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Miss Jewell’s Suicide

—from a story by George Gissing

The chipped and mismatched crockery,
Two boiled eggs and tepid tea,
A single slice of buttered toast
With marmalade—a dab at most—
And oatmeal porridge barely warm:
Such is breakfast’s pallid norm
Here in a low-rent boarding house
Where lodgers live sans friend or spouse.

Miss Jewell lacks the moral strength
To change her mode of life. At length
Her final hope—a balding beau—
Jilts her. Now, in hopeless woe,
She looks ahead to weary years
That promise to hatch out her fears:
Loneliness, poor health, despair,
A boarding house’s stale dead air.

She takes her teacup and retires
To her garret room. The spires
Of nearby churches pierce a sky
That swallows up her unheard cry
For rescue, solace, or release,
Some exit into human peace.
God and saints are deaf as stones.
All that’s left? The skull, crossed bones.

A green glass bottle, thick and squat,
Holds a venom, half forgot,
Inside her cabinet of pills,
Relief for female aches and ills.
She takes the dusty vial down,
Pours the liquid, darkish brown,
Into her teacup, sits and thinks—
And then, in full composure, drinks.

.

.

Respectably Transgressive

“Your verse is not transgressive,” said a team
Of editors who oversaw my work.
“It doesn’t cause the bourgeoisie to scream;
It doesn’t flash a cool postmodern smirk
At old assumptions, attitudes, or notions.
A poem has to break down some taboo,
Give vent to dark, implacable emotions—
But that’s just what your poems do not do.”

And so I whetted each line: made them bite
And slash and hack and amputate and slice.
The editors grew tremulous and white,
Coughed gently, and rephrased their first advice:
“No satire, violence, hatred, drugs, or whoring—
Transgression must be decorous, and boring.”

.

.

Thessalian Frenzy

Sine Cerere et Libero friget Venus.
(Venus grows cold without bread and wine)

—Terence

The centaurs gather for a feast
Before the foot of Jason’s throne
Inviting friends who are half-beast
(The satyrs). Laden tables groan

With fig trees’ summer-ripened fruit,
The olives cracked, and wet with oil—
Warm loaves of bread, benignly mute,
Green produce of the living soil,

Fresh eggs and nutmeats, apples, grapes,
Hyblaean honey, wine, and cheese
Pressed into wicker basket shapes
By unkempt, savage Cyclopes.

Wild maenads, hair in disarray,
Contribute to the rustic board
The bloodied limbs of luckless prey
Dismembered for their Bacchic Lord.

Amazons are also guests
With cruel barbed arrows and a bow
And quiver strapped across smooth chests
Where once there rose a breast of snow.

Cybele’s gelded troop has come
(Emasculated priestlings all)
With sistrum, flute, and throbbing drum
To dance in frenzy, then to fall

With wolfish hunger on the food.
All present swill and gorge with glee—
Centaurs, maenads, and the brood
Of satyrs. Soon the revelry

Stirs up libido’s sleeping snake.
The Amazons are hot and wet—
The maenads’ lust is wide awake.
There is no dainty etiquette

In what comes next. The rigid prongs
Of centaurs swive the maenad crew,
While satyrs leap on Amazons
And pump them till their loins turn blue.

Cybele’s priests observe and weep
As if their wounds were made afresh.
The Cyclopes, in drunken sleep,
Have dreams of Galatea’s flesh.

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Poet’s Note

I’ve chosen to post these three poems together to indicate some different approaches that a poet can take to his material. The first poem about Miss Jewell is pure narrative: a spinster living in a dreary boarding house, having given up all hope for the future, decides to take her own life by drinking poison. All that was necessary for its composition was an omniscient narrator’s voice giving some hints as to her motivation, and a description of the lady’s feelings and surroundings.

The second poem gives direct voice to a team of editors at a magazine, whose advice another character (the “speaker” of the poem) attempts to follow in order to have his verse accepted. This a semi-dialogue poem, in which we hear the quoted words of the editorial team, followed by the reported thoughts and actions of the speaker, and then concluding with dismissive words from the editors. The poem is satiric, making fun of the basic hypocrisy of poetry magazines that pretend to be daring and provocative, but which are in fact staffed by conformist cowards. I made the same point in my extended prose essay “Transgression, Fake and Genuine” here at the SCP on January 23, 2023. In this poem the point is made with a fictive vignette.

The third poem requires a bit more explanation. Its scene is set in Thessaly, a region of ancient Greece noted for its fierce warriors, along with savagely lustful centaurs and satyrs; and visited by wild human females like the maenads who worship Dionysus and the Amazons who are woman warriors. Jason, the king of Thessaly, has invited all of these types to a feast, as well as the Cyclopes and the castrated priests of Cybele. The epigraph from Terence (“Venus grows cold without bread and wine”) suggests the basic theme: this feast will be a major pig-out followed by a sexual orgy.

The poem is at its core a catalogue piece, which describes in detail the food and wine provided, and mentions all of the various guests. Poets have always loved creating lists of things. Catalogue poems intensify the scenic background, and emphasize, either positively or negatively, the poet’s chosen focus. As for the narrative line, all that happens here is that the guests fall on the food in a frenzy, gorge themselves to satiety, and then abandon themselves to wild erotic acts. (They have had their bread and wine; now they will have their Venus.) The poem ends ironically, observing that the drunken Cyclopes and the castrated priestlings of Cybele are the only ones who cannot take part in the orgy—the first because of their inebriated incapacity, and the second because of their genital mutilation. The following brief notes may be helpful.

Centaurs: half-human, half-horse beings, prone to violence and lust.

Satyrs: half-human, half-goat beings, highly oversexed.

Hyblaean honey: A highly prized honey in the ancient world, from the Hyblaean mountains in Sicily.

Cyclopes: One-eyed monsters of great size, feared for their brutality and viciousness. They get drunk very easily.

Maenads: Female devotees of the god Dionysus (“their Bacchic Lord”). They are sometimes called Bacchantes, and are known for going into a drunken frenzy that leads them to kill and dismember both animals and humans.

Amazons: a tribe of female warriors of great ferocity, who amputated their right breasts to allow them to handle a bow and arrow more easily.

Cybele: a goddess whose male priests were compelled to castrate themselves in order to become members of her cult.

Galatea: A sea nymph of great beauty who was loved by one of the Cyclopes. She rejected his advances.

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Joseph S. Salemi has published five books of poetry, and his poems, translations and scholarly articles have appeared in over one hundred publications world-wide.  He is the editor of the literary magazine TRINACRIA and writes for Expansive Poetry On-line. He teaches in the Department of Humanities at New York University and in the Department of Classical Languages at Hunter College.

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16 Responses

  1. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Dr. Salemi, fortunately, I discovered the notes first, perfectly explaining each scenario and situation.
    1. “Miss Jewell’s Suicide” is a superbly told sad story that engendered my empathy and sympathy for one devoid of love and affection. Such an occurrence is likely more common than we realize.
    2. “Respectably Transgressive” demonstrates the reasons I eschew sending my poetry to boring, soulless, unabashedly modernist magazines and contests overseen by editors of dubious repute hung up on leftist humanistic scatology. I am forever thankful to have found a home with SCP. Your poetry is great and your arrow in on target.
    3. “Thessalian Frenzy” is a ribald tale that well could have been told by Chaucer, although I believe you should win the prize for such fantastic oratory.
    Your poems are ones to emulate in meter and rhyme along with the intrinsic messages that are vivid, colorful, and provocative.

    Reply
  2. Joseph S. Salemi

    Thank you, Roy. George Gissing’s novels frequently touch upon poverty, illness, bad luck, and sometimes suicide. My character Miss Jewell is borrowed from one of his stories but I have re-imagined the details of what happened.

    I loathe editors who pose as being daring and transgressive, but who quail in fear of publishing anything that might ruffle the orthodoxies of their left-liberal readership. And I feel the same way about conservative or religious editors who will not print anything that that might upset their fundamentalist Bible-thumping subscribers.

    The third poem is my favorite — a catalogue piece showing the wilder side of Graeco-Roman mythology and its sensual self-indulgence. The Victorians were good classicists, but only Swinburne knew how to reveal this freaky side of ancient behavior.

    Reply
  3. Brian A. Yapko

    What an amazing trio of poems, Joe! They do seem an odd combination but for the fact that they demonstrate your remarkable versatility in terms of voice, style and substance as your reader becomes audience to tragedy, satire and then bacchanal. You offer a memorable lesson in stretching one’s poetic wings to be able to write about any subject – any subject at all – and to do so with polish, wit and a sophisticated awareness for what structure and rhyme-scheme best suit the subject. I would also note that your poetry tends to be extremely observant and yet non-judgmental. You do not tell the reader how to react. You present the facts and let the reader come to his own emotional reactions and/or reasoned conclusions. Allowing the reader this freedom makes the work that much more powerful.

    For example, “Respectively Transgressive” is a funny piece because it simply puts a spotlight on publisher hypocrisy without ever directly blaring your criticism. We can certainly infer it from the lack of consistency in the characters you write about and their unrealistic litany of desirable qualities. Your form here of a-b-a-b-c-c- gives us a final couplet which creates the expectation of a conclusion or summation – but you let the characters own words invite the reader into a conclusion of hypocrisy, capriciousness and pretentiousness. A hypothetical final stanza lamenting the publisher’s rotten and inconsistent advice would actually have diminished the piece.

    I say you are generally nonjudgmental leaving it to the reader to draw conclusions. However, you come close to judging Miss Jewell when you say “she lacks the moral strength… “ but you leave it at that. There is no railing at the sin of suicide. There is no disgust at her lifestyle. There is, if anything, a detached form of pity. You tell Miss Jewell’s story in couplets but in tetrameter rather than pentameter. This is risky because it could have made the poem sing-songy. But it doesn’t. It makes it terse and reticent which is eminently suitable to a reserved character. And the couplets bring forth a droning quality, a monotony which parallels the dull, uneventful life of the sad subject. Your language here is far more visceral than in Transgressive. “The spires/Of nearby churches pierce a sky/That swallows up her unheard cry…” This is the language and imagery of tragedy. It is beautiful but terribly sad. There are probably thousands of such unsung tragedies in many an upstairs room. Along these lines, Miss Jewell seems related to The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby”and Simon & Garfunkel’s “Most Peculiar Man.”

    Finally, that leaves your Thessalian Frenzy which certainly gets the pulse racing. It is a fascinating, red-blooded slice of Classical myth brought to life. It is interesting to see that this is also in tetrameter but with the opposite effect of Miss Jewell. Here it imparts momentum and a reckless gaiety (in its old meaning!) – a rollicking quality which makes the orgy seem like good fun. No judgment here. No mournful couplets, no heavy or overcerebral pentameter… this is the poet having a strong instinct for what works best for the context. Your language strikes me as frank rather than coarse and reminds us that the ancients were not figures made out of marble. A big chunk of ancient literature reveals the Greeks and Romans as unselfconscious of their physical/sexual natures and unapologetically pleasure-loving.

    These were a delight to read.

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      Brian, thank you for your praise and comments, especially the observations on choice of meter. Like all formalists I’m very comfortable with iambic pentameter, but many years ago, in a dream, I was advised to write more in tetrameter. I did not appreciate how easy and relaxing tetrameter rhyming couplets were, and now I use them quite frequently.

      I did think of “Eleanor Rigby” when I wrote the poem about Miss Jewell. But I have come to enjoy the work of Gissing, which an English friend introduced both me and my wife to, and one of Gissing’s stories prompted my poem.

      Your reaction to the Thessalian piece is exactly what I hoped to stir up in readers. Good food, good wine, good sex — nobody in the ancient world was squeamish about them.

      Reply
  4. Yael

    All three poems provide an interesting reading experience, thank you. What I really appreciate about your poetry besides the elegant and skillful composition is that it’s never overly predictable and doesn’t follow well trodden paths of thought or trite moralizing expression. Nor is it so vague as to present the reader with a spectrum of possible meaning which could be interpreted in nearly endless and contradictory shades of feelings and images. Your poetry says what you mean and means what you say it does. It’s very enjoyable for the cerebral type of reader who is not looking for a pat on the head and a boost to the ego.

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      Many thanks, Yael. I have always wanted my poems to be interesting enjoyable, and yes — unpredictable.

      Reply
  5. Adam Sedia

    This selection demonstrates your great versatility. “Miss Jewell’s Suicide” is pregnant with the unsaid. We can guess her life history from the scene presented and the thoughts going through her head before she sips the fatal tea, but those are left to the imagination, which makes the scene more powerful. “Respectfully Transgressive” is effective because its irony exposes actual hypocrisy – and the poem is *actually* “transgressive” because it attacks an actual establishment. Using the sonnet form subtly underscores your point. And “Thessalian Frenzy” is an unabashedly erotic pastiche of classical myth and history, evoking the unrestrained attitude of the Ancient Greeks.

    Reply
  6. Joseph S. Salemi

    I’m grateful for your comments, Adam. My reason for showing three possible approaches to writing a poem (narrative, dialogue, and catalogue) was to point out to students of poetry that confessional poems are not the only way to express oneself. When poems are fictive, a thousand doors lie open to the author. When they are confessional, all there is is a one-way street.

    Reply
  7. Rohini

    Each one is a masterpiece! Your notes are highly informative. Thank you. Even without the notes, I was utterly caught up in the mood and precision of each one. A delightful end to my day.

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      Thank you, Rohini. I’m gratified that my work has pleased you.

      Reply
  8. Carey Jobe

    As others observed, these three poems really do form a triptych covering a broad spectrum of emotions. The pathos of “Miss Jewel’s Suicide” is underscored by the tone of almost clinical accuracy with which it’s related. And “Respectably Transgressive” bites hard because it’s so true, as I can attest by many impeccably polite rejection letters! But my favorite is “Thessalian frenzy” because of the classical theme (as I’m a former classics student) and vivid lively descriptions. But I really love a poem that not only conveys an emotionally satisfying experience and also teaches me something I didn’t know. I learned a new verb, “swive,” which I plan to make a part of my working vocabulary! And since your meters are impeccable, I’m led to believe the pronunciation of “Cyclopes” would be “KY-klop-es” as in Latin. That’s a nuanced classicizing touch I enjoyed! Thanks for these, Joe. Your poems show once again that the best way to educate is through delight.

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      Dear Carey —

      Your words have touched me emotionally, as all my life I have been primarily a teacher. The ratification of that work, in the form of appreciation from learners, is deeply gratifying. I still recall with renewed pleasure the thought of how I narrated stories from the Odyssey to a fellow student in catechism class back in 1957, and how he was delighted with them.

      Yes, KY-klop-es is the correct pronunciation. I hesitated about using the name because many people pronounce the singular form as “SY-klops,” and if they use the plural at all they say “SY-klops-iz.”

      As for “swive,” I got it from the Earl of Rochester’s work. It’s a good way to say “f–k” without getting into trouble.

      Reply
  9. James Sale

    Wonderful poems, from a master; perhaps the time is ripe for a collected Joseph Salemi? Rochester was a favourite poet of mine in my youth and he appears in Canto 10 of my StairWell – in purgatory because of his famous (infamous and disputed) death bed repentance to Bishop Burnett. ‘Swive’ was one of his great words!

    Reply
  10. Joseph S. Salemi

    James, thank you for your kind words. I’m trying to gather together all my work, but it is a big job.

    I generally distrust stories of deathbed repentances, including the alleged ones of Rochester and Voltaire. In fact, Boswell asked the dying David Hume if he repented of his irreligion and skepticism when the man was close to death, and Hume replied in the negative, with supreme calm and self-possession. The report of this sent a lot of religionists into a blood rage. As for Voltaire, the truth about his death is that when dying he was asked by an officious priest if he would “renounce the Devil and all his works.” Voltaire replied: “At this time of my life, I don’t think I should be making any new enemies.”

    I’ve heard the story about Charles Maurras “repenting” on his deathbed, but I’m skeptical about it. I can imagine Maurras going through with the scene merely out of his deep loyalty to French culture and tradition.

    Reply
  11. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Joe, thank you for this inspirational masterclass in the versatility of superlative poetry. It makes me want to work harder… much harder at my craft.

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      Many thanks, Susan. I’m always glad when my work pleases you.

      Reply

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