Moans And Grunts Poem by gershon hepner

The moans and grunts of fornication and the squeals
give way to sounds of silence when the age starts middling,
but if then extramaritally sex appeals,
don’t hold your breath for ululations while you’re fiddling.


James R. Kincaid, the Aerol Arnold professor of English at U.S.C., reviews Julia Barrett’s ‘Jane Austen’s “Charlotte: ” Her Fragment of a Last Novel, Completed (M. Evans and Company) (“You Jane? ” the NYT Book Review, December 3,2000) . Kincaid says that there’s far too much good taste around, and says we need the sensibility that empowered “Antipodes Jane” in which a character called Jane Austen hears “the moans, grunts and squeals of fornication” and tells us about them too.

12/4/00