my upbringing was challening due to weird sense of humour my parents had so i got Prefabulous Animiles by James Reeves, and Crow by Ted Hughes and had to determine which was more nonsense...then they wrote a child-psychiatrist+musicologist authored book on lullabies. oh well
My mother's sense of humour and particularly strong sense of the ridiculous has profoundly influenced me! I suspect that we all inherit some part of our parent's humour.
Lovely stuff. Many years ago on a family holiday, my father invited/instructed my siblings and I to learn a poem each, and I chose The Destruction of Sennacherib. I can still do most of it from memory nearly 40 years later. As you say, a fantastic rhythm and beautiful language.
Thank you for that. Poetry has become more important to me now - I belong to a u3a reading group that meets regularly in Hackney. I recently discovered that my great uncle Dimitris was a friend of Cavafy's in Alexandria. One of my favourite poems is by Miroslav Holub, the Czech immunologist-poet.
Brief Reflection on Maps, by Miroslav Holub
Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, who knew a thing about maps,
by which life moves somewhere or other,
used to tell this story from the war,
through which history moves somewhere or other.
From a small Hungarian unit in the Alps a young lieutenant
sent out a scouting party into the icy wastes.
At once
it began to snow, it snowed for two days and the party
did not return. The lieutenant was in distress: he had sent
his men to their deaths.
On the third day, however, the scouting party was back.
Where had they been? How had they managed to find their way?
Yes, the men explained, we certainly thought we were
lost and awaited our end. When suddenly one of our lot
found a map in his pocket. We felt reassured.
We made a bivouac, waited for the snow to stop, and then
with the map
found the right direction.
And here we are.
The lieutenant asked to see that remarkable map in order to
Poetry and language, mantras, or even turns of phrase can anchor not just our memories (of events and actions) but also our feelings about those. I think they can also anchor knowledge and learnings within our minds.
Although I haven't done a huge amount of lecturing, being outside of academia more than inside it, I was always keen to anchor math concepts with memorable (and fun) phrases. I particularly likes to call out, "Where Alph, the sacred river, ran, Through caverns measureless to man"
when introducing alpha and omega limit sets for orbits within dynamical system. What fun!
Or giving mantras for graduate students to say in their heads as they drift off to sleep. For the Fredholm Alternative, for example, they should rehearse, "Only if the forcing term is orthogonal to the null space of the adjoint". In any circumstances in life, if and only if you have the mathematical framework and furniture available to make each and every word in that mantra well-defined, then you may apply the FA.
Oh yes! With young children I would focus on that which is colourful, immediate, evocative, all the things which can be so stimulating: in the classical realm Vivaldi, some selected Mozart, the right things of Beethoven (say some parts of the Pastoral Symphony), Schumann miniatures, Chopin Nocturnes, Mazurkas, Polonaises, some Liszt, almost anything of Chaikovsky, Musorgsky, Borodin, Dvořák, Janáček, plenty of Satie, Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc. And wondrous, entrancing musical worlds such as in Stravinsky Petrushka, Prokofiev Lieutenant Kijé and Romeo and Juliet, or Kodály Háry János. Jazz: probably not the early stuff yet, but the most arresting stuff of Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald from the Swing Era; and some bits of Miles, Coltrane, Brubeck. Lots of songs from musical theatre (including musical films). Otherwise - any number of soul singers - Dionne Warwick, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder; some Beatles, maybe some Britpop, but generally it may be best to let them discover what they like for themselves in time!
Most of what I came to love in poetry, music, literature, visual art, film, theatre was largely self-taught. It’s a reason I’ve always found guides which give a map through large amounts of material. Not because they are ever going to be definitive, but they provide a route from which one can of course deviate.
Clearly you were not brought up, as I was, on Hilaire Belloc's "A Bad Child's Book of Beasts" and "More Beasts for Worse Children"; but I treasure my childhood copy still.
my upbringing was challening due to weird sense of humour my parents had so i got Prefabulous Animiles by James Reeves, and Crow by Ted Hughes and had to determine which was more nonsense...then they wrote a child-psychiatrist+musicologist authored book on lullabies. oh well
My mother's sense of humour and particularly strong sense of the ridiculous has profoundly influenced me! I suspect that we all inherit some part of our parent's humour.
Lovely touches. Was G your Grandmother?
The limerick at the end seems to have lost its way scansion-wise. How about...?
