>Fun with Intertextuality

by Roger Sutton
Oct 30, 2008 | Filed in Articles & Opinion
>I'm not even completely clear on who the Watchman really is, but this is really fun.

But can I just say how much I have always loathed W. C. W.'s poem about the plums in the icebox? We-coulda-made-pie versus some poet's fucking sensitivity--is it even a contest?
Roger Sutton
Roger Sutton

Editor Emeritus Roger Sutton was editor in chief of The Horn Book, Inc., from 1996-2021. He was previously editor of The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books and a children's and young adult librarian. He received his MA in library science from the University of Chicago in 1982 and a BA from Pitzer College in 1978.

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Charlotte

>I'm a plum poem hater. Just because something looks appealing dosen't mean you're entitled. Probably he went on to--
"There were three crisp $100 dollar bills in your wallet, and I know you were saving them to pay the heating bills, but they looked so beautiful..."

Posted : Nov 05, 2008 04:34

Anonymous

>Lelac -- Interesting response. I’ve never been able to separate my response to the speaker from my response to the poem. I still don’t know if I can. Whether the relationship is between lovers, siblings, roommates, coworkers, or whatever, the speaker comes off as someone who believes his/her own cleverness grants carte blanche for whatever he/she wants to do. Who would want to spend time with this person?

Posted : Nov 03, 2008 09:19

Lelac

>I love this poem and so do my students, and they all consider the speaker a loathsome villain. (For seventh graders, he's an older sibling rather than a lover, which yields more or less the same reading.) We almost always go on to read the Erica-Lynn Gambino response which everybody finds immensely cheering.

Posted : Nov 02, 2008 07:02

J. L. Bell

>Just in case you need to hold up your head at the right kind of parties, there is no "Watchman." There aren't even any "Watchmen" in the Moore/Gibbons graphic novel Watchmen. Rather, it's an allusion to the old question, "Who watches the watchmen?"—i.e., in a world with superheroes, who makes sure they're protecting humanity? (In addition, the passage of time on a clock or watch face is one of the recurring motifs of the book.)

Posted : Nov 01, 2008 09:39

Roger Sutton

>Perhaps because I first encountered this poem in college, when we kept ourselves very busy demolishing sexism wherever we could find it, I have trouble reading this poem as anything but sensitive-new-age-guy thinking his poem made something superior out of what was going to be in his old lady's hands only breakfast.

Posted : Oct 31, 2008 04:13

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