Poetry

Banquet Night

2 Comments

Banquet Night

By Guenevere Anderson

They are lighting the candles on the tables,
Ladies with shining, groomed hair and lovely dresses
Are lighting the candles
There is music – memories quicken –
Beauty glows – hearts are stirred.
It is a gala night.

Outside, somewhere, a little boy draws about him
A tattered coat. His shoes are rags.
He bites back a whimper; the wind is cold.
He wishes he had a dime.

“Not by bread alone” man lives.
There must be beauty, music,
Memories, lovely voices, charm.
But, dear God, suppose there isn’t even bread?

(1935)

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2 thoughts on “Banquet Night”

  1. Wow. Seems just as important, if not more so, than in the midst of the Great Depression; how have we not solved questions of poverty and hunger eighty years later?

  2. Yeah, this is both lovely and wrenching. I like how the speaker underscores the shameful lack of those in bread lines, but still acknowledges the “truthiness” that man doesn’t live by bread alone. I like the tension created from these opposing truths.

    And yes, Amy T, while the poem sort of screams 1930’s, it’s still apt today.

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