Recently I read this amusing post by Jenny Lawson, aka The Bloggess. Go ahead and click on the link and give it a read, I’ll wait.
Okay, you’ve read it now? Good, now the rest of my post will make sense.
I was already familiar with William Carlos Williams’ poem This is Just to Say and I actually really like the poem. Jenny Lawson’s reaction to it made me laugh because she quantifies how a lot of people feel about poems on a larger level. They read them and then scratch their heads and think, “What?…” As a poet it is my goal to never leave readers scratching their head in confusion. While I know sometimes the deeper meaning of poems isn’t always clear or obvious, I never want to write a poem that is so cryptic no one has any idea what the hell I’m talking about. Rather I want readers to keep reading, to dig deeper and keep turning the pages as they spiral into the world of my poems.
Jenny Lawson may not like William Carlos Williams’ poem about eating plums but maybe she’ll like this poem I wrote, about eating mangos. =)
Mango
He said the fruit of a mango
reminded him of flesh –
the way it gave slightly
under light pressure,
how it was at once
fibrous and stringy and solid,
how it glistened and shone
with wetness.
Now, as I eat the flesh
of a mango,
sticky sweet juice dripping
down my chin, I cannot help
but think of him.
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