I AM
“Since my earliest childhood a barb of sorrow has lodged in my heart. As long as it stays I am ironic — if it is pulled out I shall die” —Søren Kierkegaard
This frog in his not-at-all admiring bog is not the somebody in Emily Dickinson’s poem who croaks his (only male bullfrogs vocalize) dreary public name “all the livelong day/June” Nope, our frog is not such a self-promoting entrepreneur, he’s more like one of her two banishable nobodies.
Or maybe he’s more like Sylvia Plath who in “Tulips” contemplates being an anonymous part of a process indifferent to her. “I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions. / I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses / And my history to the anesthetist and my body to surgeons.” She likes it: “How free it is, you have no idea how free—— / The peacefulness is so big it dazes you” / And it asks nothing, a name tag, a few trinkets.” Except for the dreary public tulips—a gift from her husband a friend or publisher?—invaded her space—ate her oxygen, she says.
Or like John Clare, another troubled soul who a century earlier wrote from an asylum: “I am—yet what I am none cares or knows; / My friends forsake me like a memory lost: / I am the self-consumer of my woes— / They rise and vanish in oblivious host, / Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes / And yet I am, and live—like vapours tossed.” A prescient rant this, describing social media quite accurately even if his language is a bit overdramatic.
The hermit frog surely won’t agree with Carl Sandburg who wrote, “I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass.” who is robbed and played for a fool then forgets, but according to Sandburg could remember then get even. No, our amphibian will take the safe, secure path and continue to be forgetful.
He probably agrees with Langston Hughes who declares, “I am the darker brother. / They send me to eat in the kitchen / When company comes” but then disagrees with the next lines, “But I laugh, / And eat well, / And grow strong.” Nor does he think that the others will even see how beautiful he is and be ashamed. He is, after all, a frog.
He’s closer to Walt Whitman, who of himself, sings “I exist as I am, that is enough, / If no other in the world be aware I sit content, / And if each and all be aware I sit content. / One world is aware, and by the far the largest to me, and that is myself, / And whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or ten million years, / I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness, I can wait.” Frogs can wait with the best of them.
[ … ]
Thank you, Internet. Decades ago, as a youth and even well into middle age, I wouldn’t have been able to do this. The local library, subscriptions to a newspaper, and a couple of channels on the TV would not be enough resources to assemble this post. Back then, I was familiar with the poets, except for Clare. But I knew only two of the poems: “I’m Nobody” and “Song of Myself.” They were the ones anthologized in textbooks.
I wouldn’t have had the time to research, write and rewrite this rant anyway. Back then I had friends to hang out with and a job to go to. I would have just made a black ink on white paper drawing about the idea that popped into my head and left it at that. It’s different now, for sure. But would I want to go back, repeat my youth and middle age? Unless I could relive only the good bits and not have to repeat my mistakes, I don’t think so.
A Short Analysis of Emily Dickinson’s ‘I’m Nobody! Who are you?’ – Interesting Literature
Analysis of Poem “Tulips” by Sylvia Plath – Owlcation
I Am! by John Clare – Poem Analysis
‘I Am’ by Sylvia Plath | Roland’s Ragbag
I Am The People, The Mob by Carl Sandburg – Meaning, Themes, Analysis and Literary Devices – American Poems
I, Too Summary & Analysis by Langston Hughes
Section 20, Song of Myself
WTF?: I exist as I am enough Walt Whitman poet Tshirt for Men 2XL Dark Gray – Walmart.com
