start cybersenior.2.2 ==================================================== ************ * THE * CYBERSENIOR * REVIEW ************ =================================================== VOLUME 2 NUMBER 2 APRIL 1995 =================================================== 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