"--for example:

"Ron was Hawaii's pride, and Yale's,
But spent one night in Houston's jails."

(though in that particular example, "jail" makes better sense than the plural, but you get the general principle.)

Or you could embed the possessive foem in an enjambment (a construction that has one leg at the end of one line and the other leg at the beginning of the next one):

Darling outpitched Franco, Yale's
Best besting St. John's nine.
An Ivy Leaguer rarely fails
To set the pearls before the swine.

Actually, I don't remember if Darling or Franco won that duel, but this is purely to illustrate verse, not history.

And they're closing up the library here, so I'll have to continue this at some future seminar. I hope the Old Mole can join in at some point--I always learn stuff from him.

Anyway, if this process seems complex, well, that's why poets make the big bucks.

[Valadius]

J is for Johnson
HoJo to most
Kept us alive
With Darryl a ghost.

[Willets Point]

K is for Kelvin
A name thats quite odd
Yet two Mets are called this
Just one less than Todd

[A Boy Named Seo]

You would never (as in literally never) say to someone "From Santa Monica I hail", would you, Seo? I'll bet your fee for uttering that sentence with a straight face is pretty high.

Sorry, I watched Empire Strikes Back last night. I'm scrapping the Darling one and starting over. I suck at this.

D is for Darling
Smart, handsome pal
Readied at Yale
For Shallow Hal

By the way, I embedded the possessive foem in an enjambment just once and I learned my freaking lesson. I won't do that again.