The Wild Party
by Joseph Moncure March
Drawings by Art Spiegelman
Except for the exceptional, like Homer, I rarely have patience for long poems: I don't look for them and I put it down quickly if I've started one accidentally. Now thanks for Dean's recommendation, I enjoyed another "exceptional". I even read it twice in a row.
The Wild Party runs like a happy river. Rhythmic and rhyming, it flows effortlessly and "naturally". And the reader willingly jumps in for a ride. In that eventful evening. Intrigued by its daring wild species here and there. Startled by its violent undercurrents now and then... And finally immersed in a tenacious scenery of the ninteen twenties.
The drawings are quite good, too, but often too dominating and too much --- the narrative is already vivid with incredible power. The artist over-did himself to match the poet.
This poem inspires mimics and I have been waiting to get one since....
Here is one "less wild" part:
9
by Joseph Moncure March
Drawings by Art Spiegelman
Except for the exceptional, like Homer, I rarely have patience for long poems: I don't look for them and I put it down quickly if I've started one accidentally. Now thanks for Dean's recommendation, I enjoyed another "exceptional". I even read it twice in a row.
The Wild Party runs like a happy river. Rhythmic and rhyming, it flows effortlessly and "naturally". And the reader willingly jumps in for a ride. In that eventful evening. Intrigued by its daring wild species here and there. Startled by its violent undercurrents now and then... And finally immersed in a tenacious scenery of the ninteen twenties.
The drawings are quite good, too, but often too dominating and too much --- the narrative is already vivid with incredible power. The artist over-did himself to match the poet.
This poem inspires mimics and I have been waiting to get one since....
Here is one "less wild" part:
9
Some love is fire: some love is rust:
But the fiercest, cleanest love is lust.
And their lust was tremendous. It had the feel
Of hammers clanging; and stone; and steel:
And torches of the savage, roaring kind
That rip through iron, and strike men blind:
Of long trains crashing through caverns under
Grey trembling streets, like angry thunder:
Of engines throbbing; and hoarse steam spouting;
And feet tramping; and great crowds shouting.
A lust so savage, they could have wrenched
The flesh from bone, and not have blenched.
But the fiercest, cleanest love is lust.
And their lust was tremendous. It had the feel
Of hammers clanging; and stone; and steel:
And torches of the savage, roaring kind
That rip through iron, and strike men blind:
Of long trains crashing through caverns under
Grey trembling streets, like angry thunder:
Of engines throbbing; and hoarse steam spouting;
And feet tramping; and great crowds shouting.
A lust so savage, they could have wrenched
The flesh from bone, and not have blenched.
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