John Green Reads Poetry

H: John, do you have a short poem for us?

J: I do have a short poem, Hank. It’s Now Let No Charitable Hope by Eleanor Morton Wiley an American poet from the sort of late 19th early 20th century. 

(Reads poem)

J: Eleanor Morton Wiley with Now Let No Charitable Hope. I love that idea that no year has quite merited her fear and none has quite escaped her smile. There’s little bit of hoping that poem and I’m just feeling very hopeful right now because I have been reminded that occasionally improbable wonders do befall us.

H: All right. Well congratulations on having an improbable wonder befall you John. Put that on a t-shirt and it’ll be great.

—

H: So here is another question, this one is from Lizzie, who asks “Dear Hank and John, shouldn’t gravy boats be called gravy baths, as the gravy is inside of it?”

J: I like that we’re really focusing on the hard hitting difficult questions today, Hank.

H: We’ll get there. We’ll get to some hard questions, John. I think that we’ll get to some harder ones. I have some strong opinions on this if you don’t.

J: I do have a strong opinion. But I suspect that your strong opinion is that “gravy boat” is the wrong word and that we should start using “gravy bath,” whereas I actually really like “gravy boat.”

H: I agree with you, I agree with you because gravy boats are– the gravy is the passenger in the gravy boat, and it is sailing in the ocean of Thanksgiving Dinner.

J: That’s right, so it is a-sail on the ship of your dining room table, and the gravy is the passenger.

H: Yes. The water in this metaphor is just the ethereal nature of the feast that you are consuming.

J: That’s beautiful Hank.

H: Things are like like other things, John.

J: You missed your calling by not being a poet, “things are like other things” is one of the best poems I’ve ever heard in my entire life. It’s a simile, but it’s also a metaphor, it’s got a lot going for it. I actually think I might get a “things are like other things” tattoo someday.

H: I have to say that I stole that joke from Twitter, and I don’t know who tweeted it, I just saw it on Tumblr, and the tweet was “yes! we get it, poets, things are like other things!” 

J: I’m glad you acknowledge having stolen that joke. Which I mean, it would’ve been perfectly plausible to me that two people thought of that same joke, but I appreciate your honesty.

Now let no charitable hope
Confuse my mind with images
Of eagle and of antelope:
I am by nature none of these.

I was, being human, born alone;
I am, being woman, hard beset;
I live by squeezing from a stone
The little nourishment I get.

In masks outrageous and austere
The years go by in single file;
But none has merited my fear,
And none has quite escaped my smile.