When old Blue died, he died so hard
Shook the ground in my back yard
Dug his grave with a silver spade.
Lowered him down with lengths of chain.
With every link I called his name:
Oh Blue,
I'm coming there too.
but was told the poems were “too sentimental”:
“I’m sorry your cat died, but I don’t want to read a poem about it.”
But there are hundreds of poems nowadays about dead animals.
Shook the ground in my back yard
Dug his grave with a silver spade.
Lowered him down with lengths of chain.
With every link I called his name:
Oh Blue,
I'm coming there too.
As a young woman, Sarah Freligh submitted poems about her
dead cat.
She was trying to follow Hemingway’s dictum, Write what you know,but was told the poems were “too sentimental”:
“I’m sorry your cat died, but I don’t want to read a poem about it.”
But there are hundreds of poems nowadays about dead animals.
Do we want to read poems about dead animals even if they aren’t
sentimental?
What makes them sentimental?
Inauthentic feeling, we may agree.
What makes them sentimental?
Inauthentic feeling, we may agree.
How I miss old Rascal,
such a sweet old kitty cat!
What would make this less sentimental?
Rascal’s neck was broken, and she was shoved up the chimney by a maniac orangutan
like Madame L’Espanaye in Murders in the Rue Morgue.
Do we want to read the poem now?
How does the sentimental pet death go?
Rascal died with such dignity!
She was a lower creature, but we’re touched by how uncomplainingly she
died –such a sweet old kitty cat!
What would make this less sentimental?
Rascal’s neck was broken, and she was shoved up the chimney by a maniac orangutan
like Madame L’Espanaye in Murders in the Rue Morgue.
Do we want to read the poem now?
How does the sentimental pet death go?
Rascal died with such dignity!
That’s sentimental for sure.
I want to live with the animals, said Whitman. Was that sentimental? – No.
Rascal died in the kitchen lying on a white plastic dish-drying tray.
She always went ballistic when we took her to the vet,
so we let her die at home.
(Does this increase the sentimentality?).
As I passed the kitchen to walk up the stairs, I could glance over at Rascal in her death agonies.
Rascal’s sister Farina walked by more than once without taking any notice at all.
(Does this lessen the sentimentality?)
It seems we have a sentimentality thermometer,
and we somehow raise or lower the temperature with the color of the details—
do they create a fuzzy feeling or a dire one?
It only took an hour for Rascal to die.
As soon as she was dead, I carried her outside and dropped her into a hole I’d dug in the yard.
Then I put a big rock over her to keep dogs from digging her up—
Why did I even have that thought?—must be T.S. Eliot’s fault:
Oh, keep the dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again.
So now is it dire enough?
Do I want to read it now?
I’d rather sing Old Blue.
I want to live with the animals, said Whitman. Was that sentimental? – No.
Rascal died in the kitchen lying on a white plastic dish-drying tray.
She always went ballistic when we took her to the vet,
so we let her die at home.
(Does this increase the sentimentality?).
As I passed the kitchen to walk up the stairs, I could glance over at Rascal in her death agonies.
Rascal’s sister Farina walked by more than once without taking any notice at all.
(Does this lessen the sentimentality?)
It seems we have a sentimentality thermometer,
and we somehow raise or lower the temperature with the color of the details—
do they create a fuzzy feeling or a dire one?
It only took an hour for Rascal to die.
As soon as she was dead, I carried her outside and dropped her into a hole I’d dug in the yard.
Then I put a big rock over her to keep dogs from digging her up—
Why did I even have that thought?—must be T.S. Eliot’s fault:
Oh, keep the dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again.
So now is it dire enough?
Do I want to read it now?
I’d rather sing Old Blue.
