Sing-Song Girls Poem by gershon hepner

In China they’d call geishas “sing-song girls, ”
their value estimated above pearls;
Solomon praised women without pallor,
black the sign of beauty that’s not valor.

Inspired by an article on William Empson by David Hawkes, who was appointed Professor of Chinese in Oxford University in 1961, in the TLS, February 13,2009 (“Mix them grain by grain”) . He describes how Zhao Mengfu used to make up little poems at parties and picnics where “sing-song girls” (what the Japanese would call “geishas”) were present. My poem alludes to Song 1: 5 “I am black and beautiful, o daughters of Jerusalem”) , and contradicts Solomon’s words addressed to a woman of valor: “Grace is false and beauty vain” (Prov.31: 30) .

2/19/08