Kay Ryan’s “Dutch”
February 10th, 2008Save as PDF
TMP is going on vacation – all the way to New Zealand, where we’ll be biking on the South Island. It may be inspiring (I hope so) but there won’t be any opportunities to stop and post poetry. So until early in March, the blog will be idle. That doesn’t mean you can’t stop by and browse – there are a lot of poems here now. And although I’ve never written a poem about New Zealand, I did do one called “Tasmania” a while ago.
Meanwhile, here’s a poem for the road. It, like “Tasmania,” is geographic, but not really. By Kay Ryan, it’s called “Dutch,” and in a very short span it creates a surprising number of memorable, sharp ideas and images. While she uses a kind of cartoon Dutchness to characterize “much of life,” I think it works. I especially admire “black-suspendered” to, in one stroke, tell you exactly what you need to know about the tulip magnates.
Dutch
By Kay Ryan
Much of life
is Dutch
one-digit
operations
in which
legions of
big robust
people crouch
behind
badly cracked
dike systems
attached
by the thumbs
their wide
balloon-pantsed rumps
up-ended to the
northern sun
while, back
in town, little
black-suspendered
tulip magnates
stride around.
