Welcome to Quiet Reading, a refuge for our shared humanity, inspired by authors, books, and this world of marvels. A few weeks ago, I asked the Substack Notes community to name poems that college students would be glad to know by heart. The suggestions came with such abundance that I invited one and all to record themselves reciting a “poem to carry in the blood” and post the result today, October 25th. I’ll compile the whole collection and share it next Friday.
First Recitation, First Crush
Back in second grade, it might have been show-and-tell day, or we might have been assigned to memorize and recite a poem. Whatever the prompt, I wriggled with nervousness and pride the day my mother helped me transport my treasured marionette to school (to avoid tangling the strings), and I stood in front of the class with my puppet and my memory of four stanzas that began “The spangled pandemonium is missing from the zoo.” My puppet-supported recitation went off without a hitch, and I was hooked for life:
High on poetry —
Hooked on performance —
Smitten with school as the place where both were welcome.
“The Spangled Pandemonium” first appeared, as far as I know, in a mid-twentieth-century children’s book written and illustrated by Palmer Brown called Beyond the Paw Paw Trees. In that volume, the poem is parceled out to us a few lines at a time as a kind of secret password spoken by the child-heroine.
The poem came to me some other way, possibly in a schoolbook long since forgotten. Its combination of silliness and smarts captivated me. The first stanza expanded my vocabulary and made me giggle: “The spangled pandemonium is missing from the zoo. / He bent the bars the barest bit and slithered glibly through.”
Who could read that and fail to become an English major with a quirky streak?
Over the years, I forgot the light moralizing of the final stanzas and remembered only the silly smarts of stanza one. For me, “The Spangled Pandemonium” has always been an invitation to extravagant verbal play. Now that’s a poem worth carrying in the blood.
Click the video above to hear me recite it today.
The spangled pandemonium Is missing from the zoo. He bent the bars the barest bit, And slithered glibly through. He crawled across the moated wall, He climbed the mango tree, And when the keeper scrambled up, He nipped him (her) in the knee. To all of you a warning Not to wander after dark, Or if you must, make very sure You stay out of the park. For the spangled pandemonium Is missing from the zoo, And since he nipped his keeper, He would just as soon nip you. -- Palmer Brown, from Beyond the Paw Paw Trees
And then … because my son was helping me with the recording and caught the silly spirit, we made this postscript for you:
Around Substack
If you’re on the Substack app today and following my posts in Notes (the app’s Home button), I’ll be restacking others’ “poems to carry in the blood” all day.
If you are a Quiet Reading subscriber who receives my posts in email, I’ll round them up and share the collection next week as a regular post. (Hint: Before this post goes out, I’m already seeing my notifications lighting up with some delightful poems. You’re in for a treat!)
Also today, I am privileged and proud (like 2nd grade again!) to answer “8 Questions” from gifted memoirist and serial novelist
. In this series, Eleanor asks Substack writers about their experience writing on the platform. No two answers are the same, and it’s a wonderful window on the inner thoughts of many writers I admire. I am honored to join the roster today:
While you’re over at Eleanor’s place and waiting for my roundup of poetry readings, check out Eleanor’s serial novel about a young teen girl who finds herself at a months-long encampment of women protesting a plan to place a nuclear missile on an English commons during the Cold War. It’s hard to resist compassion for the girl’s family, with all their limitations on display. Click to see the home page for Fallout.
As always, thank you for reading and listening. It’s a joy to write for you!
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My First Poetic Crush