The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poem Thread, 8/20/07

[BlueIris]

"The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter"

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed.
You went into far Ku-to-yen, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to me you
As far as Cho-fu-sa.

—Li Po

(translated by Ezra Pound)

[BlueIris]

1. Vagina.

Now do you want to read it?

[RetroLounge]

3. ...

:spray:

RL

[BlueIris]

4. Vagina, vagina, vagina, vagina, vagina, vagina.

Vagina.

[RetroLounge]

2. One of my favorites...

:hi:

RL

[BlueIris]

5. One thing I noticed about this poem's imagery today:

The speaker's reference to the monkeys crying as a noise that reminds her how lonely she is for her companion is quite powerful. In China, the monkey is a symbol of pronounced individuality, of creatures who are comfortable with independence. People born in the Year of the Monkey value their independence more than their commitments or their relationships. Monkeys may have many acquaintances, but few to no real friends or close lovers, and if you try to tie a monkey down into one commitment you will lose his friendship. So the image of the monkeys crooning as something that emphasizes the speaker's longing for her husband is striking. When the mokeys remind you that you're lonely...that's damn lonely.

[BlueIris]

6. Kick.

[BlueIris]

7. Kick.

[BlueIris]

8. I'm beginning to suspect that the use of the word 'vagina' in a post or poem

is not actually attracting any readers on this site.