The more things stay the same: Alice Duer Miller
One of the reasons I stick around Livejournal (aside from pure laziness) despite its myriad issues and the ongoing spamming is the Great
Poets community, where members post various poems that have inspired or amused them. I'm familiar with most of the poems and poets, but not all, and every once in awhile, the community introduces me to someone I have inexplicably completely overlooked. As in this week, where someone posted this poem from poet Alice Duer Miller:
What Every Woman Must Not Say
“I don’t pretend I’m clever,” he remarked, “or very wise,”
And at this she murmured, “Really,” with the right polite surprise.
“But women,” he continued, “I must own I understand;
Women are a contradiction-honorable and underhand-
Constant as the star Polaris, yet as changeable as Fate,
Always flying what they long for, always seeking what they hate.”
“Don’t you think,” began the lady, but he cut her short: “I see
That you take it personally-women always do,” said he.
“You will pardon me for saying every woman is the same,
Always greedy for approval, always sensitive to blame;
Sweet and passionate are women; weak in mind, though strong in soul;
Even you admit, I fancy, that they have no self-control?”
No, I don’t admit they haven’t,” said the patient lady then,
“Or they could not sit and listen to the nonsense talked by men.”
The poem cracked me up, so I did a bit of internet hunting and discovered that Guterberg had posted an entire book of her satirical poems on women, voting, and elections. The great -- or depressing -- part of this is just how much of these poems, published, if Wikipedia is correct, in 1915, still ring true nearly one hundred years later, but many of them still made me laugh out loud, so I thought I'd pass the link along.
In other news still feeling exhausted this week, which in turn seems to be slowing down all of my words and turning what I want to say into mush, quite unlike Miller's crisp satire.
Poets community, where members post various poems that have inspired or amused them. I'm familiar with most of the poems and poets, but not all, and every once in awhile, the community introduces me to someone I have inexplicably completely overlooked. As in this week, where someone posted this poem from poet Alice Duer Miller:
What Every Woman Must Not Say
“I don’t pretend I’m clever,” he remarked, “or very wise,”
And at this she murmured, “Really,” with the right polite surprise.
“But women,” he continued, “I must own I understand;
Women are a contradiction-honorable and underhand-
Constant as the star Polaris, yet as changeable as Fate,
Always flying what they long for, always seeking what they hate.”
“Don’t you think,” began the lady, but he cut her short: “I see
That you take it personally-women always do,” said he.
“You will pardon me for saying every woman is the same,
Always greedy for approval, always sensitive to blame;
Sweet and passionate are women; weak in mind, though strong in soul;
Even you admit, I fancy, that they have no self-control?”
No, I don’t admit they haven’t,” said the patient lady then,
“Or they could not sit and listen to the nonsense talked by men.”
The poem cracked me up, so I did a bit of internet hunting and discovered that Guterberg had posted an entire book of her satirical poems on women, voting, and elections. The great -- or depressing -- part of this is just how much of these poems, published, if Wikipedia is correct, in 1915, still ring true nearly one hundred years later, but many of them still made me laugh out loud, so I thought I'd pass the link along.
In other news still feeling exhausted this week, which in turn seems to be slowing down all of my words and turning what I want to say into mush, quite unlike Miller's crisp satire.