Symptom Recital - Dorothy Parker

SYMPTOM RECITAL



I do not like my state of mind;
I'm bitter, querulous, unkind.
I hate my legs, I hate my hands,
I do not yearn for lovelier lands.
I dread the dawn's recurrent light;
I hate to go to bed at night.
I snoot at simple, earnest folk.
I cannot take the gentlest joke.
I find no peace in paint or type.
My world is but a lot of tripe.
I'm disillusioned, empty-breasted.
For what I think, I'd be arrested.
I am not sick, I am not well.
My quondam dreams are shot to hell.
My soul is crushed, my spirit sore;
I do not like me any more.
I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse.
I ponder on the narrow house.
I shudder at the thought of me…
I'm due to fall in love again.

---Dorothy Parker


Dorothy Parker's Symptom Recital


Dorothy Parker was one of those immensely talented, yet tortured souls that seem to populate the history of literature. A quick skim of her Wikipedia page (if you accept the validity of anything Wikipedia has to say) reveals a colorful life brimming with brilliance and turmoil. Her mother died when she was a young child and her relationship with her father and stepmother was horrible. She helmed the famed Algonquin Roundtable and was an early contributor to Vogue, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker. Ms. Parker has been the subject of numerous movies---and while we're speaking of movies I should mention that Dorothy was a talented screenwriter, as her Academy Award nomination for A Star Is Born confirms. Sadly, Parker experienced failed marriages, a Hollywood blacklisting, severe depression, alcoholism, and the suicidal overdose of one of her husbands. There is much to be surprised about in the trajectory of Parker's life, but the one thing I noticed that surprised me more than anything else was about her collected works, The Portable Dorothy Parker. In the Viking Press Portable Books series there are only three books that have never gone out of print: The Bible, William Shakespeare, and Dorothy Parker.

As much as I'd like to continue a study into Dororthy Parker's fascinating life, we have a poem to discuss and coincidentally it's by Ms. Parker. Symptom Recital is typical Dorothy Parker: impeccably witty, slightly exaggerated, and undeniably raw. The poem is a quick moving and well-rhymed list of all the reasons the poet hates herself and has issues with the world. It's not what many would consider uplifting or positive, until the wry final line turns the poem and its readers completely on their heads. One of the great achievements of this poem is its pacing. Because each line in the poem is eight or nine syllables with a clear AABB rhyme scheme the poem takes on a rhythm that is in unison with the poet's snappy, complaining mindset. From the outset Parker is definitive about the poet's voice: "I do not like my state of mind." I'm not sure there is a more direct first line in all of poetry. Such displays of directness are not always taken well; literary scholars want to be tested, they want a riddle to unravel over the course of the poem. Parker effectively says to hell with that and does it her way in Symptom Recital.

After commenting on her attitude, Parker turns her focus to her physical appearance, her ambition, and her anxieties. "I hate my legs, I hate my hands, / I do not yearn for lovelier lands. / I dread the dawn's recurrent light; / I hate to go to bed at night. / I snoot at simple, earnest folk. / I cannot take the gentlest joke." She does not sound like a fun person to be around, right? Down on herself and down on others, Parker is making a case for being the world's unhappiest and most unlikable person. Out of all the descriptive lines in the poem she might have it spot on when she asserts "I'm disillusioned, empty breasted." Parker's lacing the truth with a little exaggeration because that is the perfect formula to set readers up for her planned twist at the end. Just as the list is beginning to grow stale, the poem speeds up to its grand finale. In this build up the tone subtly shifts; the direct lines that characterized the first half of the poem are replaced by more mysterious lines like "I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse. / I ponder on the narrow house." But this is a mere reprieve from the poem's in-your-face nature. Parker slams the ending upon readers and it works particularly well because of the penultimate line. "I shudder at the thought of me… / I'm due to fall in love again." In a poem that has adhered to strict rhythm and rhyme rules, the variation that caps the poem is the perfect punchline to an intricately crafted joke. All the quibbles she has with the world and all the distresses she has with herself are the human factors that signal she's ripe for redemption by the bittersweet uber-force of love.