June 15th, 2007
I found this poem a while ago, I was originally going to write about a different poem, but I found this one more fitting. As usual you can read it with Flash (for some inexplicable reason) or on a page of photographs.
Even if you don’t like poetry (I hear some people don’t) have a read anyway as it’s very funny. It’s in the same vein as the following:
You’re beautiful because you stop to read cards in newsagents’ windows
About lost cats and missing dogs.
I’m ugly because of what I did to that jellyfish with a lolly-stick and a big stone.
I think humour is the most important feature in the poem, but I’m intrigued by the chorus:
Ugly like he is,
Beautiful like hers,
Beautiful like Venus,
Ugly like his,
Beatiful like she is,
Ugly like Mars.
Ugly like his? A trendy phallic reference? In some parts of the lower Himalayas it’s common to paint beautiful penises onto your house to warn off evil spirits, so they’d disagree. There’s some interesting sibilance with the “his”, “she is”, “hers”–how the sounds all seem to merge into one. It sounds like reasoning left unrequited.
I find “You’re Beautiful” apt primarily as I recognise myself as the ugly voice–yet there is a longing to share in the beautiful moments. The poem is an interesting take on courtly-love and the act of raising the other person to unrealistic heights.
There’s also an issue of being corrupted by modern society shown by the “satellite television and twenty-four hour rolling news”. I say the woman’s voice sounds unrealistic because I think everyone has become jaded with modernity; magic is now the microchip. However I empathise with the poem’s overall tone of a longing for a time of innocence. I was reminded of this poem for that reason alone.