Texas poet R. S. Gwynn is a master of the light touch. Here he picks up on Gerard Manley Hopkins' sonnet âPied Beauty,â? which many of you will remember from school, and offers us a picnic instead of a sermon. I hope you enjoy the feast!
Fried Beauty
Glory be to God for breaded thingsâ
Catfish, steak finger, pork chop, chicken thigh,
Sliced green tomatoes, pots full to the brim
With french fries, fritters, life-float onion rings,
Hushpuppies, okra golden to the eye,
That in all oils, corn or canola, swim
Toward mastication's maw (O molared mouth!);
Whatever browns, is dumped to drain and dry
On paper towels' sleek translucent scrim,
These greasy, battered bounties of the South:
Eat them.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright © 2005 by R. S. Gwynn, whose most recent book of poetry is âNo Word of Farewell: Poems 1970-2000,â? Story Line Press, 2001. Poem reprinted from âLight: A Quarterly of Light Verse,â? No. 50, Autumn, 2005, by permission of R. S. Gwynn. Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
