[766] The Grey Squirrel
Guest poem submitted by Aseem Kaul, <dattadayadhvamdamyata@>:
Like a small grey
coffee-pot,
sits the squirrel.
He is not
all he should be,
kills by dozens
trees, and eats
his red-brown cousins.
The keeper on the
other hand,
who shot him, is
a Christian, and
loves his enemies,
which shows
the squirrel was not
one of those.
-- Humbert Wolfe
|
I can't pretend to have read very much Wolfe - in fact, this is about the
only poem I have read - finding it in anthology long ago. But this is a poem
I've never been able to forget, not only because the wonderful combination
of short lines and a simple rhyme pattern clings to me and makes me tingle
all over rather as though a whole host of laughing squirrels were chattering
away inside me, but also because it so wonderfully exposes the hypocrisy of
organised religion. Whenever someone asks me to explain the meaning of
'tongue in cheek', I have an urge to quote this to them.
Aseem.
From: "Matthew Chanoff" <chanoffs@>
Never heard of this Humbert Wolfe before, but the poem has a nice ironic
twist and I looked him up. Check out a
bio and some lines, including his apparently most famed couplet:
You cannot hope to bribe or twist / Thank God the British journalist /
But, seeing what the man will do / Unbribed, there's no occasion to.
at http://www.wadham.ox.ac.uk/people/gazette/1997/gaz.25.wolfe.html
Also, a short bio and a beautiful poem about those fallen boys of WWI at
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWwolfe.htm
Matt
From: "Matthew Chanoff" <chanoffs@>
Hi, yes, my comment is that this page is getting too god-damned long to
download. If you have the inclination, I would appreciate your dividing
it up, maybe by year or something.
Matt
From: William Copper <copper@>
New choral setting of "The Grey Squirrel" available from William Copper,
published by Hartenshield Group music publishing,
http://www.hartenshield.com . Setting for men's chorus a cappella.
From: "James M Hamilton" <hamilton2@>
This poem is a masterpiece. Short, poignant, philosophical. Terrific
base for deep discussions about how Christianity can be confused and
corrupted. So why isn't there more information on the poet? Why isn't
this poem included in more anthologies? It is absolutely brilliant. One
can't forget it. And one can't ever stop thinking about it and its
implications for the world and how enemies and friends are treated.
From: "Allan Brame" <ajbrame@>
So pleased to come across this poem. It had a huge impact on me when I
found it in a school anthology in the 1960s. This is the first time I
have seen it since. Thank you.
Allan Brame
From: "Betty Deiter" <bedeiter@>
I was delighted to find this poem after a lengthy search on the
internet. It had been running through my mind, but I was uncertain of
one or two words, and the poet. Finding it really saved a day I had
rued, and two of the previous comments expressed perfectly what I had
been thinking.
Betty Deiter
From: CinCity14@
Hello,
I have a book by Humbert Wolfe that he signed. It is "Homage To
Meleager" It's his 20th copy that he signed. I am just wondering about the
Author? I love his work.
Cynthia
From: Erica Leung <ericaleung@>
Hi
I've been reading this poem for a whlie now, and can't seem to analyze it properly. Can you tell me what this poem is about? Is it religion? or is it a friendship gone bad? Please I am trying to understand it and it's driving me nuts!! I hope to hear from you a.s.a.p.
Thank you in advance
Erica
--Boundary_(ID_i1pRmprVNNa3CX8PiOpylg)
Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1106" name=GENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Hi</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I've been reading this poem for a whlie now, and
can't seem to analyze it properly. Can you tell me what this poem is
about? Is it religion? or is it a friendship gone bad? Please I am
trying to understand it and it's driving me nuts!! I hope to hear from you
a.s.a.p.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Thank you in advance</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Erica</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>
--Boundary_(ID_i1pRmprVNNa3CX8PiOpylg)--
From: Martin DeMello <martindemello@>
--- Erica Leung <ericaleung@> wrote:
> Hi
> I've been reading this poem for a whlie now, and can't seem to analyze it
> properly. Can you tell me what this poem is about? Is it religion? or is it
> a friendship gone bad? Please I am trying to understand it and it's driving
> me nuts!! I hope to hear from you a.s.a.p.
It's about the hypocrisy of some Christians. The squirrel is "not all he should
be" because he kills trees and his "red-brown cousins" - and if you examine the
history of Christianity (or even take a look at some of the people around
today), you can see similar attitudes countlessly duplicated. And then there's
the twist in the tail, the reminder that Christians ostensibly 'love their
enemies' - but seem to remember their religion only when it comes to pointing a
finger at others.
Boublil and Schonberg's "Martin Guerre" had a more explicit take on this:
Who are the imposters here?
Christians who would hunt and seize us
Worshipping the bloodied spear
Killing in the name of Jesus...
martin
From: Len Black <lenblack@>
Dear Ms. Bedeiter,
I wonder if you could supply the name of a Humbold Wolfe poem that goes
"For to have loved you is an action molding all that I am and setting me apart,
As though you were a rose and I a bud unfolding in the silence of your heart"
... or something like it.
Thanks very much.
Leonard Black.
From: kevin Peters <kevinp68@>
I'm having difficulty understanding the line" He is not all he should be",
is the author saying that the squirrel is not a Christian?
Thank you in advance.
Sammy.
From: "Matt Chanoff" <mattchanoff@>
Re the line: "he is not/All he should be.."
My take is that it's an ironic turn on all those poems about the wonders of
nature. We romanticize these animals. Well, the squirrel in this poem isn't
very romantic. He looks like a coffee pot, and doesn't have the character
you would expect in such a poem (playful, agile, industrious, etc.) Instead,
he's brutal. That's the first twist in the poem, and sets up, as Martin
points out, the last twist, which to me means "Well, the squirrel isn't our
idealized squirrel, but then the Christian isn't exactly our idealized
Christian either, is he?" One of the most charming things about this poem,
to me, is that the twists in the meaning mimic the twists of a squirrel's
path, and the sharpness, brutality, even, of the comment on Christianity by
the poet, echoes the brutality of the squirrel.
Matt Chanoff