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The CyberSenior Review Volume 2 Number 2
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* THE
* CYBERSENIOR
* REVIEW
************
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VOLUME 2 NUMBER 2 APRIL 1995
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The CyberSenior Review is a project of the Internet
Elders List, an active world-wide Mailing List for
seniors. The Review is written, edited and published
by members of the Elders.
Contents copyrighted 1995 by the Internet Elders List
and by the authors. All rights reserved by the authors.
Quoting is permitted with attribution.
The editorial board of The CyberSenior Review:
Elaine Dabbs edabbs@extro.ucc.su.oz.au
Pat Davidson patd@chatback.demon.co.uk
James Hursey jwhursey@cd.columbus.oh.us
======================================================
CONTENTS, Volume 2, Number 2, April 1995
EDITORIAL by Pat Davidson
THE HISTORY AND POETICS OF THE CINQUAIN by Jim Olson
Jim gives a brief history and explanation of his favorite poetic form,
with examples.
THE EVENTS AND TIMES OF THE CEDAR BLUFF SCHOOL (PART II) by Langston Kerr
More memories as Langston concludes his reminiscence about his
depression-era childhood in rural Nacogdoches, Texas.
MORRIS ON! by Eddie Dunmore
Eddie tells us of nuts and Bessys and fools: the strange but popular
world of morris dancing.
CINQUAIN MADNESS by the editors
Bonus extra! Inspired by Jim Olson's article, your editors try their
hand at the form. Just for fun of course.
=========================================================================
EDITORIAL.
By Pat Davidson.
A cloudless azure sky, giving a day of spring sunshine to brighten the
daffodils, camellias,and forsythia in the garden, and the fifth issue
of the Cybersenior Review--who could ask for more?
The springtime always reminds me of the years I spent in
Hertfordshire, where spring is celebrated by the crowning of the May
Queen, with the Morris dances afterwards. Eddie's article conjures up
the memory of the spring fair and the morris dancers, the men dressed
in white shirts and breeches, with white stockings, and ribbons and bells
at their knees which jingled as they danced. The Fool, waving some sort
of "balloon" attached to a stick in his hand, (somebody once told me
the "balloon" was a pig's bladder!) mingled with the spectators,
occasionally bumping the "balloon" on the heads of cheeky little boys.
Spring is also the time when the children start different "crazes." Do
you remember the bats with balls attached to the bats by elastic, or
the hula hoops, encouraging wild gyrations? Always popular is the
game of marbles, and Langston's description of the games he played
brings back happy memories to us all. In the second part of the
description of his childhood in Texas, he tells how the community
of Cedar Bluff worked together to restore the old school as a
community center, with his grandfather playing a major part in the
construction. The communities of Cedar Bluff and Holly Springs still
have the same closeness, a blessing in this day and age.
We've been enjoying the delightful cinquains written by Jim Olson, and
in this issue we discover the origins of the poetic form. Jim has
encouraged us to try to write some for ourselves, so let's hope his
article will provide even more encouragement. Note that your editors
have taken him up on the dare.
While we're mentioning writing, we'd be delighted to have as many
submissions as possible for publication in the issues of the Review in
summer, autumn and winter. There are talented people among us
Elders, who have many and varied interests. What about sharing them
with us in an article? If you're a bit uncertain, you can always ask
for some help from Jim (Hursey), Elaine, or myself. We'd love to hear
from you!
Warmest wishes to you all,
Pat
=========================================================================
THE HISTORY AND POETICS OF THE CINQUAIN
by Jim Olson
Poetry began as man learned to play with words and express them
in patterns that add something to the basic meaning. That is
still the way children learn to express poetry in their play. I
remember the sidewalk play rhyme, "Step on a crack and break your
mother's back," an oral form passed on from child to child
without much concern for how it would look on a page or how the
"lines" are arranged or, for that matter, for poor mother's spine.
