she brings a city's worth
of furbelows. She seems
unnatural by nature-
too vivid and peculiar
a structure to be pretty,
and flexible to the point
of oddity. Perched on
those legs, anything she does
seems like an act. Descending
on her egg or draping her head
along her back, she's
too exact and sinuous
to convince an audience
she's serious. The natural elect,
they think, would be less pink,
less able to relax their necks,
less flamboyant in general.
They privatly expect that it's some
poorly jointed bland grey animal
with mitts for hands
whom God protects.
Analysis
The first thing to note, is that the poem is gender specifc to women, and that the flamingo is symbolic of women who are not of the norm. Such as the protesters for women's rights.
Words to know include: furbelow and sinuous. Furbelow meaning showy ornimentation, and sinuous meaning curvatious.
The "she" flamingo represents the 'different' women of the time who are showy by "bringing a city's worth of furbelows". The poet utilizes oxymorons to express the hyporcicy of the speaker, presumably a male figure. Claiming she is "unnatural by nature" and too "flexible to be normal" even though flexibility is natural opposed to rigidness. Flexible in this context of the speaker refers to social change. The speaker demeans her by saying "anything she does seems like an act" implying that women are not taken seriously. In response to her acts in society, the speaker claims "she's too exact and sinuous" to be taken seriously.
In the third stanza, unlike the first two, the poet describes the speaker as "the natural elect" in a sarcastic tone as being men. The poet uses repetition of "less" to draw attention to the speaker's points: "less pink", "less able", "less flamboyant". The poet they tells us that in secret, men think of women as "bland grey animals" with "mitts for hands" signaling where a woman belongs: in the kitchen.
This poem speaks to sexism through the eyes of the perpetrator in the 70's, with the poet being a femenist who demonstrated for woman's rights in the 60' and 70's and wrote the poem as a monument to the times.
"Flamingo Watching," is a poem by Kay Ryan, about watching a flamingo, the large pink bird (a little smaller than an ostrich, probably). Ms. Ryan is a two-time US Poet Laureate, has been a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets (since 2006), was a Guggenheim Fellow, an Ingram-Merrill Foundation Fellow, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, and a recipient of numerous other awards, honors, and prizes for her poetry. She was awarded a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant" ($500,000), and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. President Barack Obama presented Ryan and her twelve fellow artists with the 2012 National Medal for the Humanities. These are all among the highest honors that can be given a poet in our country, and only the very greatest of our artists and poets can claim them. The poem is about a flamingo, every line a description of the ungainly yet wonderful enough to have inspired a million lawn ornaments. Alas, the poem has nothing to do with gender, sex, sexism, or protest of any sort. Nor does Ryan don a persona of anyone, man or woman. She writes a contemporary sort of witty and playful metaphysical poetry that means pretty much straightforwardly, what each poem says. I think it is wonderful that you are interested in poetry. It has so many pleasures of the mind to offer us that are unique to the art of poetry. I hope you will read this poem again, and again, as I have, returning to it often. I like to read poems, aloud, and slowly, letting the images expand and play in my imagination. I hope you, too, are rewarded by the pleasures that come from getting to know Ryan's poems (and others as well) more deeply. She is one of my favorites.
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