Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE LABORS OF HERCULES, by MARIANNE MOORE Recitation by Author Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: To popularize the mule, its neat exterior Last Line: "that the german is not a hun." Subject(s): Racism; Racial Prejudice; Bigotry | ||||||||
TO popularize the mule, its neat exterior expressing the principle of accommodation reduced to a minimum: to persuade one of austere taste, proud in the possession of home, and a musician that the piano is a free field for etching; that his "charming tadpole notes" belong to the past when one had time to play them: to persuade those self-wrought Midases of brains whose fourteen-karat ignorance aspires to rise in value "till the sky is the limit," that excessive conduct augurs disappointment, that one must not borrow a long white beard and tie it on and threaten with the scythe of time, the casually curious: to teach the bard with too elastic a selectiveness that one detects creative power by its capacity to conquer one's detachment; that while it may have more elasticity than logic, it knows where it is going; it flies along in a straight line like electricity depopulating areas that boast of their remoteness: to prove to the high priests of caste that snobbishness is a stupidity, the best side out, of age-old toadyism, kissing the feet of the man above, kicking the face of the man below: to teach the patron-saints-to-atheists, the Coliseum meet-me-alone-by-moonlight maudlin troubadour that kickups for catstrings are not life nor yet appropriate to deaththat we are sick of the earth, sick of the pig-stye, wild geese and wild men: to convince snake-charming controversialists that it is one thing to change one's mind, another to eradicate itthat one keeps on knowing "that the negro is not brutal, that the Jew is not greedy, that the Oriental is not immoral, that the German is not a Hun." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BLACK WOMAN by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON FOREDOOM by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON I MUST BECOME A MENACE TO MY ENEMIES by JUNE JORDAN A SONG FOR SOWETO by JUNE JORDAN ON THE LOSS OF ENERGY (AND OTHER THINGS) by JUNE JORDAN POEM ABOUT POLICE VIOLENCE by JUNE JORDAN DRAFT OF A RAP FOR WEN HO LEE by JUNE JORDAN THE NIGHT THAT LORCA COMES by BOB KAUFMAN THE MYSTIC RIVER by GALWAY KINNELL I MAY, I MIGHT, I MUST by MARIANNE MOORE |
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