Poem
Claudia Emerson
Environmental Awareness: The Right Whale
Environmental Awareness: The Right Whale
Environmental Awareness: The Right Whale
The whale was known as right because it wasmagnificent with oil, slow and easy
to find and slaughter, floating even when dead.
But after it was no longer needed for fat,
men still hunted the whale for its rich mouth
of baleen, harvested for hairbrushes,
buggy whips, umbrella ribs, the stays
of corsets – vain things designed to mold the female
body, sculpt a waist so small a man's
hands could meet with ease around it. Crazy,
the girls agree, the way those women bought it.
© 2007, Claudia Emerson
‘Environmental Awareness: The Right Whale’, ‘What They Are Missing’, ‘Physical Education’ and ‘Reunion Weekend’ are from a sequence entitled ‘All Girls School’. The epigraphs are from the chapter ‘The Seclusion of Girls at Puberty’ in The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion by Sir George Frazer.
Poems
Poems of Claudia Emerson
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Environmental Awareness: The Right Whale
The whale was known as right because it wasmagnificent with oil, slow and easy
to find and slaughter, floating even when dead.
But after it was no longer needed for fat,
men still hunted the whale for its rich mouth
of baleen, harvested for hairbrushes,
buggy whips, umbrella ribs, the stays
of corsets – vain things designed to mold the female
body, sculpt a waist so small a man's
hands could meet with ease around it. Crazy,
the girls agree, the way those women bought it.
Environmental Awareness: The Right Whale
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