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User Rating: |
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7.3
/10
(63
votes)
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The old woman across the way
is whipping the boy again
and shouting to the neighborhood
her goodness and his wrongs.
Wildly he crashes through elephant ears,
pleads in dusty zinnias,
while she in spite of crippling fat
pursues and corners him.
She strikes and strikes the shrilly circling
boy till the stick breaks
in her hand. His tears are rainy weather
to woundlike memories:
My head gripped in bony vise
of knees, the writhing struggle
to wrench free, the blows, the fear
worse than blows that hateful
Words could bring, the face that I
no longer knew or loved . . .
Well, it is over now, it is over,
and the boy sobs in his room,
And the woman leans muttering against
a tree, exhausted, purged--
avenged in part for lifelong hidings
she has had to bear.
Robert Hayden
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Read poems about / on: weather, woman, tree, fear, memory, women
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Comments about this poem (The Whipping
by
Robert Hayden
) |
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comments about this poem (The Whipping by
Robert Hayden
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Lamont Palmer
(8/4/2009 10:24:00 AM) |
Greenwolfe is a nice guy personally but intellectually he is a idiot and his 'comment' is absolutely ridiculous. I won't even bother to dismantle it, it's too absurd for even that and it should be removed from this page by management. -LP
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Eithne Queen of Celts
(6/28/2008 1:21:00 AM) |
Shame on adults who are too brutal with their children or nephews or grandchildren etc! Revenging for life's pains on a poor child? because he is weaker than you are, so that you can do whatever you want with him? ! Heaven forbid!
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Simi Helkaer
(1/16/2008 3:25:00 PM) |
I agree with Kay. I think 'The Whipping' was very well written, and there was no need to say such things about a work of art. Robert Hayden is one of my favorite poets, this poem in particular ranking high in my own lists.
Hayden uses memories from his life in his works, like so many artists/poets/singers and whatnot. Instead of criticizing the story in the poem, did you ever try to see it from the author's point of view? To see the purpose -behind- the story? Probably not, right?
A poem is nothing more than a cleverly worded story, and this one I think was well written. You, Greenwolfe, need to get off your high horse.
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Kay Miles
(1/16/2008 1:33:00 AM) |
To Greenwolfe;
You're the one whose daft. You're one of those types who if there is no apparent, in your face beauty in a poem you can't get it.
Oh, and I'm sure a child would be able to write 'my head gripped in bony vise'. Oh yeah. I had that phrase down when I was six. But, that's not even the point. I hate when people make comments like that. 'That's so easy, I could do it. That's not art.' The fact is a child didn't write this poem, and neither did you. You couldn't have. You never would have put these words together. You never would have written this exact poem, or anything close. And the presentation of a poem is not nearly as important as meaning, direction, and resonation, all of which this poem does have. So basically you're just wrong. About everything. About life. Your opinion can't be trusted.
*and a little side note - Robert Hayden is a very famous, acclaimed poet.
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Greenwolfe 1962
(1/13/2008 11:58:00 PM) |
I'm not surprised that no other member has submitted a comment about this
piece of whatever. I don't know who put this writing on anything resembling a
list of anything of value but they must be daft if they did. This is an insult to
all other writers listed here. The reason no one has made a comment on this is
because there is nothing here to comment on. I gave it a one but that's
because there is no zero. There is not a child living that could not have said
the same and said it better. Give them a pen and paper if there is something
to be said here, you can acquire those by confiscating the ones he possessed
but just be sure you purge them first of his fingerprints. Children are vulnerable
to disease. And this disease is one which must be stamped out before it
spreads.
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