Richard Armour's Punctured Poems: Famous First and Infamous Second Lines

by Richard Armour

Armour, Richard, Gurney, Eric

Genres: Humor, Poetry

92 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

Richard Armour, a college professor of English who specialized in Chaucer and the English Romantic poets, was best known as a prolific author of light verse and wacky parodies of academic scholarship. He was a professor of English at Scripps College in Claremont from 1945 to 1966.

Armour was raised in Pomona, California, where his father owned a drugstore. He graduated from Pomona College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, then obtained his master's and Ph.D. in English literature at Harvard. He was a Harvard research fellow at the Victoria and Albert Museum library in London.

Reviews

[Elizabeth S · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know, as you progress through life, at some point you start feeling old. Reading a book like this makes me feel young because the book is so old! Well, just over 50 years old. But it refers to a lot of famous poetry that doesn't sound remotely familiar to me. I counted, and I recognized 9 of the 44 famous lines. (Plus 2 of the 15 "extras" and I didn't count the many that were in footnotes.) Maybe someone with a degree in English can get a better score.

BUT, these are all super funny. Even the ones I don't recognize. For several, the accompanying illustration adds even another dimension to the words. Marvelous fun.

[Baroness Ekat · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are a great many people who only know poems by their first line.

In this book, the author takes the first line of famous poems and provides a second line of his own, resulting in very funny and very different stories than what the original was.

A friend of mine loaned me her copy of this book with "I think you will find this funny" and she was right.

At 88 pages (half of which are pictures) this was a wonderfully quick read and a great way to decompress on a Friday evening.

[Myron M · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quick read, but very funny. Parodies of various famous poems, each with an accompanying cartoon. Chock full of trivia, viz., titles and authors of famous quotes from poetry.

I read the McGraw Hill edition, but Goodreads doesn't have the cover illustration for that one.

[Moonkiszt · Rating 5 out of 5]

An effort to make children like poetry. It worked with me.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun and light reading - a brief respite from the ever-increasing horrors that seem to grow exponentially day by day.

[Sheila · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lighthearted and short, loved the illustrations too.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amusing follow-up lines to famous poems:

"I celebrate myself, and sing myself.
My picture's there, my bust's upon the shelf."
The illustrations add to the humor; the above poem is illustrated with Whitman toasting his bust and two pictures, with a book of his poems (also with his mug on the cover" tucked under his arm. And he's petting his dog, who has a face--and beard--exactly like his.

Definitely recommended, if you can find a copy.

[Karen Floyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Laugh out loud funny. Armour takes the first line of (mostly) famous poems and supplies his own second. The results are hilarious. For instance, take this poem by Rossetti: The blessed damosel leaned out.
"She's sick!" I heard a warning shout.
Great silliness.

[Kristen Northrup · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty cute stuff. And it's also fun to see just how many of these most-famous poems that I actually recognize. Now I'm curious about his takes on history.