Poetry is still tied to oral expression, but has become a written
form as well, and this written form has developed visual patterns
to complement the oral presentation. It is generally written in
lines and these lines have many poetic characteristics. Many
poetic forms have developed around the concept of lines: line
lengths, number of syllables in a line, and patterns of stress
and pauses, all related to line structures.
One form that has a definite line pattern and a distinctive
visual appearance on the page is the cinquain, a five line form
developed by the American Poet Adelaide Crapsey around the turn
of the century. Here is a typical poem of hers:
November Night
Listen,
With faint, dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp'd break from the trees
And fall.
She had become fascinated by reading translations of the
Japanese forms of the haiku and tanka, poems utilizing images of
nature and depending on syllable count rather than rhyme. The
haiku is arranged in three lines of 5-7-5 syllables and the
tanka in five lines of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables, and when printed
with traditional Japanese characters they offer a visual as well
as oral aesthetic experience.
Adelaide felt that the ideal short form would be brief, suggestive,
show restraint, and contain an element of contrast. She framed
her cinquains to achieve these goals. Taking the five-line tanka,
she reduced the 31 syllables to 22 with a 2-4-6-8-2 pattern of
lines and syllables. She achieved contrast by allowing only
two syllables on the first line, followed by four, six, and
eight syllable lines that developed images that progressively
led up to the last line with its dramatic return to only two
syllables. This contrast in line length was usually reinforced
by a contrast in content, an abrupt, succinct shift
to the poem's main concept.
The restraint and suggestiveness was perhaps a factor in her
thoughts about death. She had lost two of her younger siblings
at a relatively early age and was herself aware of her ultimate
death from tuberculosis. Her poems about death offer a variety
of ways of approaching and suggesting her own impending death
without proclaiming her fate or complaining about it. She even
wrote a standard quatrain that whimsically compared her left
lung to a garden with the bacteria as the plants. It was not one
of her better poems.
Her cinquains gave her the discipline and
form to achieve her own poetic principles as in "Warning".
Warning
Just now
Out of the strange
Still dusk ... as strange as still...
A white moth flew. Why am I grown
So cold.
At one time she attempted to expand the form and put three
cinquains together into a kind of triad of cinquains to carry
out the spring, summer, winter theme. This seems to have
defeated some of her basic concepts and she never pursued it
with any degree of success. Perhaps if she had lived longer we
would now have other imaginative forms to enhance our poetry.
The cinquain has not been used much since her death in 1914 at
the age of 36. Those who have used it have developed their own
variations of syllable count. Her cinquain form is a favorite
of mine when I want to achieve some of the poetic goals she
outlined as well as some of my own. I particularly like the
element of contrast brought in by the last line and always look
for some last line that is both unexpected but appropriate.
I have written only one cinquain on her major topic, but in that
one I have tried to follow her pattern with a less quiet and
restrained variation, incorporating a little of Dylan Thomas.
"Dark Flight" was the result of observing nighthawks gather as
they do in late summer with their eerie calls echoing through
the night as they devour night flying insects and prepare for
migration:
Dark Flight
Nighthawks
Swoop dusky skies
Not gently calling out
Nestings, feastings, high flights, regrets;
Then leave.
The form lends itself well to the computer screen, and I find it
suitable to a variety of poetic expression. One can stay with
the traditional Japanese aesthetic of peaceful, crisp nature
images and Adelaide's more serious concerns, or depart from them
and use the form for less subtle moments. The contrast of the
last line lends itself well to a lighter mode:
Coyote
Stalking,
Now listening,
Quickly rising forward
Paws together downward thrusting;
Gotcha!
However we might choose to use the cinquain, we owe a debt of
gratitude to Adelaide Crapsey, for giving us a form to fit our
screens and challenge our imaginations.
------------
Bibliography
Crapsey, Adelaide. _A Study in English Metrics_.Boston:
Milford House. 1972.
Crapsey, Adelaide. _The Complete Poems and Collected Letters of
Adelaide Crapsey_. Albany: State University of New York
Press. 1977.
deFord, Sarah and Lott, Clarissa Harris. _Forms of verse_ New
York: Appleton Century Crofts. 1971.
