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Thursday
Apr 23, 2009
Ethan Coen and Walter Savage Landor posted by Martin
Ethan Coen’s recently released book of poetry The Drunken Driver Has the Right of Way (the titular poem can be read, and an author’s interview heard, over on the NPR website) has one of the greatest “About the Author” sections that I’ve read in a long time:
Ethan Coen lives outside of Marfa, Texas, on the ranch he won arm wrestling Lady Bird Johnson in a cantina in Ensenada in 1962 (the ensuing love story was celebrated in his memoir Don’t Tell Lyndon). He is an expert on the poetry of Walter Savage Landor and many other subjects which he travels the world to lecture upon, unsolicited. Coen is Poet-in-Residence at the University of Big Bend and hosted its “Fire in the John” poetry readings until they changed the open bar policy. Under the pen name G. Willard Snunt, Coen is the author of the Moe Grabinsky mystery stories, detailing the adventures of the wily toll-taker/sleuth. In his spare time he is shot from cannons.
Walter Savage Landor was a real poet. And, he once rhymed “Tennyson” with “venison”
I Entreat You, Alfred Tennyson
I entreat you, Alfred Tennyson,
Come and share my haunch of venison.
I have too a bin of claret,
Good, but better when you share it.
Tho’ ‘tis only a small bin,
There’s a stock of it within.
And as sure as I’m a rhymer,
Half a butt of Rudeheimer.
Come; among the sons of men is one
Welcomer than Alfred Tennyson?
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