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.
Commentary
To quote the inimitable Calvin1, “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.
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
