Incurable

Incurable
By Dorothy Parker

And if my heart be scarred and burned,
The safer, I, for all I learned;
The calmer, I, to see it true
That ways of love are never new—
The love that sets you daft and dazed
Is every love that ever blazed;
The happier, I, to fathom this:
A kiss is every other kiss.
The reckless vow, the lovely name,
When Helen walked, were spoke the same;
The weighted breast, the grinding woe,
When Phaon fled, were ever so.
Oh, it is sure as it is sad
That any lad is every lad,
And what’s a girl, to dare implore
Her dear be hers forevermore?
Though he be tried and he be bold,
And swearing death should he be cold,
He’ll run the path the others went.…
But you, my sweet, are different.

About the Poem

“Incurable” is part of Dorothy Parker’s poetry collection Sunset Gun (Boni & Liveright, 1928). In 1934, The English Journal published Mark Van Doren’s essay “Dorothy Parker.” Van Doren criticized Parker’s poetics, stating, “[Her] poetry is of a consistent and unvarying sort, differing little from volume to volume. Enough Rope (1926) contains eerie measure and every theme employed either in Sunset Gun (1928) or in Death and Taxes (1931), the only novelty being that each volume has been shorter than its predecessor, and, perhaps, in view of its refusal to cut any new paths, less interesting. Mrs. Parker’s poetry, then, may be seen at once to have its unity and its wholeness. What should be said of it? It is neat and clear, and it is mordant; it is also—and this may be the reason for its popularity—sentimental.” Unable to gauge Parker’s contribution to American poetry and her longstanding impact on literature, Van Doren went on to say, “She may please many people at the moment, but considering what English poetry can be and has been there is not the slightest chance, unless she sets out deliberately to improve her product, that she will be numbered among the good.”

About the Poet

Dorothy Parker, born on August 22, 1893, in West End, New Jersey, was an editor, writer, and early Modernist poet. She authored several literary works, including the poetry collection, Enough Rope (Boni & Liveright, 1926). Parker, best known as a key member of the famed Algonquin Round Table, was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1959. She died on June 6, 1967.