literature

Ornithology

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katiekerr's avatar
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Literature Text

I sometimes imagine us,
Years down the road, sitting
On the patio of a London bistro
Much more sophisticated than we are.

We'll waste the afternoon drinking tea
As impolitely as we can.
We'll chat too loudly about absolutely nothing,
But with such authority the woman one table over—
The one with the ugly scarf,
Because it's always the one with the ugly scarf—
Will mistake you for someone famous.

We'll spend the next hour reminiscing
Youthful conquests, like Cleopatra might,
Or Anne Boleyn.
Then we'll make-believe
Like nothing's wrong with us.

We'll call it a day—
Find a good pub and drink a bottle of gin,
Each—
After watching an English bird glide by
In a sundress, and we remember that
We came here to forget.

We used to call it "hen-hunting,"
This want for a wife,
Back when we had a sporting chance.
I've been trying to find a way to work an "ornithology" pun into a poem for four years now.
© 2013 - 2024 katiekerr
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SovereignSin's avatar
:star::star::star::star::star-half: Overall
:star::star::star::star::star: Vision
:star::star::star::star::star-half: Originality
:star::star::star::star::star: Technique
:star::star::star::star::star-half: Impact

I'll start by saying I feel almost out-of-place critiquing your poem because our styles are so wildly different. That being said, yours is a style I admire and hope to emulate some day.

The sense of nostalgia you were looking to convey shines through masterfully. In fact, the only thing that could possible conflict with the reader's imagined nostalgia is the line "Much more sophisticated than we are." It may be that I simply read it wrong, but the line has a certain vagueness to it that I'm not entirely sure was intentional. Are these two sitting on the patio of a London bistro, pretending to be more sophisticated than they really are? Or are they sitting there, more sophisticated than they are at the time of reading? I'm hesitant to suggest it--I like the flow as it stands--but if it's the latter, perhaps just adding "now" on the end for clarification might make things easier for the reader.

As for the title, I truly hate to say that it may be too obscure because I understood it and loved it. I don't feel that it being obscure is necessarily a problem, though. It's an intelligent pun; if someone skims over it without noticing, you're no more at fault than if you'd told a Knock-Knock joke to someone from Mars. (*Why you'd bother, I'll never know, but that's a question for another time.)

The enjambment...

In stanza four, it's perfect. There's really not much else to say about stanza four. The reasoning behind it comes across immediately and, honestly, I laughed as I read it.

In stanza three, though, I feel the reasoning for it may be a little more esoteric. When I read Anne Boleyn (knowing this poem was centered around a pun), I immediately thought I had stumbled into another punchline, so to speak.

Youthful conquests, like Cleopatra might,
Or Anne Boleyn...

Meaning the two of them are losing their heads over youthful conquest? If that wasn't the intended purpose, I apologize. It's still beautifully written, and while not as powerful as the enjambment in stanza four, it still adds something to the piece.


Overall, there's very little to criticize here. The work--in very few words--was amazing. Though you made no mention of it, I could almost feel the London drizzle and smell the scent of cigar smoke and hops wafting in from the pub. Bravo. You've inspired me to create a similar piece, and for that I thank you sincerely.