Parker Poem

A Well Worn Story by Dorothy Parker

In April, in April,
My one love came along,
And I ran the slope of my high hill
To follow a thread of song.
His eyes were hard as porphyry
With looking on cruel lands;
His voice went slipping over me
Like terrible silver hands.
Together we trod the secret lane
And walked the muttering town.
I wore my heart like a wet, red stain
On the breast of a velvet gown.
In April, In April,
My love went whistling by,
And I stumbled here to my high hill
Along the way of a lie.
Now what should I do in this place
But sit and count the chimes,
And splash cold water on my face
And spoil a page with rhymes?

Title: The title itself seems to indicate or imply that the poem is going to poke at a particular issue because the phrase, “well worn” indicates that the speaker knows how ingeniune this “story” is and how she is going to portray her reasons for this.
Paraphrase: The first sentence is about a female (it seems) speaker that has a particular affection towards her “one love” so she ran up a hill to follow him. The speaker then begins to describe her “love” as being “terribly” mesmerizing and she could not help but be engulfed in his presence. They both “trod” together and seemed to have had an affair or romance without the fear of walking into “the muttering town” and were not at all shamed for their actions. The speaker explains to the reader how she wore her heart like a stain on a beautiful velvet dress. Her lover left her as she stumbled to hold her head high. She explains her confusion in indecisiveness as to what she should do now that this event has occurred and snarls that the only thing left is to sulk about it and write it in a poem. Connotation: This poem has so many connotations in it which creates its general tone.First off, “well worn” as I’ve stated before, sets the speaker’s tone as being sarcastic and almost exploitive of the nature of overused “stories”. It prepares the reader to look for this attitude throughout the poem and sets the general mood of it as well by indicating the speaker’s attitude.“In April, in April” is repeatedly used throughout the poem. I find the connotation of the month, April, to be very interesting in how Parker uses it. When one thinks of this month, they either picture spring or rain. With the image of spring comes flowers and happiness which creates a general vibe of the synthetic happiness the speaker feels when in love as opposed to the speaker’s genuine and underlying attitude. April can also imply a rainy season because of the phrase “April showers”. The speaker is subtly presenting her attitude despite her “happy” emotions of being in love. ”one love”: I know this isn’t referring to its connotative meaning but I wanted to note that the word “one” seemed to imply that those who are blinded by love sound pitiful."high": the way in which Parker uses this word is creatively placed due to the fact that it implies several things. For one thing, "high" can be associated with something that is unable to be attainable and can also bring about an image of heaven because it refers to something so high up and angelic."hill": I find it interesting how Parker combines this word with "high" because she implies to the reader a negative vibe because she is basically indicating that this love of hers is unable to be reached (the hill can be taken as the final product of a struggle; a desired goal because in literature, the climbing to the top of the hill is usually the goal of whomever is climbing somewhere)."slope": brings about a connotative implication of something steep or a struggle to go up against "thread": although it does not look negatively connotative, in context, it definitely makes its point about our speaker's dreams of romance. The speaker implies she is chasing after something so thin, as a thread, knowingly that it is unlikely to occur."hard": I found it slightly different how she explains the man to be this way. I'm guessing it’s an indirect metaphor referring to the man's heart. When I first read this word in the context of the poem, it reminded me of stone or rock that is unbreakable."slip": implying that it was by mistake; uncontrollable"silver": the use of this word is interesting because with silver comes the implication of rotting or oxidizing with changes silver to rust which hints at what happened to their love because the man seemed to tolerate his "love" up until he lets her go (when his "emotions" rust)"muttering": I just find it a bit comical when Parker uses this word in her poem. I mean, the speaker knows that the entire town is speaking of her yet she admits it openly and does not care. This word is pretty negative in context which again subtly brings out Parker's attitude and mockery towards the speaker of the poem."wet": this word is used to describe the heart of the speaker. When "wet" is used, it usually means that something was recently caused to make it to be in that state and also implies that it has not died out yet and is still a fresh sort of pain to the speaker."velvet": usually I associate this word with the upper class or something very fragile. She uses this word in contrast with "wet stain" which strikes the reader because of such a contrast in level of diction (wet and stain are such standard words which velvet is more formal and descriptive) which indicates that even something so simple as expressing one's emotions to another can have and the drastic affects it can cause on others.
Attitude: As I mentioned many times before, I definitely believe that Parker is snarling in some ways at those who fall in love so easily despite the warnings of others, get their hearts broken, and frivolously decide that there is nothing else to do but sit and mope about it and write about their ailment. Parker demonstrates this through the diction she chooses and the last stanza which changes completely in style to indicate her underlying purpose.Shift: I'd say the shifts of this poem are after every stanza. She first begins talking about how she is oh so passionately in love, shifts over to describe the difficult and almost cold nature of her lover, refers to how she did not listen to others and had a romantic relationship with this man despite the warnings of others and how her heart was broken and then to the final stanza which reveals Parker's attitude more than the speaker about the fact that there is nothing left to do but sulk and write about it.
Theme: This poem has two themes: In life, often times we tend to follow our hearts instead of rationally listening to others' opinions that sometimes end up being true.The second is that: when things happen against what she wished them to turn out to be, we must hold our heads high and not do what the speaker of the poem does.Title: Parker uses this title to indicate that this situation never gets old and the fact that it occurs quite often yet people never learn from the experience. Wow, this was long. I guess I'll type out the rest of the TPCASSTs in the next entry or two. I'm still trying to think though, why do we as readers react to wit? I mean, I can pick up on a lot of wit used but why does it strike me and is it more effective to demonstrate one's purpose? I'm still trying to get my grasp on the answer to these questions