The Melon by Charles Simic : Poetry Magazine [poem/magazine] : Find Poems and Poets. Discover Poetry.
"The Melon" by recent Poet Laureate, Charles Simic, is an autumn poem too--maybe less obviously so than Frost the other day, but no less definitely. Without lines 5-6, it might be just another domestic nicety, another trendy adoration of fruit and hearth. HoHum.
But those lines 5-6 completely re-cast and amplify the rest of the poem into a remembrance and a study in psychology. Once again, the devil's in the details, especially the shrewd selection and placement of them.
I don't mean to ignore the shift to first person point of view in the second stanza. That's important too, and I think it's a fascinating strategy by Simic: withhold information about the speaker's connection to this family for the first half of the poem. Then make them "we" and "I." Maybe it's manipulative, but I think it works.
There's still a question about how much understatement a poem can get away with. Do you think "The Melon" is just too emotionless and flat or do its strengths compensate for any lack of overt emotion and intensity?
The Melon by Charles Simic : Poetry Magazine [poem/magazine] : Find Poems and Poets. Discover Poetry.
And here, appropos of very little, is a very short video that ought to lighten the mood:
YouTube - guy-hay-bails-himself.wmv
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