Traditionally, an elegy was a form of poetic meter, but it evolved into a term that applied to a poem that focused on mourning or loss. Typically, in an elegy the speaker reflects on the loss or death of someone or on something that evokes sorrow in him or her. In view of this description of the elegy, we can see that both Frank OÆHaraÆs The Day Lady Died and Charles SimicÆs The Tiger can be classified as elegies.
In each of these poems we see that the male speakers are mourning the loss of someone due to death. In OÆHaraÆs The Day Lady Died, the speaker is mourning the loss of the great blues singer Billie Holiday. In SimicÆs The Tiger, the speaker is mourning the loss of a friend, perhaps due to AIDS, and the poem is even dedicated to his friend, ôin memory of George Oppen,ö (Simic, p. 1). In both poems there is a mood and tone of loss and mourning, similar to an elegy.
In OÆHaraÆs The Day Lady Died, the speaker describes his New York City environment. Everything within it seems to be the same as usual, except for one thing. The speaker tells us that for the first time his bank teller changes her behavior, ôMiss Stillwagon / doesnÆt even look up my balance for once in her life,ö (OÆHara, p. 1). While the poem is a lament to the death of the great blues singer, the speaker celebrates her life and talent by providing us with the environment in which she became renowned. However, at the end of the poem, the speaker sees a picture of her in the days New York Post. This picture shows his own grief over his loss, the stuff of many an elegy, but once more he depicts this loss by showing how valuable the music of the ôLadyö was to others, ôàand I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of / leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT / while she whispered a song along the keyboard / to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing,ö (OÆHara, p. 1).
In SimicÆs The Tiger, we are again provided wit
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