=====================================================================
THE EVENTS AND TIMES OF THE CEDAR BLUFF SCHOOL (PART 2)
by Langston Kerr
(In Part 1, we learned of Langston's father's hard life in depression-era Texas and how his grandfather helped build the Cedar Bluff School.--Ed.)
Part 2.
During the Spring of 1940, a large garden was planted on the Cedar
Bluff campus. Anything that could be raised at one's home was planted
in the garden. The garden was 'worked' mostly by the big students
in the upper grades during their spare time. Horses, mules and
plows were even brought to school to work the garden, and it did
produce.
A new water system was installed on the campus. At the hand dug
well, a 55 gallon barrel was mounted on a platform and a pipe was
attached to the bottom, extended and a water faucet attached. The
big boys would get to draw water from the well with a rope and
bucket, fill the barrel and this would make water available to
anyone when one wanted a drink. At recess, this was a popular
place for a few days, and lest I forget, there were always cookies
in the cook room at recess, or something good to eat for a bunch of
playing kids.
Recess was one of the more important times of the day for more
reasons than just to get some of the goodies from the cook room.
First, there was always the fast trip to the privy. The boys' privy
was on one side of the campus and the girls' privy on the opposite
side and you can bet there was this unmarked line between the privies
that had absolute respect from both males and females. After passing
through this line everyone got down to serious business on the play
ground. The girls would do the Ring Around The Roses, Drop The
Handkerchief, worked in their play houses and it seemed like they
always had something to giggle about, especially if they were around
any of the boys. The boys would be doing Red Rover-Red Rover Let Come
Over, Pop The Whip and Soft Ball and pitching washers.
Then there was a group of boys who always played marbles. I received
most of my early education involved in a game of marbles. There were
different types of games of marbles, one where holes were dug so far
apart and you would shoot 'to make the hole.' Then there was the
game where a circle was drawn on the ground. The diameter of the
circle varied with each game and was determined by who was playing
and how good they were. In the center of the circle each player would
place a marble on a line and then the players would 'shoot from the
ring' to see if they could knock a marble from the circle. If they did
the marble was theirs to 'keep'. Now this word 'keep' brought on more
talk from Mother and Daddy. I was told not to play KEEPS, for this
was thought of as gambling and I should not be a part of it. I always
minded my mother and Daddy, almost.
This game of marbles in the ring became an obsession with me and I
soon got to be about the best marble player at school. I was
accumulating several marbles and had to keep them hid or suffer the
limb juice. Sugar was packaged in five pound cloth bags at that time
and these bags became the vault for my marble collection. The marble
used to 'shoot' with was known as one's agie or toy. When playing,
one could shoot as long as their toy stayed in the ring. The toy
would become a very valuable marble when everyone knew its
capabilities and could be traded for maybe five to ten marbles from
another player.
I was always having to explain why knuckles were raw and of course
I always answered, 'playing marbles'. The next question was, "You are
not playing KEEPS are you?" I somehow always tried to answer this
question while walking away or sticking my head out the door with the
best mumble I could come up with.
Playing marbles was my game all during WWII and I had several of the
five pound sugar sacks of marbles when we returned to Holly Springs.
It was very obvious to my mother and daddy that I was playing KEEPS
and I was told just about every day not to play. I do not ever recall
my mother or Daddy looking straight at me and asking the question
which would have stopped me from filling the sacks. I would not have
dared to deliberately not tell the truth. I know now, without doubt,
that they knew what I was doing, but would not ask the question.
The summer of 1940 brought on several church revivals and everyone
attended each denomination's church. This was just the way neighbors
did. Ice cream suppers, water melon cutt'ens and always the swimming
hole on Sunday evening. I always had to wade in the shallow water
with the rest of the little kids but I knew that one day I would jump
off the high bank with the big boys, and I did.
