My nose is out of joint For my father-in-letters -- My father mind you -- Has been brought to bed of another poet, And I am not nine months old. It is twins this time And they came into the world prodigiously united in wedlock. (Don't try to visualize this.) Already they have written their first poems in vers libre And sold it within twenty-four hours. My father-in-letters was the affluent American buyer -- There was no one to bid against him. The merit of the poems is the new convention That definitely locates an emotion in the belly, Instead of scientifically in the viscera at large, Or mid-Victorianly in the heart. It voices a desire to grin With the grin of a beast more scared than frightened For why? Because it is a cinch that twins so well born will be able to sell almost anything they write. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONNET TO A FRIEND WHO ASKED, HOW I FELT ... MY INFANT TO ME by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE TO DIANEME (1) by ROBERT HERRICK OUR MASTER by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER THE STOLEN CHILD by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS |