THIS IS A poem for all the things that have been degraded because people think they are gross and ugly. It's a poem that appreciates the beauty in the weird and different. Basically it's a poem for Uni kids. Just kidding!

Actually, “Ungainly Things” by Robert Wallace, who received the Cleveland Arts Prize in 1969, is, on one level, a poem about an artist and a toad.

On the other hand, it's a poem about the magic of art and art's ability to change how we look at the world. This is the ultimate beauty of the poem, and Wallace's imagery does a lot to convince us of the power of art.

“UNGAINLY THINGS”
by Robert Wallace

A regular country toad — pebbly,

squat,

shadow-green

as the shade of the spruces

in the garden

he came from — rode

to Paris in a hatbox

to Lautrec’s

studio (skylights

on the skies of Paris)

and stared

from searchlight eyes,

dim yellow; bow-armed,

ate

cutworms from a box,

hopped

occasionally

among the furniture and easels,

while the clumsy little painter

studied

him in charcoal

until he was beautiful.

One day

he found his way

down stairs toward the world

again,

into the streets of Montmartre,

and, missing him, the painter-dwarf

followed

peering among cobbles,

Laughed at, searching

until long past dark

the length of the Avenue Frochot,

over and over,

for the fisted, marble-eyed

fellow

no one would ever see again

except in sketches

that make ungainly things beautiful.

For Robert Wallace's book on how to write poems, “Writing Poems,” look here.