Fun Day Sunday — To Our Coy Mister: Richard Armitage (a poetry parody mash up), 4/15/12 Gratiana Lovelace (Post #166)

I may have mentioned before that I was an English Education minor in college and I performed literature on my university forensics team.  Well, in addition to enjoying great literature in our classes, we sometimes had a little fun with it, too.  Such as, singing Emily Dickinson poems to the tune of  “The Yellow Rose of Texas”.  And my aforementioned college best friend and my gay male crush and I took a lively 17^th century poetry class together.  We had great fun learning about the poems–while also skewering them–such as singing John Donne’s poem “Go and Catch a Falling Star” to “Mack the Knife” (Kevin Spacey, that one’s for you).  But the courtly love poems of unrequited or thwarted love  really captured our attention.  I wonder why?  Ha!  In fact, I created my nom de plume from one of those authors, Richard Lovelace, and his poem “Gratiana Dauncing and Singing”–because my friend dubbed me Gratiana at the time.

But today–Fun Day Sunday–I’m going to do something rather different from my usual poem parodies.  I’m going to create what I’m calling a “poetry parody mash up”–part poetry slam, part poetry parody, part poetry quiz.  Ha!   See if you can pick out the poems referenced–or skewered–below, without cheating and looking at the references prematurely.  Ha!   Oh and my deepest apologies to the original authors for what I am about to do.  Ha!

“To Our Coy Mister (1):  Richard Armitage”  (a poetry parody mash up), by Gratiana Lovelace

Oh to be in New Zealand, Now that the RA bloke is there.
Just as a recent fictitious lottery winner, found herself there some morning, unaware. (2)

Had we but frequent flier miles galore and time,
Your coyness Sir were part of my rhyme.
We would fall down *thud* and think which way
To get to Wellington, and pass by our tall love’s one day. (1)

Yet, in Rivendale did Elrond, a dwarfly pleasure gnome on Misty Mountain leave did decree.
An Elven glamour damsel with a dulcimer taser, Thorin said ‘twould win me. (3)

But Durin’s team found the dimpled spiders of Mirkwood, fat and not so white,
Fixing to eat the tenderized Dwarfs, as like a moth brought to them thither in the night. (4)

Such epic adventures herald more than their own tale.
Come December, the bells will ring this over hill and dale. (5)

And with each month that follows as the lead up to the film’s release,
We strive for the patience and wisdom to sing our songs, craft our vids, and weave our stories–yes, please.  (2)

Ultimately, through RA’s modest humility, he will outshine the rest,
For 200 and 30,000 and more adore his artist’s heart that beats within his breast. (1)

Poems Referenced/Skewered

1)       “To His Coy Mistress”, by Andrew Marvell, was found at http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173954

2)       “Home Thoughts from Abroad”, by Robert Browning, was found at http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173014

3)       “Kubla Khan”, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was found at http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173247

4)       “Design”, by Robert Frost, The New Oxford Book of American Verse, edited by Richard Ellmann, Oxford University Press 1976, p. 414-415; and at http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/design/

5)       “Misty Mountains Cold” song in The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien, Ballantine Books, 1977, p. 27-29

6)       Nota Bene:  I actually have these poems in print in two volumes of verse, but I provided the wonderful Poetry Foundation links for you as a handy reference for these and other poems when they had a link for a poem I referenced above.   Here are my two book references, should you wish them:
The New Oxford Book of English Verse (1250-1959), edited by Helen Gardner, Oxford University Press, 1972.
The New Oxford Book of American Verse, edited by Richard Ellmann, Oxford University Press 1976.

7)       Richard Armitage portrait is from the 2011 Project Magazine photo shoot found at http://www.richardarmitagenet.com/images/gallery/Richard/Promos/ProjectMagJuly2011/album/slides/MattHolyoak-09.html