Poetry Discussion.
Read it and tell us what you think.
Do you agree or disagree?
What do you think the author was trying to say?
What do you think about it?
Make sure your submission is no fewer than 300 words!!!
Here’s the link if you need it…
http://www.plambeck.org/oldhtml/quotations/ (Links to an external site.)
MOURNING THE DYING AMERICAN FEMALE NAMES
In the Altha Diner on the Florida Panhandle
a stocky white-haired woman
with a plastic nameplate “Mildred”
gently turns my burger, and I fall into grief.
I remember the long, hot drives to North Carolina
to visit Aunt Alma, who put up quarts of peaches,
and my grandmother Gladys with her pieced quilts.
Many names are almost gone: Gerturde, Myrtle,
Agnes, Bernice, Hortense, Edna, Doris, and Hilda.
They were wide women, cotton-clothed, early rising.
You had to move your mouth to say their names,
and they meant strength, speak, battle, and victory.
When did women stop being Saxons and Goths?
What frog Fate turned them in to Alison, Melissa,
Valerie, Natalie, Adienne, and Lucinda,
diminished them to Wendy, Cindy, Suzy, and Vicky?
I look at these young women
and hope they are headed for the presidency,
but I fear America has other plans in mind,
that they be no longer at war
but subdued instead in amorphous corporate work,
somebody’s assistant, something in a bank,
single parent with word-processing skills.
They must have been made French
so they could be cheap foreign labor.
Well, all I can say is,
Good luck to you
Kimberly, Darlene, Cheryl, Heather and May.
Good luck April, Melane, Becky, and Kelly.
I hope it goes well for you.
But for a moment let us mourn.
Now is the time to say good-bye
to Florence, Muriel, Ethel, and Thelma.
Good-bye Minnie, Ada, Bertha, and Edith
