Latest / Backward Mutters Poetry Podcast / How I Got Caught
Transcript
- 0:01SPEAKER_00: You are listening to the Backward Mutters poetry podcast.
- 0:04SPEAKER_00: Please visit online at backwardmutters.substack.com.
- 0:08SPEAKER_00: There you can subscribe via your favorite podcast player and read the newsletter.
- 0:12SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Randy Edwards.
- 0:17SPEAKER_00: Today's poem is inspired by an Appalachian mountain story collected by Richard
- 0:22SPEAKER_00: Chase and included in his book of folktales titled The Grandfather Tales.
- 0:28SPEAKER_00: Before the advent of television and the internet,
- 0:30SPEAKER_00: storytelling was both an art and the preferred entertainment when sitting with
- 0:36SPEAKER_00: family or neighbors after dinner or around the fireplace in the evening.
- 0:41SPEAKER_00: This poem is a retelling of one of Chase's grandfather tales titled Schoonkin Huntin'.
- 0:47SPEAKER_00: One genre of tall tales are hunting stories,
- 0:50SPEAKER_00: which are not unlike a fishing story about the one that got away.
- 0:55SPEAKER_00: The key to this story is that it is nonsense.
- 1:00SPEAKER_00: Everything is backwards or upside down.
- 1:03SPEAKER_00: So, as we start October, let's begin with a little silliness.
- 1:09SPEAKER_00: Here's a story about how I got caught.
- 1:14SPEAKER_00: I've traveled this world all over.
- 1:17SPEAKER_00: Housed a barn, down to the gate.
- 1:20SPEAKER_00: upstairs downstairs like a rover till true love changed my fate one day i fixed to
- 1:29SPEAKER_00: go hunting had to unfinish my chores pick the right pigs slop the pumpkins unlock
- 1:36SPEAKER_00: the house open the doors i galloped the path out to the barn clump up the horse sat
- 1:44SPEAKER_00: with a shout rode the old stump right off the farm
- 1:49SPEAKER_00: Just like that, I was out.
- 1:53SPEAKER_00: Rode my mare to a valley town that sit way up on a hill where little roast pigs run
- 1:59SPEAKER_00: around squealing,
- 2:00SPEAKER_00: Who'll eat me?
- 2:01SPEAKER_00: Who will?
- 2:03SPEAKER_00: Come to a house made of cornbread.
- 2:06SPEAKER_00: Its sides shingled with flapjacks.
- 2:09SPEAKER_00: Knocked on the woman with my head when the door swung and knocked me back.
- 2:14SPEAKER_00: Well, that kind old woman offered me a glass of bread and a penny.
- 2:19SPEAKER_00: no thank you ma'am if you please told her i just had any went and looked for my
- 2:25SPEAKER_00: brother's place house it's easy to find it sits alone in an empty space with 50
- 2:32SPEAKER_00: just like it beside a house high up there down below a log cabin made a brick where
- 2:41SPEAKER_00: in a field he'd scratch and hoe the cornied fish from the creek
- 2:46SPEAKER_00: That's when I saw Jenny, my love.
- 2:49SPEAKER_00: I knew she must have missed me.
- 2:51SPEAKER_00: Nailed the door down and the windows up, so I strode in through the chimney.
- 2:57SPEAKER_00: Directly I throwed my hat on the fire, thoughtfully stirred up the bed.
- 3:03SPEAKER_00: I sat right close, her eyes admire, as far from her as I could get.
- 3:10SPEAKER_00: We played cards.
- 3:11SPEAKER_00: Some say it's a sin.
- 3:13SPEAKER_00: She drawed hearts.
- 3:15SPEAKER_00: Me, diamonds, love.
- 3:17SPEAKER_00: About that time her old man come in and he drawed himself a club.
- 3:22SPEAKER_00: So I runned home.
- 3:23SPEAKER_00: I runned out of there.
- 3:24SPEAKER_00: I said, I won't see you never.
- 3:27SPEAKER_00: The old gray mare that's mine is yours.
- 3:30SPEAKER_00: I'll be back for it forever.
- 3:33SPEAKER_00: That very day, life changed for me.
- 3:37SPEAKER_00: The girl I chased round the bend, the one I thought I was a-chasing, she finally caught me in the end.
- 3:51SPEAKER_00: I'm only a dreamer of romance.
- 3:55SPEAKER_00: My love remains.
- 3:58SPEAKER_00: You've been hearing the Mackward Butters Poetry Podcast.
- 4:02SPEAKER_00: I'm the most Pandy Edwards.
- 4:04SPEAKER_00: Thank you for glistening.
- 4:05SPEAKER_00: And smile through my tears, dear, at you.