Poem of the Week

#poemoftheweek is “At Benny the Bungalow” taken from the Arc Prose Poetry Anthology 2022. It is written by an American poet Ron Padgett. I love the idea of soothing melodies, in the narrative tone. A folk song without line breaks!

At Benny the Bungalow

Once upon a time there was a bungalow named Benny. Inside the bungalow were two chairs, each with a little table next to it.

On one table was a vase of red flowers. On the other table was a brown paper bag.

Rabbit and her little boy Clyde knocked on the door of the bungalow, then they chuckled and went on in. It was their bungalow!

Rabbit picked up the vase of red flowers and sniffed them, sighing, “Ahhh!”

Clyde reached into the brown paper bag and pulled out a magic wand and a sandwich. The sandwich started to grow bigger and bigger, but when he tapped it with the wand it shrank back to its normal size. Then he took a bite and munched.

There were two knocks at the door. Rabbit and Clyde went over and looked out the window.

Outside were two people who looked exactly like Rabbit and Clyde. Neither pair could tell whether they were looking through a window or into a mirror. But this was the kind of thing that happened at Benny the Bungalow. It happened all the time.

Biography

Ron Padgett (born June 17, 1942, Tulsa, Oklahoma) is an American poet, essayist, fiction writer, translator, and a member of the New York School. Great Balls of Fire, Padgett's first full-length collection of poems, was published in 1969. He won a 2009 Shelley Memorial Award.[1] In 2018, he won the Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America.[2]