Laura Riding’s Sweet Irony

Posted on June 4, 2007
Filed Under Poetry |

I keep the lovely Persea Books edition of Riding’s Poems on a shelf near my desk. I’ve never made a systematic go at it, but I take it down regularly & read a couple of poems. I identify with Riding’s reticence. And her subtle, subversive irony:

AS TO A FRONTISPIECE

If you will choose the portrait,
I will write the work accordingly.
A German countenance
I could dilate on lengthily,
Punctilio and passion blending
To that slow national degree.

Or, if you wish more brevity
And have the face in mind –
A tidy creature, perhaps American –
I could provide a facile text,
The portrait being like enough
To stand for anyone.

But if you can’t make up your mind
What poetry should look like,
What name to call for,
I think I have the very thing
If you can read without a picture
And postpone the frontispiece till later.

That is, as you may guess,
I have a work but, I regret,
No preliminary portrait.
Yet, if you can forgo one,
We may between us illustrate
This subsequent identity.