Florence Foster Jenkins
“A Jenkins recital was never exactly an aesthetic experience—
only to the degree that an early Christian among the lions
provided aesthetic experience; it was chiefly immolatory,
and Madame Jenkins was always eaten in the end.”
—William Meredith
Carnegie Hall, New York. October 25, 1944.
High F above high C? Or some stray feline—
Whose caterwauling makes me sorely wish
That it would end so I could make a beeline
Out to the lobby. Watch her dip and swish
As she plows forth from Mendelssohn to Brahms!
Her voice: like none that I have ever heard:
A screech which makes me pray exploding bombs
Might somehow drown out every note and word.
Imagine being famous for the fault
Of lacking talent yet too vain to notice.
A painting void of hue, a vase of salt,
A pond which nurtures neither koi nor lotus.
I should not share these thoughts! I am no fraud
To join an audience which offers cheers
Like knives for music they feign to applaud,
But privately deride with smirks and jeers.
Am I obliged to laud her since she longs
To sing? This well-heeled socialite has wealth
To rent out concert halls and warble songs
As make one long to steal away in stealth.
Dear Lady Florence! Yes, she is quite kind
But staunch in her resolve to skirt the truth.
No Pons or Callas, she’s as deaf and blind
To her tin ear as to her distant youth.
Her pipe dream pushes all that’s true aside
Because she is addicted to attention.
What now? Puccini. Tosca’s suicide.
Then Mozart. Then six bows for her pretension.
This torture—will it ever end its term?
The curtain call! At last, at last I’m free!
How hard the lot of those compelled to squirm
To adulate her mediocrity.
Poet’s Note: The opera impresario Ira Siff dubbed socialite and dilettante Florence Foster Jenkins as “the anti-Callas”: He said, “Jenkins was exquisitely bad, so bad that it added up to quite a good evening of theater … She would stray from the original music, and do insightful and instinctual things with her voice, but in a terribly distorted way. There was no end to the horribleness … They say Cole Porter had to bang his cane into his foot in order not to laugh out loud when she sang. She was that bad. Nevertheless, Porter rarely missed a recital.”
Ode to Norma Desmond
“I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.” —former (fictional)
silent film star Norma Desmond in “Sunset Boulevard” (1950),
screenplay by Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett and D.M. Marshman, Jr.
Norma Desmond’s mansion, Beverly Hills, California. January 1950.
They capture you on film as you descend
The staircase where you play your final scene.
Your eyes are glazed as if you’ve lost your mind.
You float—a silk-garbed yacht which soon must founder.
But you need spare no thoughts for that just yet.
The cameras are all that matter now,
And all those people out there in the dark.
You don’t recall the lover you just killed.
Consumed by drama fraught with dreams and dooms,
You do not grasp a murder trial looms.
Who knows what really makes a movie star?
A couture gown, some henna in the hair,
A chin lift; dabs of Christian Dior blush;
Mascara, rouge, high cheeks by Estee Lauder,
A tennis court, a lavish salary,
An antique Rolls, a custom swimming pool,
Your photographs and portraits everywhere;
A mansion off of Sunset Boulevard
Which counterfeits a Florentine palazzo
(With flooring made of Veronese terrazzo.)
A motion picture queen must outshine life!
Exaggerated gestures, flashing eyes;
The flickering of brilliant black and white
With close-ups of a face which millions cherish,
The fan letters—ten-thousand every week
Which beg you for one small lock of your hair.
A servant who claims all you hope to hear:
That you’re still young, still wanted, still a star!
Your beauty once put all the world to shame.
But that was then. Now few recall your name.
For your films were as silent as the grave
Which made you obsolete when talkies came.
Poor Norma—haughty prisoner of lost dreams.
It may well be that pride and vanity
Have severed you from your humanity,
For you loved being a celebrity—
The paparazzi, autographs, awards—
And now you cannot bear to be ignored.
You wait, deluded, for DeMille to call,
Convinced that it’s the pictures which got small.
But now there is a lover pooled in blood—
For “no one leaves a star!”—that’s what you roared.
The corpse—a handsome writer no one knew—
Sold soul and flesh to live with you in wealth.
You held him hostage, but he used you back,
Then cursed you. Damn your fantasies and lies!
He pierced right through your dreams into your dread.
Are you to blame for shooting that man dead?
Well, Sunset is a moral cul-de sac—
Depraved, deluded, doomed. Now fade to black.
