Poetry Commentary Debate

Rainy Night, by Dorothy Parker Ghosts of all my lovely sins, Who attend too well my pillow, Gay the wanton rain begins; Hide the limp and tearful willow. Turn aside your eyes and ears, Trail away your robes of sorrow, You shall have my further years- You shall walk with me tomorrow. I am sister to the rain; Fey and sudden and unholy, Petulant at the windowpane, Quickly lost, remembered slowly. I have lived with shades, a shade; I am hung with graveyard flowers. Let me be tonight arrayed In the silver of the showers. Every fragile thing shall rust; When another April passes I may be a furry dust, Sifting through the brittle grasses. All sweet sins shall be forgot; Who will live to tell their siring? Hear me now, nor let me rot Wistful still, and still aspiring. Ghosts of dear temptations, heed; I am frail, be you forgiving. See you not that I have need To be living with the living? Sail, tonight, the Styx's breast; Glide among the dim processions Of the exquisite unblest, Spirits of my shared transgressions, Roam with young Persephone. Plucking poppies for your slumber With the morrow, there shall be One more wraith among your number. This is a poem by the famously sardonic poet and literary critic Dorothy Parker. She was a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table, a group of artistically endowed individuals famed for their wit who met daily for lunch at the Algonquin Hotel for about ten years. Ms. Parker lived a troubled life, including several suicide attempts, one following an abortion, and this poem captures the wild oscillations which often accompany suicidal ideation. The poem begins by juxtaposing characteristics the scenery in a very dramatic way, then drifting into a sorrowful tone. The speaker addresses the ghosts of her ‘lovely sins’, but is interrupted by the sound of a rain which seems happy and carefree when contrasted with her mood, and she personifies herself as a wretched weeping willow which must seek to be hidden within the showers. Setting the scene, Parker continues. It becomes more clear in the next verse what the ‘ghosts’ are: once happy memories which have turned bitter steeped in age and guilt. They are the personal consequences of her glittering debauchery. While the acts themselves haunt the speaker, ‘attending too well her pillow’, she asks them to trail away their ‘robes of sorrow,’ to avert their eyes, and promises to walk with them tomorrow. What memories haunt her? One possibility is an unborn child, as this poem was written during a time period in which Parker had several affairs, an abortion, and her first suicide attempt (mid-1920s). Another is her mother, who died when Parker was very young, in a household with an abusive father. A step-mother whom Parker resented also passed away when she was a teenager. Parker led a troubled and wild life, and had many things with which to be haunted. As she draws into herself, she begs them to avert their eyes and give her a moment of peace Her next quatrain is one of my favorite lines of poetry: I am sister to the rain; Fey and sudden and unholy, Petulant at the windowpane, Quickly lost, remembered slowly. Here Parker pulls out of her torment, focuses on the rain, and, in a manner of speaking, draws breath for the remainder of the work before diving in. But these lines serve as a clarifying transition, especially the first and last. She describes the rain as gay and wanton earlier and now compares herself to it. She has lived a life without concern for consequences. No regret is expressed here, only clarity, only self-awareness. Her petulance is powerless to change the course of her life, to chase the spirits which haunt her away. This is the suicidal ideation: the conception of worthlessness which cannot justify continued life. The final line is the contemplation of the world without the victim, someone who passes without much notice, who will only be recalled by others once in a while, with a sort of slow, somber reflection and then the startling reflection that this person is dead. The next quatrain continues this thought, but mystifies it, turning the somber reflection into a fantasy. She sees herself as already dead, as living among other people who are also already dead. In rich imagery she portrays herself as garlanded already with flowers for her funeral in the rain which she is sister to. From then the imagery fades to rust and being blown into dust to feed fragile new life. The suicide victim justifies and glorifies the ideation, seeing their life as a thing of little value and finding some sense of beauty in inevitable self-disintegration. In the next two stanzas Parker attempts to fight her way back to self-worth and love of life, pleading with her ghosts. She remembers the sins which spawned her regrets, and finds some value to life in them. This is the second transition, the struggle back into the light. All sweet sins shall be forgot; Who will live to tell their siring? Hear me now, nor let me rot Wistful still, and still aspiring. But it is not a genuine love of life; it is a flight from the true ramifications anonymity. Parker panics at the prospect of her little gems, the hard-won nacre on her grains of sand, fading into nothing without her. Don’t these have value? Can’t she appreciate them, despite her guilt? She pleads with the spirits tempting her to death in the next line, calling for pity over her frailty. In the final stanzas, Parker addresses the ghosts yet again, this time crossing the river Styx in the Greek underworld. She pictures them at peace, alluding to the dumb bliss of the spirits, and finds some sense of comradery with the ‘spirits of my shared transgressions’. She also makes a haunting reference to Persephone, the child bride of Hades and unwilling Queen of the underworld, picking poppies for their hypnagogic effects. This is all a veiled shifting of opinion and acceptance of death as a peaceful affair, a way to escape pain and loneliness, and perhaps to death by overdose. The last lines drive that note home, confirming that the speaker has decided to end their life after all: With the morrow, there shall be One more wraith among your number. All in all, the poem is a bitter and yet hauntingly beautiful look at both the inner turmoil and serenity which surround suicidal ideation.