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Title of poem: Market Day in Jiangxi
Author: Joseph Farley
Rating: 4 laurels out of 5 laurels
The poem "Market Day in Jiangxi" is a picturesque poem about life in a duck and cicada market. The two characters in the poem are father and son selling ducks and cicadas in the market.
I have never seen a live duck and cicada market in my life.. I have been to a wet market selling fish and dead chicken and beef and pork but I have never been to or seen a live duck market and cicada market..
This poem is interesting to me because I took agriculture in college. I am exposed and used to cattle raising, goat raising and chicken raising but not to duck raising and cicada market..
The duck farmer is also selling cicadas. Is selling cicadas a lucrative market in Jiangxi? The buying and selling of cicadas is kind of new to me. Cicadas as form of entertainment to kids in Jiangxi is also new to me.
The poem reveals the eating of duck's blood is normal meal to the duck farmer and his son. The eating of animal blood is forbidden in some cultures like the Jews and Arabs.
Jiangxi is a province located in southern China. A snapshot of Chinese culture is featured in this short poem. The poet must have stayed in Jiangxi, China for some time. .
This poem is nominated "Best Poem of the Year 2004" for the Muses Review 2004 Awards for Poetry. .
by Joseph Farley
Source: Suckers (2004) p.37
Ducks herded to market
pad dirt roads smooth
with an army of flat webbed feet.
Children with small nets
on long bamboo poles
scrape the top branches of trees
catching cicadas.
The ducks ack in chorus,
pause at a water filled ditch
for a drink and a swim.
An old man makes wooden cages
from scraps too small for the fire,
He will bring them,
along with their occupants,
to sell at the market.
Gray ducks are shoved into a pen.
Money is exchanged.
A proffered cigarette
seals the bargain.
The cicadas are placed
one in each cage.
They never stop singing
while they live,
but such musical lives
can be short.
The farmer buys a cicada
for his grandson.
The child will laugh at the noise
and shake the cage
until its occupant is near dead.
Grandfather and parents
will smile and laugh.
The old man and his son
will celebrate a day's sales
with duck soup, duck's blood
and the unexpected treat
of underdeveloped eggs
still in the womb.
Night will fall and sun will rise
The world will sleep and wake again.
the old ways will continue
beneath the same sky.
just a different shade of blue-
no longer indigo on cotton or silk,
but the enamel of a tractor,
or the texture of cigaretter smoke
rising from a tired hand.
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Title of Poem: The Spider
Author: Joseph Farley
Rating: 3 laurels out of 5 laurels.
The poem is a short nature poem in free verse.
It is about a spider and a deer.
The spider spins her house but her house was destroyed by a deer.
The spider does not realize that her house of web is intruding into the deer's territory. The deer accidentally destroys the silk house of the spider.
The spider cannot do anything to punish the deer since the deer is just too big for her.
Imagine a human house being destroyed by another human by accident. Surely, a conflict or lawsuits will happen.
Interesting nature poem.
The Spider
by Joseph Farley
Source: Suckers (2004) p.83
The spider
begins its web
in one spot
and as she spins
the web grows wider
until the silk
reaches the width
of the deer path.
A snort, a flash
of hooves
in the moonlight,
and it is broken.
The interloper
dearts
trailing threads
of silver.
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