Skimming through an ancient edition of Perrine, I stumbled upon two poems: " I Do, I Will, I Have" by Ogden Nash and "Famous" Naomi Shihab Nye. I have feared the coming of the poetry unit, for last year I struggled with understanding, what I thought I understood from the words was completely wrong, or so the teacher said. So if my interpretation is way off please by all means take a crack at it yourself!
"I Do, I Will, I Have" gave me a good laugh. It's about marriage and how even though its alliance of a man and woman, they often contradict each other.
"I am quite sure that marriage is the alliance of two people one of
whom never remembers birthdays and the other never forgetsam,
And he refuses to believe there is a leak in the water pip or
the gas pipe and she is convinced she is about to asphyxiate or drown,
And she says Quick get up and get my hairbrushes off the window
sill, it's raining in, and he replies Oh they're all right, it's
only raining straight down."
The humorous passage further goes to say,
"That is why marriage is so much more interesting than divorce,
Because it's the only known example of the happy meeting of the
immovable object and the irresistible force.
So I hope that husbands and wives continue to debate and combat
over everything debatable and combatable,
Because I believe a little incompatibility is the spice of life, par-
ticularly if he has incom and she is pattable."
A few interesting things I noticed about the point of this poem. One, the narrator is writing about how wise he is to know what marriage really is. He assures quite pompously that he knows exactly what he is talking about because he was able to recognize "there are two Hagens, Walter and Copen", or how wise he is in his organization and communication to draw about a carriage. Having established this, he begins to pour out his wisdom on marriage, and I must admit it does not take a wise man to say it, but a wise man to actually write it down. What he says about marriage I think everyone already knows. I do like how he mocks both men and women and the roles they play in this alliance.
The Man "never remembers birthdays" and insists that "it's only raining straight down".
The Woman "never forgetsam" thinks she is about "to asphyxiate or drown" and wants the hairbrushes off the window for fear of them getting wet.
I think it was a great poem, because it is very universal. Whether a marriage is going well or going down hill, both types of relationships can relate because the contradiction between the husband and wife can either be seen as something humourous or something serious that jeopardizes the relationship. The central purpose of the poem mocks and lifts up marriage simultaneously as well as praising oneself for such wisdom in coming up with such a thought. Nash uses irony to lift up how marriages function and while using a pattern in the flow of the poem as well. As Perrine would argue, this is poetry because it's a "lesson or a of moral instruction" and it "makes us feel more poignantly and more understandingly about the everyday experiences all of us have".
This is quite the large post, so I'll save "Famous" for another time.
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