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When Fervid Female Stoops to Folly
after Goldsmith’s “When lovely woman stoops to folly”
When fervid female stoops to folly
and starts insisting she is male,
proclaiming that she’s Paul, not Polly,
she’s bought a lie beyond the pale.
Can happiness stem from such a fable?
No. Bodies are arranged one way;
no stunt to make a Mack of Mabel
will long keep misery at bay.
.
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Julian D. Woodruff writes poetry and short fiction for children and adults. He recently finished 2020-2021, a poetry collection. A selection of his work can be read at Parody Poetry, Lighten Up Online, Carmina Magazine, and Reedsy.
Julian: This, to me, is the most important insight of your fine poem:
“…no stunt to make a Mack of Mabel
will long keep misery at bay.”
It’s not so much these days that people are seeking happiness. As Charles Taylor pointed out, our secular age has long ago decided that happiness is an illusion, except for the moment, but even then happiness is elusive. It is rather that our age–for which these lines are a synecdoche–is constantly seeking some way to mitigate the misery that everywhere shows up as resentment, entitlement, and anger. But as you so beautifully insist, there is no such relief to be found under the sun. Thanks for this very timely poem. T. M. Moore
Thank you for this comment, T.M. The misery, it seems to me, is twofold: 1) the individual has no firm anchor to existence; security is sought by doing what others are doing. (I think pretty much the same thing obtains with IVF, embryo storage, and other practices.) 2) There is no awe in things (specifically the material world) as they are. I don’t think it does much good to talk of creation to those so afflicted: they’re going about this pretense at change as they might change the color of a room, because they’re tired of it, or somehow uncomfortable with it. There is no sense that there is a Truth that unalterable and to be respected. I think accepting that at least is a big step toward contentment and clarity of vision.
I agree, Julian, that change is the new happiness, but that it only turns out to heighten the misery of having no solid anchor to their lives. T. M.
I enjoyed this satiric poem very much, Julian — pointed and funny. I especially liked your use of names: Paul to Polly and, even more, Mack and Mabel. I’m not sure if you consciously intended an allusion here or not, but with that clearly deliberate pairing of names you’re probably aware that Mack & Mabel was a Broadway show in the early 1970s, written by Jerry Herman (Hello, Dolly!) and starring Robert Preston as silent film producer Mack Sennett and Bernadette Peters as silent film actress Mabel Normand. A male name joined with a female name should have a nice romantic story attached — not a story of gender transition from A into B. It’s galling. Imagine if Romeo wanted to BE Juliet rather than be with her? But now that would be applauded, not mocked. These days it seems narcissism always wins.
Thanks for your comment, Bryan. It’s good to be funny, I hope, about a serious malaise, one in which women — know what I mean by that term?–get the shaft far more than men (see my poem “Second Place Sue,” published here some time ago).(See also, however, the gut-wrenching story of the dad in Texas who has tried and failed to save his son from the surgical knife in the “sanctuary” state of California.)
Julian, careful word choices make the disease in the poem easy to diagnose–though not to treat. The “fervid” female is in “misery” and desires either to alleviate it or to have “happiness” instead. But the passionate fever of dissatisfied unease cannot be cured by a lie about her nature. I’m very glad to see a poet be quite specific about the lie, rather than generally denounce “lies” or “lying.” Too much of that. And you give the reason for the lie’s falsehood: bodies are arranged one way. No argument, a resounding “No” to happiness, and only temporary alleviation of misery! There’s no answer to this objective, dispassionate analysis–and you make it elegant as well by literary allusion and clever name play. Nice work.
Love it. Short, to the point and true.
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