Duck Duck Goose

Every couple of decades or half-a-century, a poem comes along that makes the news.  It happened when Maya Angelou read her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at the first inauguration of President Bill Clinton.  It happened when Rita Dove wrote “Testimonial” on the occasion of NBC’s cancellation of “Baywatch.”  That poem begins as follows:
 
Back when the show was new
and heaven just a whisper,
back when the Hasselhoff
hadn't had time to stick

Pictured at the right:  Rita Dove's book of poems Baywatch.

In the late 1800s, it happened when Walt Whitman’s brother Wink published a tome of food poetry entitled Secure Your Flavor.  One poem in particular, “Peking Duck! O Peking Duck!” (the inspiration for Walt Whitman’s “Pioneers! O Pioneers!”), made national headlines when it was criticized for being hackneyed (at best) and racist (at worst).
 
The “Whitman episode,” as it’s known in the world of poetry, repeated itself this week when Calvin Trillin had to defend a poem he published in The New Yorker. Trillin’s poem about Chinese cuisine, “Have They Run Out of Provinces Yet?”, also faced accusations ranging from poor versification to racism.  In response, Trillin suggested that his poem was misinterpreted and that it “was simply a way of making fun of food-obsessed bourgeoisie.”  Information about the hullabaloo is HERE.

Wink Whitman’s poem which created an uproar in the late 1800s opened with the following lines:

Yum, my tan-faced duckling.
Swallow well our order, get your chopsticks ready;
Have you your soy sauce? have you your sharp edged mustard? Peking Duck! O Peking Duck!

His poem inspired his brother Walt to pen “Pioneers! O Pioneers!” which opens as follows:
 
Come, my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready;
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp edged axes?  Pioneers! O pioneers!

Pictured at the left:
Wink Whitman, Walt Whitmans' brother.



Pictured at the right:
Wink Whitman's ground-breaking tome of poetry "Secure Your Flavor."  His brother Walt called it "pioneering!"

Emmett Lee Dickinson (Emily Dickinson's third cousin, twice removed -- at her request) wrote about Wink Whitman's tempest in a Yixing teapot in his poem "The Frost of Death was on the Poem" (below on the left).  His poem inspired third cousin Emily to pen her poem "The Frost of Death was on the Pane" (below on the right).

By Emmett Lee Dickinson:
 
The Frost of Death was on the Poem –
"Secure your Flavor" said he.
Like Sailors fighting with a Leak
We fought Audacity.

With massive Flavor we held our Own –
With Rangoon – with Foo Young –
So when he offered up his Poem
To crawl the Frost begun –

We scoffed his lines
Ourselves we winced
His narrow tone & theme,
Like one uneasy with Chopsticks
He'd forked his way along

Till all the hapless rhymes were read
And then our wrath begun –
We haunted him on his Twitter
We trolled him on the Run –

From Column A to Column B
And ev'ry stale cliché
The Poem and the content therein
A failure – it was Woe –

By Emily Dickinson:
 
The Frost of Death was on the Pane –
"Secure your Flower" said he.
Like Sailors fighting with a Leak
We fought Mortality.

Our passive Flower we held to Sea –
To Mountain – To the Sun –
Yet even on his Scarlet shelf
To crawl the Frost begun –

We pried him back
Ourselves we wedged
Himself and her between,
Yet easy as the narrow Snake
He forked his way along
 
Till all her helpless beauty bent
And then our wrath begun –
We hunted him to his Ravine
We chased him to his Den –
 
We hated Death and hated Life
And nowhere was to go –
Than Sea and continent there is
A larger – it is Woe –