National Poetry Day arrived on 1st October, giving us an excellent excuse to celebrate poetry – and to prove that it doesn’t always involve standing on a windswept hill wearing a scarf and looking thoughtfully into the distance.
Poetry can be serious, romantic, beautiful and moving. It can also be wonderfully silly. Few people understood that better than Spike Milligan, the celebrated comedian, writer and poet who spent his later years living in the Rye area of East Sussex (also known as “Spike Milligna – the world famous typing error” according to The Goon Show).
Spike was a master of showing us that words don’t always have to behave themselves. He could take ordinary language, give it a gentle shove in the wrong direction and create something wonderfully ridiculous. His poetry, particularly for children, demonstrated that poems could be fun, memorable and completely bonkers.
And that is one of the great things about poetry. It doesn’t have to follow the rules we might expect. A poem can rhyme, or not rhyme. It can tell a story, describe a feeling, paint a picture or simply make you laugh. It can be two lines long or several pages. Sometimes, it can even invent words.
Spike Milligan was particularly fond of that last option. His famous nonsense poem “On the Ning Nang Nong” is a perfect example. Originally published in Silly Verse for Kids, it transports us to a peculiar place where cows go “bong”, trees go “ping” and perfectly respectable language appears to have taken the afternoon off.
The Private World of Spike Milligan at Stephen’s House & Gardens
Spike’s daughters Jane and Sile take you on a highly personal journey into Spike’s life, work and mind through his unseen archive.
With personal stories and recollections this is an intimate small group experience.
For more information on this and other tours at Stephen’s House & Gardens, click here
For those of us in and around Rye, there is something rather special about having such a celebrated poet and comedian associated with this corner of East Sussex. Although Spike’s home was in the surrounding countryside, his influence travelled considerably further than the lanes and fields of Sussex. His comedy, books and poetry have entertained generations across Britain and beyond.
National Poetry Day is therefore a chance to celebrate poetry in all its forms. We can enjoy the great British poets, discover something completely new, revisit a favourite poem from childhood – or simply appreciate what can happen when words are put together in unexpected ways.
It is also a reminder that poetry belongs to everyone. You don’t need to understand every metaphor, identify every literary technique or own a pair of corduroy trousers to enjoy it. If a poem makes you think, smile, remember something or laugh out loud, it has already done its job.
Perhaps that is why Spike Milligan remains such a perfect poet for National Poetry Day. He showed us that language could be clever without being complicated, imaginative without being serious and, above all, enormous fun.
So, on 1st October, we raised a metaphorical glass to poetry. Celebrate rhyme, rhythm, imagination and the wonderfully peculiar things that happen when words are allowed to run free.
And if you’re looking for the perfect poem to mark the occasion, there is really only one place we could possibly finish:
On the Ning Nang Nong
Where the Cows go Bong!
and the monkeys all say BOO!
There’s a Nong Nang Ning
Where the trees go Ping!
And the tea pots jibber jabber joo!
On the Nong Ning Nang
All the mice go Clang
And you just can’t catch ’em when they do!
So its Ning Nang Nong
Cows go Bong!
Nong Nang Ning
Trees go ping!
Nong Ning Nang
The mice go Clang.
What a noisy place to belong
on the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!!
Poem reprinted by kind permission of the Milligan Estate
