Adam & Eve
June 2, 2010 9:23 AM Subscribe
Poetry-recall-filter: have you encountered a poem about Adam and Eve and jazz?
I am trying like mad to remember this poem (or possibly a piece of short prose?) I read several years ago. It's about Adam and Eve and the fall of man, but has a sort of jazz-age diction. One section of the poem describes all the good things that were in the apple: information about "how to play games with dice" and "how to make love real slow" and damned if I haven't forgotten all the other stuff, but. Does this ring a bell for anyone?
I am trying like mad to remember this poem (or possibly a piece of short prose?) I read several years ago. It's about Adam and Eve and the fall of man, but has a sort of jazz-age diction. One section of the poem describes all the good things that were in the apple: information about "how to play games with dice" and "how to make love real slow" and damned if I haven't forgotten all the other stuff, but. Does this ring a bell for anyone?
The first thing I thought of was that maybe you're half-remembering parts of God's Trombones by James Weldon Johnson, especially the poems The Creation, Noah Built the Ark and The Prodigal Son. The tone is similar to what I think you're looking for, although the details aren't quite matching up.
I'll keep looking... I'm kind of curious now!
posted by tivalasvegas at 10:43 AM on June 2, 2010
I'll keep looking... I'm kind of curious now!
posted by tivalasvegas at 10:43 AM on June 2, 2010
Lucille Clifton wrote a bunch of poems involving Eden (see here for "adam thinking" and "eve thinking"); none of them are exactly like this but together they cover most of the elements.
"brothers" features Lucifer speaking to God about the garden:
what could I choose
but to slide along behind them,
they whose only sin
was being their father’s children?
as they stood with their backs
to the garden,
a new and terrible luster
burning their eyes,
only You could have called
their ineffable names,
only in their fever
could they have failed to hear.
the road led from delight
into delight. into the sharp
edge of seasons, into the sweet
puff of bread baking, the warm
vale of sheet and sweat after love,
the tinny newborn cry of calf
and cormorant and humankind.
and pain, of course,
always there was some bleeding...
posted by sallybrown at 11:42 AM on June 2, 2010
"brothers" features Lucifer speaking to God about the garden:
what could I choose
but to slide along behind them,
they whose only sin
was being their father’s children?
as they stood with their backs
to the garden,
a new and terrible luster
burning their eyes,
only You could have called
their ineffable names,
only in their fever
could they have failed to hear.
the road led from delight
into delight. into the sharp
edge of seasons, into the sweet
puff of bread baking, the warm
vale of sheet and sweat after love,
the tinny newborn cry of calf
and cormorant and humankind.
and pain, of course,
always there was some bleeding...
posted by sallybrown at 11:42 AM on June 2, 2010
Response by poster: These are all great suggestions, but so far no dice...
posted by Mender at 8:15 PM on June 2, 2010
posted by Mender at 8:15 PM on June 2, 2010
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posted by pixiecrinkle at 9:47 AM on June 2, 2010