We were very depressed with our yak,
Which was on it, and then became slack.
It would hoover the stairs
And out-clean the au pairs,
But it stopped, so we gave it the sack.
G is my new granddaughter! You have nailed the Yak.
Lovely stuff. Many years ago on a family holiday, my father invited/instructed my siblings and I to learn a poem each, and I chose The Destruction of Sennacherib. I can still do most of it from memory nearly 40 years later. As you say, a fantastic rhythm and beautiful language.
Really lovely!
Thank you for that. Poetry has become more important to me now - I belong to a u3a reading group that meets regularly in Hackney. I recently discovered that my great uncle Dimitris was a friend of Cavafy's in Alexandria. One of my favourite poems is by Miroslav Holub, the Czech immunologist-poet.
Brief Reflection on Maps, by Miroslav Holub
Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, who knew a thing about maps,
by which life moves somewhere or other,
used to tell this story from the war,
through which history moves somewhere or other.
From a small Hungarian unit in the Alps a young lieutenant
sent out a scouting party into the icy wastes.
At once
it began to snow, it snowed for two days and the party
did not return. The lieutenant was in distress: he had sent
his men to their deaths.
On the third day, however, the scouting party was back.
Where had they been? How had they managed to find their way?
Yes, the men explained, we certainly thought we were
lost and awaited our end. When suddenly one of our lot
found a map in his pocket. We felt reassured.
We made a bivouac, waited for the snow to stop, and then
with the map
found the right direction.
And here we are.
The lieutenant asked to see that remarkable map in order to
study it. It wasn’t a map of the Alps
but the Pyrenees.
Goodbye.
I wrote on maps with exactly that theme ... https://profserious.substack.com/p/hic-finis-chartae-viaeque !
Lovel reminiscences and thoughts, and very touching, and so universal. Erol
Poetry and language, mantras, or even turns of phrase can anchor not just our memories (of events and actions) but also our feelings about those. I think they can also anchor knowledge and learnings within our minds.
Although I haven't done a huge amount of lecturing, being outside of academia more than inside it, I was always keen to anchor math concepts with memorable (and fun) phrases. I particularly likes to call out, "Where Alph, the sacred river, ran, Through caverns measureless to man"
when introducing alpha and omega limit sets for orbits within dynamical system. What fun!
Or giving mantras for graduate students to say in their heads as they drift off to sleep. For the Fredholm Alternative, for example, they should rehearse, "Only if the forcing term is orthogonal to the null space of the adjoint". In any circumstances in life, if and only if you have the mathematical framework and furniture available to make each and every word in that mantra well-defined, then you may apply the FA.
Thank you for provoking a lot of memories.
Mickiewicz, Coleridge, Byron - love ‘em!
If I had children I’d want to read them at least one poem a day from when they are young.
Oh yes! With young children I would focus on that which is colourful, immediate, evocative, all the things which can be so stimulating: in the classical realm Vivaldi, some selected Mozart, the right things of Beethoven (say some parts of the Pastoral Symphony), Schumann miniatures, Chopin Nocturnes, Mazurkas, Polonaises, some Liszt, almost anything of Chaikovsky, Musorgsky, Borodin, Dvořák, Janáček, plenty of Satie, Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc. And wondrous, entrancing musical worlds such as in Stravinsky Petrushka, Prokofiev Lieutenant Kijé and Romeo and Juliet, or Kodály Háry János. Jazz: probably not the early stuff yet, but the most arresting stuff of Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald from the Swing Era; and some bits of Miles, Coltrane, Brubeck. Lots of songs from musical theatre (including musical films). Otherwise - any number of soul singers - Dionne Warwick, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder; some Beatles, maybe some Britpop, but generally it may be best to let them discover what they like for themselves in time!
Most of what I came to love in poetry, music, literature, visual art, film, theatre was largely self-taught. It’s a reason I’ve always found guides which give a map through large amounts of material. Not because they are ever going to be definitive, but they provide a route from which one can of course deviate.
Wonderful!
and music? I had Sousa (Marches), Chopin (Polonaises), Dvořák (The New World), Beethoven (Pastoral) and Shirei Tzava ...
Clearly you were not brought up, as I was, on Hilaire Belloc's "A Bad Child's Book of Beasts" and "More Beasts for Worse Children"; but I treasure my childhood copy still.