Lola Ridge - Quotation

Quotation

My doll Janie has no waist

and her body is like a tub with feet on it.

Sometimes I beat her

but I always kiss her afterwards.

When I have kissed all the paint off her body

I shall tie a ribbon about it

so she shan't look shabby.

But it must be blue -

it mustn't be pink -

pink shows the dirt on her face

that won't wash off.

I beat Janie

and beat her...

but still she smiled...

so I scratched her between the eyes with a pin.

Now she doesn't love me anymore...

she scowls... and scowls...

though I've begged her to forgive me

and poured sugar in the hole at the back of her head.

-- from Sun-Up and Other Poems

Famous quotes containing the word quotation:

“The habit some writers indulge in of perpetual quotation is one it behoves lovers of good literature to protest against, for it is an insidious habit which in the end must cloud the stream of thought, or at least check spontaneity. If it be true that le style c’est l’homme, what is likely to happen if l’homme is for ever eking out his own personality with that of some other individual?”
—Dame Ethel Smyth (1858–1944)

“Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)

“With wonderful art he grinds into paint for his picture all his moods and experiences, so that all his forces may be brought to the encounter. Apparently writing without a particular design or responsibility, setting down his soliloquies from time to time, taking advantage of all his humors, when at length the hour comes to declare himself, he puts down in plain English, without quotation marks, what he, Thomas Carlyle, is ready to defend in the face of the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)