I am amazed that such a thing happens/happened enough to devise a word for it, but here you go:
palinode (PAL-uh-noad) noun
A poem in which the author retracts something said in an earlier poem.
[From Greek palinoidia, from palin (again) + oide (song).]
The illustrator and humorist Gelett Burgess (1866-1951) once wrote a
poem called The Purple Cow:
“I never saw a purple cow,
I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I’d rather see than be one.”
The poem became so popular and he became so closely linked with this single
quatrain he later wrote a palinode:
“Confession: and a Portrait, Too,
Upon a Background that I Rue!
Oh, yes, I wrote ‘The Purple Cow,’
I’m sorry now I wrote it!
But I can tell you anyhow,
I’ll kill you if you quote it.”
It was the same Burgess who coined the word “blurb.”
I left the house at about 1:30, and stopped by the DELTA office to turn in my time sheet for my NCSU temp job.
Leaving there, I drove over to the main campus to look for a free parking spot, as I did not purchase a parking sticker this semester. I ended up parking way the hell up Chamberlain Street, finally finding an area that didn’t have a 2-hour parking limit from 7AM – 5PM weekdays.
I was about 45 minutes early for my 3:00 class, so I used the time to do some editing on Qiana’s document, which I had brought with me just for that purpose.
During my first three-hour class today, ENG 498M Advanced Topics in Communication: Mobile Technologies and Culture, I spiraled down the “dread zone,” listening to the similarities in last semester’s Internet & Society class and this one.
It’s not that I didn’t expect this, since it’s the same professor, but especially when she started covering the one assignment that is a “group project” with two other people in the class, I thought, “Lord, I don’t think I can go through that again.”
I hate, hate, hate doing group projects. I’m way too ambitious, and always end up taking on most of the work, because I want it done well.
A reprieve arrived near the break that we took halfway through the class when Dr. Silva came to my desk and said, “Did you know there is a graduate level class, ENG 598M, that’s similar to this one, but is a seminar class instead of a lecture class? It’s at this same time, only on Wednesday.”
“How many people are in it?” I asked.
“There’s only 10 in it right now, and they are mixed between grad students and folks in the PhD program.”
I zoned out for the second half of the class, being pretty sure I was going to switch. I wanted to see the syllabus first.
During the 20 minutes I ended up having before my second three-hour class started, I ran across Hillsborough Street — to this hamburger joint that I now can’t for the life of me remember its name, which someone I’m pretty sure told me was good — to grab a quick bite.
The cheeseburger was pretty good. The fries were awful, and I even waited for fresh ones to be cooked.
Their “special” advertised on their window that says, “Hamburger, fries, and a drink: $2.99,” ended up costing me $4.01. Not sure how that happened, as the difference between a hamburger and a cheeseburger on their menu is $.40.
$2.99 + $.40 + $.27 (8% tax)= $3.66.
Oh well, that was the first and last time I’ll be going there.
My second class is ENG 525 Variety in Language. I was told this was an easy class, but you couldn’t tell it by me after the first three hours.
The last hour was particularly arduous and tedious. We talked about words like the ones along the top row of this table, and that one word was way too close to labia for my taste.
I’m going to check with Will tomorrow, as I’m pretty sure he’s the one who told me that this class was a breeze. More like Tropical Storm Ernesto.
I got home at about 9:15, tired after 6 hours of classes.
I proceeded to edit the remainder of Qiana’s document until about 1:30 AM. I did finish it, though.