Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Charles Harper Webb’s "My Wife Insists That, On Our First Date, I Told Her I Had Seven Kinds of Hair" is a humorous and tender reflection on the awkwardness of first impressions, the pressure to be charming, and the way love makes memory both unreliable and mythic. Through playful wordplay, exaggerated self-awareness, and a rhythmic accumulation of images, Webb explores the tension between the need to impress and the vulnerability that accompanies romantic attraction.

The poem’s title, an unusually long and detailed statement, establishes the central dynamic: the wife recalls a specific and odd detail from their first date, while the speaker struggles to remember why he might have said such a thing. The opening line—“Straight, frizzy, chest, nose, pubic . . . what was I thinking?”—immediately signals the poem’s comedic tone. The speaker’s attempt to reconstruct his own logic suggests a mixture of bewilderment and self-deprecating amusement. His list of different types of hair, moving from conventional categories (straight, frizzy) to bodily locations (chest, nose, pubic), highlights the absurdity of his supposed statement while also hinting at the way attraction—and nervousness—can jumble thought and speech.

Recognizing that seven is a number of significance, the speaker momentarily detours into a litany of legendary sevens: “Seven thieves. Seven wonders, sleepers, worthies, gables, cities, seventh sons of seventh sons with more mojo than seven men.” This rapid-fire catalog suggests that, even in hindsight, he wants to make his original claim sound more impressive than bizarre. The references to mythical, biblical, and literary sevens add an almost incantatory rhythm, reinforcing the idea that numbers—and by extension, language—can carry a magical quality, especially in moments of high emotional stakes.

The poem then shifts into a recollection of the actual date, grounding the speaker’s reflection in sensory memory. The couple dined at Mogo’s, where they were presented with “a dozen kinds of vegetables, as well as chicken, turkey, pork, and beef.” The mention of multiple choices echoes the earlier theme of enumeration—just as he supposedly had seven kinds of hair, their meal involved an overwhelming variety of options. The description of the chef’s performance—“spilled our choices onto a grill, then moved from pile to sizzling pile, chopped, smoothed, arranged”—mirrors the speaker’s own anxious attempt to arrange his words into something engaging. The chef’s “skilled spatula” becomes a metaphor for the kind of control and dexterity the speaker longs to have in conversation but fears he lacks.

Moving to a dim corner with his date, the speaker now recalls the intensity of his attraction. He categorizes her features using another structured list: “of the three body types, six kinds of laughs, five kinds of breasts, and eight varieties of lips, hers held the summit of each heap.” The playful specificity of these classifications suggests both a scientific detachment and an overwhelming admiration. By framing his attraction in terms of numerical superiority—her physical and expressive traits ranking highest among limited categories—he humorously acknowledges the ridiculousness of trying to quantify desire. Yet, at the same time, his admiration feels genuine, his awe at her beauty disrupting his ability to think clearly.

Her “long, dark hair and sapphire eyes” are so striking that they physically unnerve him: “made my hands shake. Her shape unhinged my diaphragm.” The exaggeration here humorously elevates his infatuation to near-medical distress, reinforcing how nervousness and attraction often collide. This moment of visceral reaction provides insight into why he might have said something as strange as having seven kinds of hair. Overwhelmed by her presence, he likely grasped at anything to keep the conversation flowing, eager to maintain the rhythm of their exchange.

The final lines offer a self-aware and retrospective justification for his blunder: “I’ll bet I groped in my suddenly dim brain, and spilled whatever I found onto our talk.” The phrasing here—particularly “spilled”—recalls the earlier image of the chef cooking their meal, linking his verbal fumbling to the chaotic yet deliberate act of assembling a dish. This reinforces the idea that conversation, especially in moments of attraction, is often improvised and messy.

The closing reflection—“I was so eager to keep it sizzling, so hungry to seem a man whose invention never failed, well endowed with all good things, including hair”—ties the poem’s humor and earnestness together. The phrase “to keep it sizzling” echoes the imagery of the restaurant, reinforcing the idea that he wanted to maintain the energy and excitement of their date. His desire “to seem a man whose invention never failed” reveals a fundamental insecurity—he wanted to appear endlessly fascinating, capable of spontaneous wit, and rich in qualities that would impress her. The final joke—linking this sense of abundance to his hair—adds a last touch of playful self-deprecation, as if he were subconsciously trying to suggest fertility, masculinity, or general worthiness through something as trivial as an overabundance of hair.

The final line, “At least one kind, I must have meant, is right for you.”—softens the absurdity with a touching sentiment. Whether or not he actually said what his wife remembers, the underlying message remains clear: in that moment, he wanted to offer her something unique, something that would make her feel as special as he saw her. His language may have failed him, but his intention—to be worthy of her attention—was sincere.

"My Wife Insists That, On Our First Date, I Told Her I Had Seven Kinds of Hair" is a charming, self-effacing meditation on the pressures of first impressions and the absurdity of human attraction. Webb masterfully balances humor with genuine tenderness, capturing the way nervousness scrambles language, how memory reshapes experience, and how love, in the end, makes even our most ridiculous moments worth remembering.

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