My nose is out of joint For my father-in-letters -- My father mind you -- Has been brought to bed of another poet, And I am not nine months old. It is twins this time And they came into the world prodigiously united in wedlock. (Don't try to visualize this.) Already they have written their first poems in vers libre And sold it within twenty-four hours. My father-in-letters was the affluent American buyer -- There was no one to bid against him. The merit of the poems is the new convention That definitely locates an emotion in the belly, Instead of scientifically in the viscera at large, Or mid-Victorianly in the heart. It voices a desire to grin With the grin of a beast more scared than frightened For why? Because it is a cinch that twins so well born will be able to sell almost anything they write. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...OF DISTRESS BEING HUMILIATED BY THE CLASSICAL CHINESE POETS by HAYDEN CARRUTH SONG FIRST BY A SHEPHERD by WILLIAM BLAKE REQUIEM FOR ONE SLAIN IN BATTLE by GEORGE LUNT SONGS by RICHARD HENRY STODDARD THE GREEN ROADS by PHILIP EDWARD THOMAS EUROPE; THE 72ND AND 73RD YEARS OF THESE STATES by WALT WHITMAN |