I remember hearing about the war with Germany. I really didn't
know what was happening but I knew it was something bad because each
time we went to Cedar Bluff to listen to the radio, we always heard
about what the Germans were doing. During the summer there were many
volley ball games at Cedar Bluff, some at night. There were two
gasoline lanterns in the community and one was hung on each side of
the net for light. Night volley ball playing seemed to bring
more people out to the school. After the games everyone would listen
to the news before going home and it was also announced who was sick,
and who needed help of whatever kind it might be.
Sepetember 1940 finally arrived and I officially started school. I
bet I grew a foot overnight! I did not remain in the first grade
but a few days and somehow I got promoted to the second grade.
Getting promoted to the second grade at Cedar Bluff required me to
move over one row in the class room.
I think it must have been about October that it was decided that
we would leave Cedar Bluff and go to California where people could get
jobs in defense plants. All of our furniture, what there was of it,
and personal items which could not be put in a 1935 Chevrolet Coupe,
were left with my Grandmother Kerr. My mother had relatives in Vera
Vest, Texas, and this was our first stop on our way to California.
My mother's relatives and her husband persuaded Mother and Daddy
not to go to California, for things were looking pretty bad with the
war with Germany and California may not be the best place to be.
I was enrolled in school for two weeks and then we returned to Kilgore,
Texas, where my daddy attended a machinist school and I enrolled in
the second grade. Daddy finished his school and went to Galveston
to work at Todd Shipyards. On December 2, 1941 there were about six
inches of snow on the ground at Kilgore, Texas. I had the measles
and was eight years old. Five days later Japan bombed Pearl Harbor
and I, like the rest of you, saw the world change.
During World War II we lived in Galveston, Texas until a hurricane
almost destroyed the town and then we moved to Orange, Texas for the
duration of the war.
My mother and daddy had purchased some property at Holly Springs in
1941, or let me say they had paid fifty dollars down on thirty acres
of property which was bought for thirty dollars an acre with a note to
be paid at one hundred dollars a year. They paid for the property in
two years. Two years later a few more acres were added and after the
war, they returned to build their home here and this is where I live now,
only my home sits just about fifty feet from one of the flowing
springs.
The Cedar Bluff School property went to the county when school
was not held there after the early 1940's. The county then decided
in 1990 to give the school and three acres of land back to the Cedar Bluff
community to be used as a community center. There was an immediate
response from the community and ex-students to restore the building to
its original condition. The re-levelling of the building was a very
simple chore; in fact no work was done on this at all, since the
building was only one fourth of an inch off level from end to end. To
me, this means my grandfather set the pillars with the exact time of
the moon so there would be no sinking into the ground.
A bell has been hung in the belfry, floors refinished and of course
a new coat of paint. I have my grandfather's level, plumb bob, line
string and chalk which I am sure was used to construct the school.
I also have found journals he kept of material purchased in 1911
which is almost certain to have been for the school. Work is underway
for a place for these and other items so future generations can learn
the history of Cedar Bluff School and its graduates and the people who
lived in the community.
Holly Springs being only about five miles from Cedar Bluff gives
me an opportunity to live in two country communities, with Holly
Springs at one time being a school site like Cedar Bluff. In 1950 my
mother got a building program started for Holly Springs and a
Community Center stands there now on the ground where Holly Springs
School once stood.
I have a lot of love for both communities, having lived here
since 1944, still have my close neighbors at Cedar Bluff with a home
coming the third Saturday each October, a home coming at Holly
Springs the third Saturday in May and a community BBQ the fourth of
July. This has been a wonderful community to live in and the people
are what has made it that way. The people are the same at Cedar Bluff
and Holly Springs as they were in 1939 when they so willingly came to
the needs of my family.
Beside my desk is a picture of my grandson pulling the rope to
ring the bell at the Cedar Bluff School. I hope his life can be
surrounded by people who will care for him as the people of Cedar
Bluff did for me.
