Elizabeth Jaeger - Croak (1918)

Forgotten Poems #117 || Reissue #21

        
              —: Croak :—

              When it darkens and rains
       I am not anything human:
       I am a frog.
       I shelter myself under moss-covered stones,
              Blink out at people,
              Who passing leave such queer marks,
              And say: “Damn the water
       	                      Damn the mud
       	                         Damn everything.”
       With relish I croak in my nook.
    

Elizabeth Jaeger (p. 1918, etc.); “Second wife of prominent Chicago businessman Horatio Odell Stone, and recognised as an ‘undisputed social leader’.” (Eleanor Fitzsimons, Wilde's Women, 2017) This is Jaeger’s only known published poem, which appeared in the underground poetry journal Pagan: A Magazine For Eudaemonists, in 1918.

I have a special fondness for poems about frogs, ever since reading Kobayashi Issa, who wrote hundreds of frog haiku, many of which can be found amongst David Lanoue’s wonderful archive of over 13,000 translations. The opening tercet of Jaeger’s ‘Croak’ also has a distinctly haiku feel to it;

    
       When it darkens and rains
               I am not anything human:
                       I am a frog.
    

I have written a few poems about frogs myself. This is an old haiku from 2012 inspired by the work of Issa and Bonchō;

   
       twilight frog it jumps i jump
    

And another from 2016;

    
       moon frog moon frog
                                               forever
    

And something new, written in late-2024, “after” Jaeger;

    
       the frog i try becoming croaks
    

POETRY PROMPT

So I am trying out a new feature: weekly prompts. This week the prompt is simple: write a one-line verse (monostich) on the topic of frogs, and leave it in the comments. I’d love to see what you come up with!

Forgotten Poets Presents:

Forgotten Poems, a living anthology of obscure and out-of-print poetry from the late-1800s and early-1900s. Explore the archives:

More poems about frogs . . .

More poems about stones . . .