Wallflowers
By: Donna Vorreyer
I heard a word today I'd never heard before-
I wondered where it had been all my life.
I welcomed it, wooed it with my pen,
let it know it was loved.
They say if you use a word three times, it's yours.
What happens to ones that no one speaks?
Do they wait bitterly,
hollow-eyed orphans in Dickensian bedrooms,
longing for someone to say,
"yes, you . . . you're the one?
Or do they wait patiently, shy shadows
at the high school dance,
knowing that, given the slightest chance,
someday they'll bloom?
I want to make room for all of them,
to be the Ellis Island of diction-
give me your tired, your poor,
your gegenshein, your zoanthropy-
all those words without a home,
come out and play- live in my poem.
Wallflowers by Donna Vorreyer is a very beautiful poem as it uses different metaphors to create a strong feeling about the way we use words. Words that may not be known are gegenshein and zoanthropy.
Gegenshein is a patch of very faint nebulous light sometimes seen in the night sky opposite the sun, thought to be sunlight reflected form gas and dust. Zoanthropy is the delusion that you have assumed the form of an animal. She uses another poetry writer in order to portray her purpose. As other writers may use a word once but not enough to make it a word. The words are almost portrayed as a person which brings more strength and light to the poem. As they are waiting to be developed and to be wanted by others. The words are like people coming form foreign countries to America in order to be part of a better society. The author wants to be home for those unwanted words. She is taking them in so that they can have a home and play with the other just as commonly used words. This poem yes is talking about words but we could also look at it in a sense of ourselves and how we are treated. How we want to be loved by others and feel like we are just as special as anyone else. This poem does a great job in giving both feels on self as well as words used.
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