=========================================================================
MORRIS ON!
by Eddie Dunmore
"Sharp and his family spent that Christmas (1899) with his
wife's mother, who was then living at Sandfield Cottage, Headington,
about a mile east of Oxford. On Boxing Day, as he was looking out of
the window, upon the snow-covered drive, a strange procession
appeared: eight men dressed in white, decorated with ribbons, with
pads of small latten-bells strapped to their shins, carrying coloured
sticks and white handkerchiefs; accompanying them was a
concertina-player and a man dressed as a `Fool'.
"Six of the men formed up in front of the house in two lines of three;
the concertina-player struck up an invigorating tune, the like of
which Sharp had never heard before; the men jumped high into the air,
then danced with springs and capers, waving and swinging the
handkerchiefs which they held, one in each hand, while the bells
marked the rhythm of the step...
"Sharp watched and listened spellbound. He felt that a new world of
beauty had been revealed to him... He plied the men eagerly with
questions. They apologised for being out at Christmas; they knew that
Whitsun was the proper time, but work was slack and they thought
there would be no harm in earning an honest penny. The
concertina-player was Mr. William Kimber, junior, a young man of
twenty-seven, whose fame as a dancer has now spread all over England.
Sharp noted the five tunes from him next day, and later on many more."
This passage is taken from A.H. Fox-Strangways' 1933 biography of
Cecil James Sharp and records Sharp's first sight of morris dancing
on that Boxing Day (whose Centenary is now close). Despite studying
mathematics at Cambridge, Sharp was a professional musician who had
become engrossed in the collection of folk-songs and music from the
agricultural working-class of his day. He had been an assistant
organist and music teacher in Australia: by 1896 he was Principal of
the Hampstead Conservatoire of Music.
In any account of morris-dancing (or of the folk-song revival) Sharp
is the single most important figure, even though subsequent reflection
and research has shown his judgement to be occasionally idiosyncratic.
He was a product of his age and class and came to recording these
examples of working-class culture with all his prejudices and
assumptions intact. He shared, for instance, the view that what he
was collecting was the dim recollection of some `Golden Age' and that
its carriers could not possibly understand the beauty of what they
were performing. Sharp also postulated a connection with `pagan' roots.
Arising out of his experience at Headington, Sharp was central to
the reinvigoration of the English Folk Song Society (founded 1898)
and foundation of the English Folk Dance Society (1911). The latter
trained teachers and promoted the teaching of English Folk dances
in schools.
Because of Sharp's obsession, there are now more morris teams than
ever before (both in the UK only and certainly world-wide). He
established a `headquarters' team who danced illustrations to his
lectures, having passed the necessary examinations to gain
certificates in morris dancing. Slowly, new teams began forming, as
it were `taking the morris back to the people'. By 1934, the members
of these original teams had dispersed and founded second-generation
teams and the need for dialogue within the movement became pressing.
One of the early clubs, Cambridge MM, decided that something had to
be done. The Squire (leader) at the time was an academic, Joseph
Needham (now over 90 and a pre-eminent Sinologist) convened a meeting
at which the Morris Ring came into being in 1934. This, the oldest of
the three organisations in England, maintains its exclusively male
character, although some sides have been noticed with female
musicians. The two other organisations, currently are the Morris
Federation (originally the Women's Morris Federation) and The Open
Morris.
My current assumption, based on the work of researchers such as
Heaney, Chandler, Dommett and Hutton, is to accept the view that
morris-dancing became a popular entertainment in England at some
point in the 15th Century. After the upheavals of the Wars of the
Roses, which culminated in the establishment of the Tudor regime,
there was a considered attempt to establish a strong central
authority. One avenue was the downgrading of Roman Catholic Saints'
Days (cf. the current quarrelling over our membership of the EC) and
the introduction of purely local festivals celebrated with
expressions of local pride. Part of this was the employment of Town
Waits and the establishment of troupes of dancers. These troupes
would tend to perform dances that were currently fashionable -
`morris' dances were the most popular at Court and therefore entered
the common repertory.
