(Poem #928) Quiescent, a Person Sits Heart and Soul Quiescent a person sits heart and soul Thinking of daytime and Amy Lowell. A couple came walking down the street; Neither of them had ever met. |
To quote the inimitable Calvin[1], "I try to make everyone's day a little more surreal". And the equally inimitable Ring Lardner is surely a fitting weapon of mass surreality - today's poem has the kind of inspired idiosyncracy that leaves the reader wondering just how it was pulled off. Indeed, I find it impossible to say just what it is about this poem that I like. On the face of it, it is just a couple of random images stuck together and called a poem. It is not even, as might be expected, a parody of Lowell (or if it is, I'm missing it). There's just something about the perfect balance of incongruity and poker-faced pointlessness that appeals to me. [1] [broken link] http://www.math.fu-berlin.de/~guckes/cartoons/pics/calvin/calvin.surreal.gif Links: Biography: http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/litlinks/fiction/lardner.htm Bob Blair ran this poem a few months ago: http://www.geocities.com/athens/delphi/7086/010306.htm Amy Lowell on Minstrels: Poem #102, "Generations" Poem #644, "Patterns" -martin
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