(Parodist begins, chording his Celtic harp in E major:)

Oh, give me a home
That is far from the groan
Of the asphalt that bakes in the sun,
Where cattle-grazed hills
(Not the piles of my bills)
Give awe to my ham of a son.

(Parodist and Fraysters sing:)

Home, home on the range,
Where the irritant prairie dogs play,
Where seldom is heard
E'en a trivial word,
For what can an absent man say?

(Foobs to Parodist, spoken, while harp chords continue in E major:)

You know, that last stanza sounds almost Zen. How do you do things like that?

(Parodist replies:)

I'm not quite sure; the laws of chance don't work normally around me. Anyway, I tend to agree with Winnie-the-Pooh: the best part of poetry lies in "letting things come"...which I think we'd better keep on doing now.

(Parodist sings:)

I hope that you'll live
In a place that can give
All the peace that the world sorely lacks --
A place where there's time
For a child to learn rhyme,
Evading the Foober's attacks. :)

(Foobs and the other Fraysters sing softly:)

Moan, moan on the Fray,
Ev'ry Tuesday precisely at nine.
Just stop by the store
(Even though it's a chore),
And hear us all holler and whine.

(Foobs sings:)

O Rabbit, take care;
E'en a crazy old hare
Can be blinded by faux holy light.

(Parodist sings:)

I may have been had;
Still, a chunk is not bad --
That horse, leave aside in its plight.

(Foobs and Parodist sing together:)

When, when will they learn
To stop when the fire has burned
The length of the fuse?
We are not quite amused
When duds ev'ry Tuesday return.

(Parodist, Foobs and Fraysters sing forte:)

Oh, oh what dismay!
We guess it just doesn't pay
For Rabbit to write
When he can't sleep at night,
Thus zombie-like on the next day.

(Parodist ends in his best imitation of Bugs Bunny:)

And...that...ain't...hay!

wr ()()
---------------------

Here there are places remarkable
for how no one ever comes—no asphalt,
no people, no trivia:

only hills, creeks, cattle.

Some irritating prairie dogs protected
by environmental urgency,
who are interesting,
even comic, even as they
wreck the place.

I hope you get to live somewhere like this,
so much yourself you could take charge
of such a solid stand of hills,
you could receive this holy light,
keen and fleeting.

At every moment the valley brimming,
the valley empty.

—Though you are nearly always happy,
and this place does not seem happy.

Happiness is for
******************—what? whom?

The one wish, it is my one wish.

Oh, you're such a ham, who would you amuse—

the horse, the white horse on his hill?

The more I think about Ms. Ball's poem, the more it jells in my mind. I like it. It gives the effect (intentionally and, I think, well) of a mind starting off in an organized way about the objective beauty of a lonely place...

Here there are places remarkable
for how no one ever comes—no asphalt,
no people, no trivia:

only hills, creeks, cattle.

...and then going off on one subjective tangent or another (this one is wryly humorous)...

Some irritating prairie dogs protected
by environmental urgency,
who are interesting,
even comic, even as they
wreck the place.

...and then returning to more organized and reverent thoughts, only to go off on other tangents...

I hope you get to live somewhere like this,
so much yourself you could take charge
of such a solid stand of hills,
you could receive this holy light,
keen and fleeting.

At every moment the valley brimming,
the valley empty.

—Though you are nearly always happy,
and this place does not seem happy.

Happiness is for
******************—what? whom?

The one wish, it is my one wish.

Offhand, I'd say the parent finds herself (I will assume the narrator is a mother; the tone is right) wishing for her son the happiness that she has somehow missed (the place reminds her of this lack).

This next bit took a while for me to understand:

Oh, you're such a ham, who would you amuse—

the horse, the white horse on his hill?

Again another tangent, provoked by the actions of her child (I assume it is a boy, but I could be mistaken). There is a mythic quality suggested by the white horse on the hill, which would be worth exploring for possible implications. For all of that, these lines close the poem definitively and leave the reader both thinking and feeling something worthwhile.

