This week’s choice is “One Perfect Rose” by Dorothy Parker, the satirist and critic.
I knew the language of the floweret;
Dorothy Parker (1893—1967)
‘My fragile leaves,’ it said, ‘his heart enclose.’
One perfect rose.
Poem 284. One Perfect Rose
A single flow’r he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet—
One perfect rose.
I knew the language of the floweret;
‘My fragile leaves,’ it said, ‘his heart enclose.’
One perfect rose.
Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it’s always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.
Dorothy Parker was a writer well known for her caustic remarks: “Brevity is the soul of lingerie”, “A hangover is the wrath of grapes” and “She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B” being some of the best-known ones. Her career began in earnest when she filled in as a theatre critic for Vanity Fair while P.G. Wodehouse was on holiday and she flourished as a writer for magazines and later in Hollywood.
This poem parodies the classic love poems that speak of flowers and roses and gifts for the beloved.
The initial stanza describes the romantic gesture of her admirer who sent her just one rose: carefully chosen to be just the right colour and shape and still wet with dew. She describes the flower as a messenger, and this leads into the next part of the poem.
The second stanza mentions the language of flowers which was a conceit of the 19th Century inspired by traditions from many cultures going back thousands of years. Although the meanings of most flowers varied, the rose was very frequently associated with romantic love, a connotation that is still much used now. She explains the meaning of the gesture just like a 19th century floral dictionary: “My fragile leaves…his heart enclose.”
The third stanza turns the romanticism of the first two stanzas on its head, as she muses that she has never received “One perfect limousine”—all she gets is roses. This isn’t suggesting entitlement or greed as such, it is a comment on the fact that admirers never commit to an expression of love much more demonstrative than flowers. The word “always” in the last stanza suggests, rather wistfully, that Parker only ever gets as far as a single perfect rose from admirers, as if her relationships never progress further than that. This is reflected in one of her apothegms: “Take me or leave me; or, as is the usual order of things, both.”
I like it because it is consistent with Parker’s mordant wit and because for all its brevity, it is as beautiful as a single perfect rose (or perhaps a perfect limousine).