poetry oration, jennifer chang

Dorothy Wordsworth
by Jennifer Chang

The daffodils can go fuck themselves.
I’m tired of their crowds, yellow ranting
about the spastic sun that dines and shines
and shines. How are they any different

from me? I, too, have a big messy head
on a fragile stalk. I spin with the wind.
I flower and don’t apologize. There’s nothing
funny about good weather. O, spring again,

The critics nod. They know the old joy,
that wakeful quotidian, the dark plot
of future growing things, each one
labeled Narcissus nobilis or Jennifer Chang.

If I died falling from a helicopter, then
this would be an important poem. Then
the ex-boyfriends would swim to shore
declaiming their knowledge of my bulbous

youth. O, Flower, one said, why aren’t you
meat? But I won’t be another bashful shank.
The tulips have their nervous joie-de-vivre,
the lilacs their taunt. Fractious petals, stop

interrupting my poem with boring beauty.
All the boys are in the field gnawing raw
bones of ambition and calling it ardor. Who
the hell are they? This is a poem about war.

I think the mood of this poem is frustrated.  A daffodil symbolizes truth, honesty, fragility, its the kind of flower famous romance poet Dorthy Wordsworth would write about. Jenifer Chang writes this poem in a sort of chaotic state. note how each sentence runs into each other, they finish themselves in different lines, different stanzas even. It is meant to be over dramatic, even comical. you can tell from the line "id i died falling from a helicopter". its a completely implausible scenario, and very over done. i think the tone of this poem is stubborn, but with an underlying sense of vulerabitily. Like she is trying to put on a hard front. "i wont be another bashful shank" but in the beggingin she asks "how are they any different from me?" she compares herself to them. almost with a sense of longing.