One piece of evidence that I like to think lends support to this
modified view comes from the introduced custom of declaring the
anniversary of the current sovereign's accession date a public
holiday, when the town bands would turn out with all the other
expressions of local identity in a grand parade. There would be
giants, mythical animals (including dragons shooting real flames!)
and - morris dancers. Charles II formally entered London on May 29th
1660, and this day was proclaimed a public holiday by the Convention
Parliament. We still dance `The 29th of May'.
Nowadays, we tend to gather a variety of disparate dances under the
general term `morris'. You will find dances collected in the Cotswolds
(Oxfordshire mainly, although Gloucestershire, Northamptonshire and
Worcestershire have also contributed several) which correspond to the
narrow view. The majority of dance teams wear white shirts and
trousers, although britches are currently fashionable, and the team's
identity will be recognised from the baldrick and ribbon colours. A
dance will normally be performed by six dancers to the accompaniment
of a melodeon, accordion, or fiddle (traditional-minded musicians
will play a whittle and dub - a three-hole flageolet in the right
hand while beating a small drum with the left hand). Just below the
knees you will notice bell-pads: a flat piece of leather shaped like
a waffle iron with four columns of four latten-bells covered with
ribbons.
Sword dances by teams of five, six or eight are part of the current
morris family. The five-dancer set dances a variant known as `rapper',
in which the swords are flexible and occasionally are bent almost
double. A spectacular ingredient of this variety is the single or
double somersault over the swords by one or two members of the team.
The tempo is fast and staccato. Longsword is slightly slower (not
much) and the swords are stiffer. All three dances culminate in the
formation of a `nut': this is an interweaving, resulting in the
construction of a pentagram, hexagram or octagram (I have seen my
favourite rapper side, from Monkseaton, bring the Bessy and Fool into
the set and finish with a heptagram).
Border morris comes from the Welsh Marches and is danced in ordinary
clothes decorated with ribbons. Traditionally the performers faces
are blacked (the subject of some controversy: it may originate from
the vogue for black-face minstrels in the 2nd quarter of the
nineteenth Century). The dances are vigorous and, for authenticity,
tend to be danced in boots. Molly dancing comes from East Anglia and
has similarities to Border morris, including blacking-up, although it
sometimes seems to be a male-only version of a contra-dance. Although
not strictly in this category a team from Bacup, the Britannia
Coconut Dancers, wear black shirts and britches with white stockings.
They also wear a white French `Liberty'-style cap and a white short
skirt with three flounces. Tied just above their knees are
half-coconuts, with the other half held in their palms. I was lucky
enough to take part in a show at the Albert Hall in the early 70s at
which Bacup also appeared - a particularly fond memory.
My personal involvement has been as a dancer and musician since the
late 60s and, for the last 10 years, as the Editor of `The Morris
Dancer' which tries to be a semi-learned journal in the field. For
the last four years I have also edited the `Circular' which is a
record of the current scene, primarily in England although I have
received contributions from continental Europe, the United States,
the Arabian Gulf and Australasia. Should any reader want more
details, e-mail me at edunmore@cix.compulink.co.uk and I will attempt
to give you a contact address in your part of the world.
==================================================================
CINQUAIN MADNESS
by the editors
As an extra bonus in this issue of The Review, your editors,
inspired by Jim Olson's article, were moved to try their hand at this
poetic form, which, as we discovered, proved to be more difficult
than it looks. Promise not to laugh, but here are the results.
GALAH
Grey, pink,
With high-pitched screech,
Flocks gathered on blossom,
Harsh grating call of quick warning:
Watch out !
--Elaine Dabbs
HERON
Heron,
By our fishpool,
Vigilant, immobile;
A quick lunge, a streak of gold, then
He's gone!
--Pat Davidson
LATE MARCH SNOWSTORM
Winter,
surly old fool,
pethetic lingerer,
have you not seen the calendar?
Be gone!
--Jim Hursey
=========================================================================
end cybersenior.2.2
