Dancing on the Grave of a Son of a Bitch

Title

en_US Dancing on the Grave of a Son of a Bitch

Description

en_US Fifth printing

en_US Diane Wakoski

Creator

en_US Wakoski, Diane See all items with this value

Date

2016-01-25T19:28:58Z

en_US 2002-11

en_US 1976

Date Available

2016-01-25T19:28:58Z

Date Issued

en_US 1973

Abstract

en_US After 125 pages of poems, there are five Esoteric Fables. Esoteric is well chosen. These texts seem to me to be a long way from Aesop. They have a surrealistic quality. The first runs onto a third page. A buffalo wants to eat mushrooms because he has read about them in the Encyclopedia Britannica. An undetermined object has never learned its identity but is ready to be eaten up by the buffalo when it identifies itself as a puffball mushroom. Instead, the buffalo breaks its teeth on this hard object. The object finally takes to calling itself a rolling stone because of a comment by or about a music group driving by, but is not happy with that name because there is no rolling stone entry in the encyclopedia. More Aesopic, I think, is The Owl and the Snake. The two fall in love with each other, and each wishes and tries in vain to be more like the other. The moral suggests that when you want something extravagant and out of reach, you will become strange, you will be rejected, you will never have what you want, and you will be unhappy. The third is a complex tale that tries to turn the tables on human and animal in a fable. The fourth fable is about a handsome and narcissistic frog with a wart on his nose (133). A nice touch here occurs when Wakoski invites the reader to decide the outcome. The last is The Fable of the Fragile Butterfly. The latter is in fact the postman who is a butterfly in his rich, extensive fantasy life. He turns out to be a magician under the spell of another magician, his sister, who is a monarch butterfly. Wakoski then lists seven endings, the last of which is Who are you? Fable, as Wakoski practices it, takes on whole new functions.

Identifier

en_US 876851790

en_US 5112 (Access ID)

uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10504/80699

Language

en_US eng

Publisher

en_US Black Sparrow Press

en_US Santa Barbara

Subject

en_US PS3573.A42 D3 1973 See all items with this value

en_US Diane Wakoski See all items with this value

en_US Title Page Scanned See all items with this value

Type

en_US Book, Whole