Not everyone likes free verse, but I think that for once we have a Pinsky Pick in which the capabilities and limitations of the genre are used well. The breaks in spacing and indentations are (again for once) evocative of emotions and of changes in thought patterns, such that the reader doesn't have to use a mental machete to hack his way through the form to get to the function. (I don't know about you, but I find that sort of thing mentally exhausting.)

I am not at all sure that putting this poem's ideas into rhyme and meter would work nearly so well. People don't think and feel in rhyme and meter, and this poem is designed to express naked thoughts and emotions (as it were). If the Emperor is unclothed this time, it's merely because he's sunbathing. His isn't the most handsome figure ever seen -- some parts of the poem seem awkward in their expression, yet I infer that this is intentional -- but at least he isn't parading downtown expecting everyone to call him something he isn't.

In my parody I expressed the idea that the poem should've ended sooner, right about here:

I hope you get to live somewhere like this,
so much yourself you could take charge
of such a solid stand of hills,
you could receive this holy light,
keen and fleeting. (...)

I will now say that I was probably wrong in that judgment. It's just that I like organization and closure in poetry -- yet neither quality fits the thoughts and emotions we are following here, not until the very end. That too is intentional.

The following paradox could be taken as a gentle "sound and fury signifying nothing", or (yet again paradoxically) as rather profound and meaningful in its wordplay:

At every moment the valley brimming,
the valley empty.

Brimming with what? "Empty" one can see, but one can read all sorts of interesting things into "brimming" (beauty, light, wonder in the eyes of the beholder, etc.).

Normally I'd be the second (after the worthy Foobs) to jump all over a Pinsky Pick for the conceit of breaking the normal rules of grammar and syntax, but (again for once) this poem seems to pull it off -- precisely because it doesn't try too hard to make a point thereby and because it doesn't break the rules simply for the sake of breaking the rules.

wr ()()

...I do think (and firmly believe) that the poem could be greatly strengthened by a) following basic grammar and syntax more strictly while b) being more inventive in some of the expressions it uses to describe things and states of mind. Why can't the whole poem be as exquisite (or even in some cases, potentially so) as some parts of it?

wr ()()

...

Ah, I surmise that you've come in late. You may not know that I've become (in)famous in these parts for my "Home on the Range" parodies. The Powers That Wannabe removed the tags relating to that genre, but if you look up the "parody" tag (or search for "Home on the Range"), you will find other examples of my art(?).

wr ()()

Two weeks in a row
I've been holding my nose
while you sang the week's poems praise;
Are you going soft
or is my palate off
should I worship or tremble for grace?

Oh, oh I'm perplexed
and left by this state feeling vexed
has left turned to right
are we calling day night
or is it my taste that's suspect?

There once was a man
on a tour of Japan
who regaled, in a letter, his spouse
with the things he had seen
that the words make her green
and to wish she'd not stayed with the house.

He said, to be clear,
oh I wish you were here
my darling, I'm smiling all day
I frolicked all fall
and I laughed when spring called
and I thought how I wish you had came.

Then I realized
for once in the years of my life
that if you were here
I would, clearly, my dear
be upset that you still were my wife.

This, this is the spot
it is neither too cold nor too hot
it's perfect for you
but I know it is true
if you came all it's grace would be lost...

Now, as Sir Gump intones
to the crowds greater joy or to groans
that is all I will say
of this point on this day
so leave, Mr. Dan, me alone!

WR: (in)famous or not...artful postings.

Foobs:

Two weeks in a row
I've been holding my nose
while you sang the week's poems praise;
Are you going soft
or is my palate off
should I worship or tremble for grace?

Oh, oh I'm perplexed
and left by this state feeling vexed
has left turned to right
are we calling day night
or is it my taste that's suspect?

(Parodist replies in song:)

Don't misunderstand;
Even old Fooberstan
Should give credit where credit is due.
The fault these two times
Lies in poets (sans rhymes)
Who publish before they are through.

(Parodist, to poets of that ilk:)

Write, write it again!
Engage your cerebrum, then pen!
A half-finished work
(Though it's not by a jerk)
Just leaves an unsatisfied yen.

(Parodist to Foobs again:)

The middle part's good
Like one's poetry should;
Just a nip and a tuck would suffice.
Sometimes I'm with you --
Where it's almost cut through,
Like a golf ball just after a slice. :)

Foobs, master of form,
We differ in what we call "norm".
I'm not as averse
To a blank or free verse,
And so, when it works, I conform!

