Back in the long-ago of 1967, I was a 6th-Grader at Lassalette Elementary in La Puente, California. A few times during the year, our class had opportunities to order youth-oriented paperback books from a service called the Scholastic Book Club.
There were lots of titles to choose from, but I bought only one book that year. It was a book of poetry, first published in 1966, titled 'Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle... and Other Modern Verse' (Dunning/Lueders/Smith). I think I paid thirty-five cents for it.
I didn't know this book was an award-winning anthology, or that it presented modern poetry in a way that would appeal to the young, or that it would become a classic and widely used in high-school curriculums. It just looked interesting.
I literally inhaled the book. It changed the way I looked at the world, and fundamentally changed me. I even memorized a couple of the poems, and can still recite them at the drop of a hat.
This part Christmas, The Artist gifted me with a beautiful hard-bound edition of 'Reflections', and I've now read it several times. I'm finding great pleasure in leafing though the pages and reading a poem out loud.
Here are several favorites from this singular book. They still move me in ways that I could not have expected, just like they did when I was in 6th Grade.
How to Eat a Poem (Eve Merriam)
Don’t be polite.
Bite In.
Pick it up with your fingers and
lick the juice that
may run down your chin.
It is ready and ripe now, whenever you are.
You do not need a knife or fork or
spoon
or plate or napkin or tablecloth.
For there is no core
or stem
or rind
or pit
or seed
or skin
to throw away.
Why Nobody Pets the Lion at the
Zoo (John Ciardi)
The morning that the world began
The Lion growled a growl at Man.
And I suspect the Lion might
(if he’d been closer) have tried a bite.
I think that’s as it ought to be
And not as it was taught to me.
I think the Lion has a right
To growl a growl and bite a bite.
And if the Lion bothered Adam,
He should have growled back at ‘im.
The way to treat a Lion right
Is growl for growl and bite for bite.
True, the Lion is better fit
For biting than for being bit.
But if you look him in the eye
You’ll find the Lion’s rather shy.
He really wants someone to pet
him.
The trouble is: his teeth won’t let him.
He has a heart of gold beneath
But the Lion just can’t trust his
teeth.
August from My Desk (Roland
Flint)
It is hot today, dry enough for
cutting grain,
and I am drifting back to North
Dakota
where butterflies are all gone brown with wheat dust.
And where some boy,
red-faced, sweating, chafed,
too young to be dying this way
steers a laborious, self-propelled
combine,
and dreams of cities, and
blizzards –
and airplanes.
With the white silk scarf of his
sleeve
he shines and shines his goggles,
he checks his meters, checks his
flaps,
screams contact at his dreamless
father,
and, engines roaring,
he pulls back the stick
and hurtles into the sun.
Resume’ (Dorothy Parker)
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
Ancient History (Arthur
Guiterman)
I hope the old Romans
Had painful abdomens.
I hope that the Greeks
Had toothache for weeks.
I hope the Egyptians
Had chronic conniptions
I hope that the Arabs
Were bitten by scarabs.
I hope that the Vandals
Had thorns in their sandals.
I hope that the Persians
Had gout in all versions.
I hope that the Medes
Were kicked by their steeds.
They started the fuss
And left it to us!
War (Dan Roth)
Dawn came slowly,
almost not at all.
The sun crept over the hill
cautiously
fearful of being hit
by mortar fire.
Too Blue (Langston Hughes)
I got those sad old weary blues.
I don’t know where to turn.
I don’t know where to go.
Nobody cares about you
When you sink so low.
What shall I do?
What shall I say?
Shall I take a gun and
Put myself away?
I wonder if
One bullet would do?
Hard as my head is,
It would probably take two.
But I ain’t got
Neither bullet nor gun –
And I’m too blue
To look for one.
The Garden Hose (Beatrice Janosco)
In the gray evening
I see a long serpent
With its tail in the dahlias.
It lies in loops across the grass
And drinks softly at the faucet.
I can hear it swallow.
For a Dead Kitten (Sara
Henderson Hay)
Put the rubber mouse away,
Pick the spools up from the floor,
What was velvet-shod, and gay,
Will not want them any more.
What was warm, is strangely cold.
Whence dissolved the little
breath?
How could this small body hold
So immense a thing as death?
Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle Received from
a Friend Called Felicity (John Tobias)
During that summer
When unicorns were still possible;
When the purpose of knees
Was to be skinned;
When shiny horse chestnuts
(Hollowed out
Fitted with straws
Crammed with tobacco
Stolen from butts
In family ashtrays)
Were puffed in green lizard
silence
While straddling thick branches
Far above and away
From the softening effects
Of civilization
During that summer –
Which may never have been at all;
But which has become more real
Than the one that was –
Watermelons ruled.
Thick pink imperial slices
Melting frigidly on sun-parched
tongues
Dribbling from chins;
Leaving the best part,
The black bullet seeds,
To be spit out in rapid fire
Against the wall
Against the wind
Against each other;
And when the ammunition was spent,
There was always another bite;
It was a summer of limitless
bites,
Of hungers quickly felt
And quickly forgotten
With the next careless gorging.
The bites are fewer now.
Each one is savored lingeringly,
Swallowed reluctantly.
But in a jar put up by Felicity,
That summer that maybe never was
Has been captured and preserved.
And when we unscrew the lid
And slice off a piece
And let it linger on our tongue:
Unicorns become possible again.
Lead image courtesy of the Writer; 'Reflections cover, gracias de Google Images; Phoebe Snow 'Poetry Man' video, muchisimas gracias de YouTube; THANK YOU, KIM!!!!
