"Don't let that horse"

The final poem I looked at for my paper was a comedic poem, a side I had not yet seen from Lawrence Ferlinghetti.


This poem, "Don't let that horse," is much more informal than his other works, although they are also very informal.  The line spacing, the diction, and the structure is just more irregular than I am used to when reading his poetry.

The poem can be hard to interpret, mainly because I bet any of the people that read this poem look way too far into it.  The poem describes an incident between a mother and son, in which the mother tells her son that he should not paint the painting he is working on.  The son ignores her request and continues to paint.  The painting is a huge success, and this newfound success would not have occurred had he listened to his mother's advice.

Very simple story, very simple moral... right?

WRONG.

No, actually, yes, it is right.  At least, in my opinion it is.  I believe that Ferlinghetti wanted to create a simple story, in poem form, about painting, a hobby that he loved.  The poem is humorous because of its simplicity and overall topic.  This simplicity gives a moral... that one should take risks and be the person they want to be (again, going back to "Constantly Risking Absurdity?").  There really is not much more to it than that.  Sure, I am sure somebody could look much more further into it than I did and find some obscure or abstract meaning, but I am sticking with my gut on this one.

I bet Ferlinghetti threw this piece together not to give us some deep, intellectual moral to reflect on, but to tell a short story about a boy and his mother, a story that just happens to have a simple moral.  Kinda similar to a children's book, am I right?

I think this poem was enjoyable because it was the final poem I picked, therefore after struggling to figure out what the other three's meanings were, I could just sit back and take this poem in as is without too much involvement.  Nothing wrong with that!