Daily Dose

From Braised Pork, by An Yu

SKETCHING

"She was sketching the fins of a fish when a loud thump came from behind her, and a man cursed."

From  Chapter 11

Book Storage Errors

(All the above doodles are based on explanations actually given for the state of used books intended for sale.)

A Fish Feast at Blackwall

To the Immortal Memory of the Halibut by William Cowper

WHERE hast thou floated, in what seas pursued
Thy pastime? when wast thou an egg new-spawn'd,
Lost in th' immensity of ocean's waste?
Roar as they might, the overbearing winds
That rock'd the deep, thy cradle, thou wast safe—
And in thy minikin and embryo state,
Attach'd to the firm leaf of some salt weed,
Didst outlive tempests, such as wrung and rack'd
The joints of many a stout and gallant bark,
And whelm'd them in the unexplor'd abyss.
Indebted to no magnet and no chart,
Nor under guidance of the polar fire,
Thou wast a voyager on many coasts,
Grazing at large in meadows submarine,
Where flat Batavia just emerging peeps
Above the brine,—where Caledonia's rocks
Beat back the surge,—and where Hibernia shoots
Her wondrous causeway far into the main.
—Wherever thou hast fed, thou little thought'st,
And I not more, that I should feed on thee.
Peace therefore, and good health, and much good fish,
To him who sent thee! and success, as oft
As it descends into the billowy gulph,
To the same drag that caught thee!—Fare thee well!
Thy lot thy brethern of the slimy fin
Would envy, could they know that thou wast doom'd
To feed a bard, and to be prais'd in verse. 

 [Written in a letter to Unwin April 25, 1784.  Published by
     Johnson, 1824.  There is a copy among the Ash MSS.]

Daily Dose

From Everyone But Me and Thee, by Ogden Nash

THE KIPPER

"For half a century, man and nipper,
I've doted on a tasty kipper,
But since I am no Jack the Ripper
I wish the kipper had a zipper."

At the Aquarium

Pitching Pets IV: And Yet More Unsold Animal Books

Daily Dose

From Versus, by Ogden Nash

THE GUPPY

Whales have calves,
Cats have kittens,
Bears have cubs,
Bats have bittens,
Swans have cygnets,
Seals have puppies,
But guppies just have little guppies.

A Preliminary Notion

I have a friend who loves fish. Sensible people do, of course; fried, baked, smoked, etc. My friend loves them live, fish, little ones mostly, pretty ones. When he watches them they mesmerize him and make him content. His fish are all beautiful, bright, fast and slow. I do like listening to my friend, a poet, when he's on about his fish, or fish in general. He works, don't you know, my friend, in an aquarium. He has aquariums -- less grand than those at work, of course, but lovely -- all at one end of his apartment. Going to a big aquarium here when he visited us, was genuinely fun.

Anyway, I started recording some poems about fish, and the sea, and the shore, to post here, mostly for my friend to find. I sent him a connection to one of these, "To Fish," by Leigh Hunt. It's a funny little poem, all flutey horror at the ugliness of fish, the dullness of their lives, their lack of conversation. Most amusing, I thought. Friend seemed to like it fine.

I mentioned I might, or that I should, illustrate the poem, maybe make a little book out of that poem, with pictures of some wonderfully ugly fish, with which Nature seems to have amused herself aplenty.

My friend's been most encouraging.

I've never drawn fish, really. I've doodled one or two before, to amuse said friend I suppose, but when I tried to make them as pretty as my friend's fish, well... The key might be in drawing just the ugly ones, which I like better and which might better suit my small talent for jokes. Here's a first then, just to try my hand, push the pencil around a little and see what comes of it. I like it well enough.

We'll see. I've never thought before to make just such a little book from just such a comic little poem. We'll see.

To Fish