Paul S. Nickerson – The Difference (1921)

Forgotten Poems #49: The Book of Lost Rhymes

—: The Difference :—

 
       We wandered forth at eventide,
       But when he breathed his love to me,
       I walked unseeing at his side;
       There were no rocks, no pines, no sea,
       With him so near to me.

       I wander forth at eventide
       But now a ghost walks here with me . . .
       This rock—this root—we sat beside;
       And here—my hair caught on this tree
       And, oh, the wind . . . the sea . . .
 

Paul S. Nickerson (p. 1921-24, etc.)
P: Tempo (1921), The American Poetry Magazine (1922), Voices (1922), The Measure (1922), The Double Dealer (1922), Contemporary Verse (1922+), The Wave (1923), The Lyric West (1923+); A: Anthology of Magazine Verse (1923); reviews, etc.

From Canton, Massachusetts. Editor of The Gleam: A Magazine of Verse for Young People, published by the School and Poetry Association. (The Writer's Monthly, 1923) “Headmaster of a high-school at Canton.” (Contemporary Verse, 1922)

Well, I should be working on Haiku Thursdays, but that isn’t going to get done today, so instead, as a part of the ongoing Pride Month specials here at Forgotten Poets, we have a poem by Paul Nickerson. Nickerson only published a handful of poems in the 1920s, a few of which touch on queer themes. While this poem could be read as a simple expression of male intimacy, there is an undeniable romantic dimension to the language, and an intensity to the expression of love that has decidedly queer undertones: the classic ‘walk on the beach’, coupled with a declaration of love, and physical closeness. It is also clear that the poem is an epitaph of sorts. The man Nickerson loved is now dead, and he mourns the loss deeply, retracing the steps they once took . . .

Often when reading poems from prior to the 1960s, particularly if there are scant details concerning the poet’s life, as with Nickerson, there is some guesswork which goes into identifying ‘queer’ poetry. In this instance, even if Nickerson’s poem is about non-sexual male intimacy, it disrupts the typical assumptions concerning the way men were meant to relate to one another, and love one another (i.e. it should remain, at all times, unspoken, and physically distant). Of course, this is an aspect of ‘queerness’ as well: breaking with the repressive stereotypes concerning the so-called ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’.

It appears that Nickerson was also heavily influenced by Japanese forms like haiku and tanka, as evidenced by a number of his very short poems—in 3, 4, and 5 line formats—sometimes even addressing Japanese scenes, or using Japanese words. This one, for instance, is clearly based on tanka, uses the term shōji (paper-sliding-door), and also has explicit queer overtones, if we read the speaker of the poem as being a proxy, or stand-in for Nickerson himself;

 
               Tragedy

       The sunlight presses 
       Against the shōji,
       But only my old husband 
       Enters here.
 

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More queer poetry . . .

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