Monday, September 13, 2010

A couple of fans of the other half of the Chesterbelloc

Not a Chesterton post per se, but it does deal with the other half of the "ChesterBelloc", Hilaire Belloc, so it seems appropriate to include this here. Besides writing a poem about Chesterton called The Only Man I Regularly Read, as well as another defending Chesterton called Lines to a Don Belloc also wrote other poetry, and was a popular children's poet, including writing "Cautionary Tales for Children"

Anyway, a couple of fans of Belloc's poetry include J.K. Rowling (author of the Harry Potter series) and Syd Barrett (of Pink Floyd).

Rowling, for instance, contributed Belloc's poem "Jim Who Ran Away From His Nurse and Was Eaten By Lion" to a book called Once Upon a Poem: Favourite Poems That Tell Stories. [Source] As Rowling states:

Belloc is one of my favourite poets for his wit, his understatement, and his profundity- but, perhaps most of all, for the lion called Ponto who ate Jim.

As for Syd Barrett, this link discusses Barrett's love of Bellocs "Cautionary Tales for Children", and also discusses the original version of the song "Matilda Mother" (based on Belloc's poetry), which, as the link describes it, "helped give the band their start"

I should perhaps point out that I do not read Harry Potter, nor have I ever listened to Pink Floyd. As for Belloc, while I have read "Cautionary Tales for Children", the other books I have read by him mainly deal with the history of the Catholic Church. That said, I did wish to make this post (which I've been meaning to) before I forgot to again. :-)

2 comments:

  1. Nice!! If it weren't for Belloc, who knows if Pink Floyd would be the band we know them to be today!! They're great (and a little strange, like the cautionary tales! :D)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well, I already replied on Facebook, so I guess I don't need to here. lol. But is there any recommendations you would make?

    ReplyDelete