As one who long ago surrendered to the horrible fascination of F F Jenkins (perhaps the tonal equivalent of William McGonagall), I’m pleased to see her afforded more of the attention she craved. Those in search of an excruciating experience could do no better than seek out her ground-breaking performance of the Queen of the Night’s aria. Two enjoyable pieces, Brian, and both full of pathos.
One grins and bears it, Brian – these are wonderful, descriptive pieces outlining the disintegration of two whole lives. I am particularly touched by “You wait, deluded, for DeMille to call” – does it have to end that way for them all? Why, no! I read only this weekend that Matt Damon is a great guy, spends loads of time with his wife and daughters, and actually builds time into this schedule so that he can be with them. He turns away work for that end! Why even more recently he said to them, ‘Look, I am not taking any offers … unless Christopher Nolan calls.’ You can’t get better than that – look it up – there’s a poem there for you! And I have no objection to being the dedicatee of it!
Brian, what a wonderful Sunday morning treat! I love both beautifully crafted poems, which pair so well.
The Jenkins poem paints a perfect picture. Martin’s “the tonal equivalent of William McGonagall” observation is spot on. I am bowled over by “A painting void of hue, a vase of salt”– so cutting yet somehow compassionate in how it frames her blindness to her glaring faults. This captures the very essence of Jenkins perfectly.
In the Desmond poem, you paint this tragic figure so vividly with your deftly woven words that I can see Norma float before me, “a silk-garbed yacht which soon must founder” — superb! Yet my favorite line is: “A servant who claims all you hope to hear” because this line says it all quietly and beautifully. You conjure (with poetic panache) a world that exists on echoes of praise that the main character wouldn’t survive without.
I also admire the way you expose different aspects of narcissistic oblivion (one joyous and one tormented) and to do so with underlying compassion takes a great deal of skill. As I read them, I went from laughter to a sense of pity for these deluded exhibitionists. Very well done indeed!
Brian, I may be among those who do not recognize these personalities but recognize them in others I have observed over the years. What inspired words you used in your deft display of ear and visual assaults like “plowing forth” and “caterwauling.” These are fabulously entertaining, the first in terms of piercing ear renditions, and the second in terms of one who continues to seek adulation long past their more youthful looks. Susan is right about the comedy mixed with pathos that permeates these great poems.
Self-delusion is a standard human failing, but it tends to be more common (and visible) in the wealthy than in the humbler classes. Jenkins was so bad that many listeners assumed that her act was a deliberate parody or spoof, not a serious performance. A brilliant musician like Cole Porter never missed her when she appeared, but that is parallel to our tendency to be fixated on the unfolding vision of a trainwreck.
Desmond is a fictive character, but as in all fictive mimesis she is true to life, and therefore compelling and believable. The verisimilitude is confirmed by the countless real facts we know about many stars of stage or screen. In one sense Brian’s poem can be taken as an ekphrasis (the poetic description of a work of art), since he follows the details of the 1950 film faithfully. But as with the case of Jenkins, readers of the poem all know many instances of this kind of delusional behavior in persons of their acquaintance.
The descriptive force in both poems is highly professional and polished, most especially in the details of Norma Desmond’s clothing, cosmetics, home, possessions. and circumstances. Her inability to accept the fact that she is getting old, and that the era of silent film is done, is pitiable but also laughable.
One thing I notice: the Jenkins poem is more dependent on metaphor and simile than the Desmond piece. Images of a plow, a pond, exploding bombs, paintings, a vase, and knives dot the poem. This flood of figurative comparison is necessary, because one cannot simply say “She was a spectacularly lousy singer, and used her wealth to buy a public venue for her crappy art.”
Brian, thank you for these 2 hilarious reminders that there have been – and still are – ‘entertainers’ (in several artistic genres) who’ve manages to convince themselves that they’re one of the greatest at what they’ve become known for. This Jenkins broad brings to MY music-loving mind – in the world of Country Music, performers like Hank Williams Sr. – Jr. – AND the 3rd, and, most painfully of all, ERNEST TUBB!!! Where’s an assassin when you desperately need one?
Despite having never heard Jenkins ‘perform(??)’, and never having watched Norma doing-her-Hollywood-thing, your 2 beautiful, heartfelt tributes tell me all I need to know concerning bothering to look either of them up. You’re scarily good at being ‘nice’ and being ‘nasty’ — at the same time!