Friday 2 September 2016

Anna Leader: a cat talks about cat-poetry



“contrary to popular belief, we do read
what’s written about us, and we do take heed
(not only to know what is said—we get bored):
that fellow baudelaire for example we adored,
he understood our “mystique” and how we keep
aspiring to be sphinxes in our sleep.
we liked eliot, too, although he poked fun—
(those names, those rhymes, those puns!
and the sellout to the west end. rather cheap.)
the bit in prufrock, admittedly, was dear
when he talked about the evening, and the fog.
& let’s not mention that nonsense by that edward lear!
(as if a cat and an owl were a compatible pair!
he may as well have married pussy off to a dog.)”


Published 2016. The author is a trilingual Luxembourgish undergrad at Princeton. She hasn't affected quite the lightness and arrogance that the persona needs here. But cats on cat poetry is a theme that poetry needs to develop extensively. Perhaps Lolcat poems.

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