I like the conceit
Of this poem -- it's neat
That we follow an Ultimate Quest.
In spelling it out,
We agree (there's no doubt),
Our poet's not quite at her best.

Oh, oh what dismay!
I guess it won't get me a raise
To kindle debate
On a work that's not great
By damning the thing with faint praise! ;)

wr ()()

Hi, Rabbit, You and one other person (Falcon, I think) said the poem was a mother talking to her son. I was certain it was a woman talking to her lover. This goes back a little bit to the discussion in my 'current events quiz' post about who owns a poem's interpretation. If the poet were here discussing her poem with us and we asked her who Oscar was, could we both abide by her answer? I want to know why you thought she was talking to her son ... please.

islandtime:

Hi, Rabbit, You and one other person (Falcon, I think) said the poem was a mother talking to her son. I was certain it was a woman talking to her lover. This goes back a little bit to the discussion in my 'current events quiz' post about who owns a poem's interpretation. If the poet were here discussing her poem with us and we asked her who Oscar was, could we both abide by her answer? I want to know why you thought she was talking to her son ... please.

A lot of us are talking about "Oscar". Somehow, I never got the memo that there even was an "Oscar". So I let my first impressions of the "Ranch" guide me.

First, the narrator seems to have the general tone of a woman -- complete with a particular linkage of thoughts that in many if not most men would not happen easily if at all and would seem to them fairly random. Anyway, it's natural for a poetess to speak from a female point of view.

Second, from the narrator's wish for both the subject's self-possession and said subject's possession of such a landscape, I inferred that time would need to pass, as well as maturation of some sort. Plus, the wish for both of those things still is wished most often for a male.

Third, said male is almost always happy. Since few males can say that once they reach the age of responsibility, I inferred that the male was still very young -- moreover, young enough to be amused at almost anything and therefore largely innocent of evil. Also, since I thought it relatively improbable that a happy lover would be involved with an unhappy woman (but relatively probable that an unhappy woman could have a happy child), I therefore inferred that the male was the woman's son.

Now since these are all inferences, even assuming that my logic and facts are correct at all points, these are all matters of probability. A single sure observation -- or a single direct and authoritative testimony -- can refute any such inference. So if Ms. Ball told me that the woman was talking to her lover (explaining why), and if I was certain that she had no reason to lie or forget, then I'd accept the statement and rethink my paradigm -- and that would be that.

In seeking the truth, observation trumps theory every time -- and truth is far more important to me than my own natural, formidable opinionatedness. (That commitment to truth, I sometimes feel, is the only thing that keeps me from making a complete fool of myself on this Fray.)

wr ()()

I didn't say that the poem is a woman talking to her son - I said I like the idea that it's a woman talking to her son. That's a clear (to me) but optional image representing what I am convinced really is there - the voice of amused Experience speaking affectionately yet critically to Innocence. I mentioned (somewhere) that I lived in the rural high desert when I first left home - it occurs to me now that my mom grew up on a ranch. I just thought of that. I "own" (another regionalism) this poem wasn't written because I miss my mom.

A lot of us are talking about "Oscar". Somehow, I never got the memo that there even was an "Oscar".

Rabbit, the dedication to Oscar is right under the title.

Also, if you say ONCE MORE that "a poem's form must follow its function," I'll have to take you outside and kill you.

The phrase refers to architecture. Poetry DOES NOT have a function. However, it often has content.

(And yes, there will be a test on this.)

The function of poetry, like every other form of writing / speaking, is to communicate something. The context (form) should enhance the content (function).

Now, the weekly picks are often (in my opinion nearly universally) evidence that it doesn't have to. But that is because they are mediocre poems, not because there isn't both form and function and the one shouldn't enhance the other...

The context (form) should enhance the content (function).

'Fraid I'm going to have to kill you, too, Foobs.

Context surrounds something, like a word or phrase, and is not equivalent to form. A poem communicates (or not) through both its content and its form, so content is not equivalent to function.

I do agree, however, Foobs, that a poem's form should enhance its content.