A Toad's Favourite: Take a Bite!

From the time I was quite young, I have loved poetry.  Before I could read, my mother read to me from A Child’sGarden of Verses by Robert Lewis Stevenson.  My grandmother gave me a book of poetry for my seventh birthday, One Hundred and One Famous Poems by Roy Cook. Over the years I read and reread those poems and still have my dog eared book! 

It was when I was a young teen, however, that I discovered modern poetry. I felt that I had found poems that were not only beautiful or interesting, but relatable. These poets wrote in the language that I wrote in, and this inspired me to begin writing poetry myself. I began filling pages of spiral notebooks with my own poetry, most of which I still have today.

The book that inspired my love of modern poetry is called Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle … and Other Modern Verse  by Dunning, Lueders, and Smith.  It was originally published in 1966 by Scholastic Book Services as a poetry anthology for young readers but has appeal for all ages, in my opinion. The final poem, by John Tobias, is called “Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle Received from a Friend Called Felicity.” It remains one of my favorite poems to this day.

my old copy

This poem is about childhood, memories, imagination, and nostalgia. Each time I read it, I find some new or different meaning, as I move through the phases of my own life. This is a poem that grows with the reader.  It begins:

During that summer
When unicorns were still possible;
When the purpose of knees
Was to be skinned;
When shiny horse chestnuts
    (Hollowed out
    Fitted with straws
    Crammed with tobacco
    Stolen from butts
    In family ashtrays)
Were puffed in green lizard silence
While straddling thick branches
Far above and away
From the softening effects
Of civilization…

One can already glean the nostalgic mood of the poem as well as the dreamlike mingling of memory with imagination.  “Green lizard silence” is still one of my favorite phrases in a poem.

He continues:

During that summer--
Which may never have been at all…
…Watermelons ruled.

Thick imperial slices
Melting frigidly on sun-parched tongues
Dribbling from chins;
Leaving the best part,
The black bullet seeds,…

Tobias uses the watermelon as an extended metaphor for the changes experienced while maturing into adulthood. I love how he uses such a simple concept to explore a complex theme, the changes and losses of growing up.

And when the ammunition was spent,
There was always another bite:
It was a summer of limitless bites,
Of hungers quickly felt
And quickly forgotten…

Tobias ends the poem with the gift of watermelon pickle, which resurrects his image of an ideal childhood that may have, or may have not, actually existed.

…But in a jar put up by Felicity,
The summer which maybe never was
Has been captured and preserved.
And when we unscrew the lid
And slice off a piece
And let it linger on our tongue:
Unicorns become possible again.

As I believe that this poem is still under copyright, I did not print it in its entirety, but it is definitely worth a read (or two or fifty!) Here is a link to the full poem :  Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle

The poem has been called a classic by both educators and critics, but despite many searches, I have been unable to locate any other poems by Tobias. However, he has written plays, including “My Husband’s Wild Desires Almost Drove Me Mad” and “Is the Real You Really You?” that have been produced worldwide as well as Off Broadway. He also wrote a book on American history and literature called The Adventure of America.

As a final note, a bit of trivia: There is an actual Felicity who did, indeed, give Tobias a gift of watermelon pickle. Instead of a bottle of wine, Felicity brought a gift of homemade watermelon pickle to Tobias’s publication party for The Adventure of America. She had argued with her husband about the gift, as he thought it made her look cheap. Later, the poem “Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle Received from a Friend Called Felicity” was published in The New Mexico Quarterly (1961). I guess Tobias enjoyed the gift!

I  hope you enjoy the poem! 

my yellowed copy of the poem