Mekatokaku meka toka mekaku toka,
Meka tokaa meka? toka meka
Mekatokaku meka toka mekaku toka,
Meka tokaa? meka toka meka
Mekatokaku meka toka mekaku toka,
Meka tokaa meka? toka meka
Mekatokaku meka toka mekaku toka,
Meka tokaa? meka toka meka
Meka tokatoka mekameka meka toka
Meka tokatoka mekameka meka toka
Meka tokatoka mekameka meka toka
Meka tokatoka mekameka meka toka.
“Goat’s Tail” is a musical adaptation by Michael Heyman and Regie Gibson of a 16th-century text written by Tenali Ramalinga. A jester and poet in the court of South Indian emperor Krishnadeva Raya, Ramalinga is said to have composed the poem in response to a challenge from a little-known visiting poet. The visitor asked Ramalinga to interpret his poem, but, to answer such impudence, Ramalinga proposed that the visitor interpret Ramalinga’s own poem first. The impromptu poem he recited (in Telugu) does nothing but play on the words meka (goat) and toka (tail). The visitor was so afraid to enter into a debate with a poet of Ramalinga’s caliber that he chose to concede victory to him and the formidable “sense” of nonsense.
An English translation of Ramalinga’s poem made by Elchuri Muralidhara Rao was published in The Tenth Rasa: An Anthology of Indian Nonsense (Penguin 2007). Its bedeviling first lines appear as follows:
To a goat’s tail the goat is the tail, O Goat and O Tail,
Can a goat’s tail be the tail of a goat?
To a goat’s tail the goat’s tail is the tail of a goat,
Can a goat be the tail? O Goat, is tail a goat?
Michael Heyman is a Professor of Nonsense at Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he teaches courses on Children’s Literature and Music, Poetry, Arthropodiatry, and Nonsensical Nunchaku. He is a scholar and writer of literary nonsense and children’s literature, and the chief editor of The Tenth Rasa: An Anthology of Indian Nonsense (Penguin, 2007). His poems and stories for children can be found in The Puffin Book of Bedtime Stories (2005), The Moustache Maharishi and other unlikely stories (Scholastic, 2007), and This Book Makes No Sense: Nonsense Poems and Worse (Scholastic, 2012), the latter of which he also edited.
“Regie, when you perform, you are supersonic and in the stratosphere, where you can see that the Earth really is a ball, moist, blue-green. Regie, you sing and chant for all of us. Nobody gets left out.” -Kurt Vonnegut
Poet, songwriter, author, workshop facilitator, and educator Regie Gibson has performed, taught, and lectured at schools, universities, theaters and various other venues on two continents and in seven countries including Havana Cuba. Regie and his work appear in the New Line Cinema film love jones, based largely on events in his life. Regie is a former National Poetry Slam Individual Champion, was selected one of Chicago Tribune’s Artist of the Year for Excellence for his poetry. He has co-judge the Chicago Sun-Times Poetry Competition with Marc Smith and Mark Strand, has been regularly featured on N. P. R. and has appeared on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam. Regie is widely published in anthologies, magazines and journals such as The Iowa Review, Harvard Divinity Magazine, Poetry Magazine, Spoken Word Revolution (Source Books), The Good Men Project and several others. His full-length book of poetry Storms Beneath The Skin (EM Press) was published received the Golden Pen Award. Regie was a featured on the PBS Arts Magazine- Art Close-Up and was subsequently nominated for a Boston Emmy. Regie competed in and won the “Big Boat” International Poetry competition held in Monfalcone, Italy. Regie has received his MFA in Poetry from New England College, and continues to facilitate creative writing workshops, performances, and otherwise augmenting literary curricula for high schools and colleges across the United States. Presently Regie performs with his new literary music ensemble, The Regie Gibson Project. He is also the Performance Poetry Curator for Solstice Literary Magazine.
Please visit Regie’s works at: http://regiegibsonproject.com/media.html and regiegibson.com
