Poem: Self-promotive portrait of an Elizabethan cavalier
Workshop on The Art of Writing
run by Prof. Jem Poster
Albert Hans - assignment # 3, originally scheduled for 3rd August, 2006
Subject-matter/Theme/Topic: Voicing the portrait of an Elizabethan cavalier[1]
by means of a free verse poem
Comment:
It is this glance with a tinge of superiority emanating from wide open eyes that strikes me and claims my attention. Conversely, he himself, as befits a true blue nobleman, unmistakably radiates an air of unchallengeability. This ‘effigy’ of a man remains firm and stable, thus worth admiring.
I know I’m flying my flag
The way I look
Makes me feel good.
The surreptitious smile
Rising from my delicately whitish countenance
Is no sneer,
No condescendingly haughty glance
To catch the spectator’s attention with.
After all, it is pride,
Self-assurance in self-containment
And – above all – determination in modest display
‘Un gentil homme’ my style needs today
In the age of win or lose
With no alternative but to choose.
It is like everybody knows
Clothes that make, not just shape people.
It is dress through which to express ‘noblesse’.
I’m well aware the contours of my face
Chime in to a ‘T’
With what convention expects of me.
Survive or besiege,
‘Noblesse oblige’!
[1] Again for copyright reasons I prefer not to publish the scanned photo of the cavalier
to whom this poem refers.
The quality of the black + white copy we got in class together with a collection of
other pictures on one sheet of paper was rather poor anyway.
Nevertheless I hope it's not hard for you to imagine what the cavalier described
in the poem looks like in the photo.