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Whistling Woman

“A whistling woman and a crowing hen
will scare The Devil out of his den.” —English proverb

____I have whistled and I whistle still,
____gone my own way to my own sweet will.
____I’ve walked like a target when I knew the score,
____had a bellyful and called for more.
____And forgot to weave. And forgot to spin.
____And brooked the harping wrath of kin.
Why chant from yellow dog-eared pages the dusty bass-note cant of ages?
___To win a father’s bleak beatitude?

____I have wandered and I wander still,
____followed the vagabond life of the hill.
____I’ve inched the cliff of a steep divide,
____cinched the water of a running tide.
____And forgot to till. And forgot to sow.
____And lived on the high. And loved on the low.
Why tread the beaten paths of sages hoarding up the sins of wages?
___To hear a brother’s hoary platitude?

____I have danced and I’m dancing still,
____set the measure and stepped with skill.
____I’ve tossed the board and thrown the dice,
____scattered the birds with wedding rice.
____And forgot to sigh. And forgot to moan.
____And pirouetted to myself alone.
Why tango to a partner’s need and follow a staccato lead?
___To earn a lover’s winking gratitude.

____As much as would a crowing hen
____a whistling, wandering, dancing dame
____stirs fear into the hearts of men
____and draws The Devil out of his den.
____But I’ll not knuckle under, toe the line
____stick to the rule with my nose to the grind
I’ll whistle and wander and dance the pleasures my own to enhance—
___And meet my match in merry sisterhood.

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The Retiring Freelancer Asks Is It Too Late for Poetry?

The thought that plagues me? How deferred this day,
how long put off the fun, for toil instead.
I see at once how fragile is the play
that’s easily destroyed pursuing bread.

When I consider how I used my time
in work-for-hire at others’ beck and call,
well-knowing that to do is to become,
why then should I be startled that I stall

to write a sonnet rather than a list—
The Five Best Habits for Success Today,
Measuring Your Love Life: What Have you Missed?
Networking: Freelance Writers Have their Say.

So what, you ask, is gained by this look back?
I see at last what I’ve become—a hack!

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Linda Arntzenius is a freelance magazine writer with a background in philosophy. She’s lived in London, Los Angeles, Cambridge, Pittsburgh, and Princeton (NJ). Her poems have appeared in US1 Worksheets, Paterson Literary Review, Slant, Exit 13, Kelsey Review, Journal of New Jersey Poets and NonBinary Revue, among other literary journals. She’s worked as a staff writer for the University of Southern California News Service, taught in the department of English at The College of New Jersey. Her first chapbook of poems is being published by Finishing Line Press, due out next spring.

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10 Responses

  1. jd

    I think both of these poems are excellent, Linda, and I especially love the first. It can only be that the SPC site was impossible to enter yesterday (at least for me) that I am the first to comment. It’s a blessing that you answered the title of your second poem with a resounding, NO!

    Reply
  2. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Linda, what a fascinating rhyme scheme and what I presume to be introspection operating out of the box and antithetical to what you perceive as a restrictive background in the first poem. Then another poem reflecting inward thoughts of the journey from a freelancer to a poet. I gleaned this from reading your bio and both poems. I am glad you came over to classical poetry, since I enjoyed them so much.

    Reply
  3. Linda Arntzenius

    Thank you jd and Roy Eugene. Whistling Woman is one of my personal favorites! Until now, however, hardly anyone I read it to seemed to enjoy the battering-ram rhythm. I understand. It’s a song that’s clearly not for modernist ears and I am very glad that it has finally found a home!

    Reply
  4. Joseph S. Salemi

    These are two delightful poems of a free spirit. The metrical rhythm of “Whistling Woman” is tetrameter (except for the seventh line in each stanza), but loosened enough to allow for the vigor of the speaker to be expressed. Is there a typo in the third stanza? I expected a question mark after the word “gratitude” in the last line, to go along with the pattern provided in the first two stanzas.

    The hypothetical book titles mentioned in the “Freelancer” sonnet are really on target — typical examples of the kind of brainless, over-hyped crap being published today. And yes — work now has become so crushing and life-draining that many persons are utterly cut off from humanistic pursuits.

    Reply
  5. Ginny Ostle

    I, too, think these are wonderful poems Linda. Whistling Women I find emotive and resonant. I love the structure which gives it an almost frantic dance-like feel. The theme of rebellion seems to me to be countered by the pressure of the women’s place to conform and please. Asking ‘why’ conform hints at finding it hard to not comply?
    I just loved this poem to bits!
    Just that this poem exists shows that the answer to the second poem must certainly be ‘No’

    Reply
  6. James Ragan

    Linda, No surprise here to bathe in the exquisite weavings of your lines in both poems. Well done! Jim Ragan

    Reply
  7. S. Flacks

    Your poems are so fresh and full of vitality. I love the first one. You bring the old folk rhymes and life today together in such a fancy free way. Makes me feel like dancing.

    Reply
  8. Paul A. Freeman

    I love ‘The Whistling Woman’. I especially enjoyed the line ‘And forgot to weave. And forgot to spin’, harking back to women’s perpetual fear of spinsterhood in the distant past (unmarried women spun wool to earn a pittance), contrasted with the final line, celebrating ‘merry sisterhood’.

    I too have done my fair share of freelance journalism and these days try to write more ‘human’ articles which include unique personal experiences that Chat GPT can’t replicate – not yet, anyway.

    Thanks for two such thought-provoking, well-written pieces, Linda.

    Reply
  9. Catherine Nardi

    Linda, I am in awe of how beautiful Whistling Woman is. You touched my soul with the meaning and the sounds of the words. I’ve read it out loud a bunch of times. Bravo! Oh, and I like the Retiring Freelancer, too!

    Reply
  10. Monika Cooper

    I would like to join in the appreciation for Whistling Woman and suggest that people who like it may also like “A Mood” by Amelie Troubetzkoy. One of my favorite Fall poems, with rhyme and very stirring meter.

    Reply

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