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An Apology -- F J Bergmann

Guest poem submitted by Paramjit Oberoi:
(Poem #1759) An Apology
 Forgive me
 for backing over
 and smashing
 your red wheelbarrow.

 It was raining
 and the rear wiper
 does not work on
 my new plum-colored SUV.

 I am also sorry
 about the white
 chickens.
-- F J Bergmann
I was leafing through one of Billy Collins's anthologies of contemporary
American poetry ("180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day") when I ran
into this.  I love the haiku-like simplicity of the lines, and the random
irreverent touches ("plum-colored SUV", "white chickens").  So spare, not a
word out of place, and one gets such a clear and vivid picture of the event
when reading it.

"An Apology" was a finalist for the 2003 James Hearst Poetry Prize and
appeared in The North American Review Vol. 288, No. 2.

Frances Jean Bergmann is a web designer and artist.  She reads at spoken
word venues, and has been published in Margie-The American Journal of
Poetry, Wind, Pavement Saw, Realpoetik,in the anthology Connected: Poetry
Online In The Age Of Computers, in her own chapbooks, and has a poem
included in 180 More (Random House 2005).  In 2003 she received the Mary
Roberts Rinehart National Poetry Award; in 2004 she won the Pauline Ellis
Prose Poetry Prize with "Wall."  She lives in Madison, Wisconsin (USA), and
maintains several local poetry websites.

Biographical information from:
  http://www.madpoetry.org/madpoets/bergmann.html
  http://www.wfop.org/poets/bergmann.html
  http://www.fibitz.com/biostate.html

-param

PS. Here's the original:
  http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/83.html

36 comments: ( or Leave a comment )

Nora Ghaoui said...

This poem reminds me of another William Carlos
Williams poem (This Is Just To Say) more than it does
of The Red Wheelbarrow. The first line, "Forgive me"
is in both poems, plus the reference to plums.

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PSIS Internet Banking said...

I like the mystery of the chickens.

Anonymous said...

SUCH A BOSS POEM!! I love the irony of a poem, which is mocking poetry, being an inside joke about poetry (because it plays off of William Carlos Williams' two poems "The Red Wheelbarrow" and "Forgive Me"). Also, a broken rear wiper on a brand new car? I think not :)

--Katherine

Unknown said...

Kutil pada alat kelamin luar bisa diangkat melalui laser, krioterapi (pembekuan) atau pembedahan dengan bius lokal. Pengobatan kimiawi, seperti podofilum resin atau racun yang dimurnikan atau asam trikloroasetat, bisa dioleskan langsung pada kutil. Tetapi pengobatan ini memerlukan waktu beberapa minggu sampai beberapa bulan, bisa melukai kulit di sekelilingnya dan sering gatal.

Unknown said...

Kutil dalam istilah medis disebut Papilloma. Papilloma itu sebenarnya
sejenis tumor jinak pada kulit, berasal dari penebalan lapisan luar
kulit yang berlebihan. Bentuk kutil ini bisa bermacam-macam.

Anonymous said...

An Apology is satiracal if those poems.

Anonymous said...

Never said it was brand new. It may have been new to the character but still be used.
If I buy a used jeep, its still new because its new to me.

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