Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Ron Padgett’s "Louisiana Perch" is a playful yet thoughtful meditation on the fluidity of language, the transience of meaning, and the absurdity of desire. The poem moves through an intellectual reflection on linguistic evolution before abruptly shifting into a compressed narrative of love, longing, and repetition, using humor and rhythm to expose the way language and emotion intertwine. Through its structural shifts and tonal juxtapositions, "Louisiana Perch" embodies the idea that words, like people and experiences, are in constant motion, both disappearing and transforming into something new.

The poem begins with a statement about linguistic decay: "Certain words disappear from a language: their meanings become attenuated grow antique, insanely remote or small, vanish." The list of transformations—attenuated, antique, remote, small, vanish—suggests a slow erosion, where words shrink in significance before fading entirely. This is a natural linguistic process; words once vital become archaic, slipping from usage until they feel insanely remote to contemporary speakers. The phrase insanely remote adds an element of exaggeration, as if the poet is drawing attention to how absurdly distant the past can feel, even when its traces still linger in language.

Then comes the first major shift: "Or become something else: / transport." Here, Padgett points out another fate of words—not disappearance, but transformation. Transport itself is an example; it can mean movement, transformation, or emotional elevation. This pivot introduces the idea that meaning is unstable, setting up the later interplay between words and desire.

The poem then moves into a compressed, almost cinematic narrative: "Mac / the truck driver falls for a waitress where the water flows." The sudden specificity of Mac the truck driver brings the poem into a different realm, from abstract linguistic meditation to a slice of Americana. The phrase where the water flows is poetic and vague—does it refer to a river, the Gulf of Mexico, or merely the idea of constant movement? This lack of specificity reinforces the fluidity of both language and experience.

The next declaration—"The / great words are those without meaning: from a their or Or the for a the The those"—returns to linguistic theory, this time in a more absurdist register. Padgett presents a string of function words (from, a, their, or, the, for, a, the, The, those) that, on their own, carry no substantial meaning yet are structurally essential to language. By labeling them "great words," the poem humorously inverts conventional ideas of poetic significance, suggesting that meaninglessness—or at least the scaffolding of language—is what truly endures.

Then, just as abruptly, the poem returns to its narrative: "The rest are fragile, transitory like the waitress, a / beautiful slender young girl!" Here, "the rest" refers both to words with concrete meanings and to human experiences, reinforcing the idea that both are fleeting. The waitress becomes a symbol of ephemerality, desirable yet impermanent. The exclamation—"a / beautiful slender young girl!"—exaggerates the speaker’s emotional response, almost as if mimicking the melodrama of a love-struck declaration.

The final lines explode into pure repetition and desire: "I love her! Want to / marry her! Have hamburgers! / Have hamburgers! Have hamburgers!" The structure collapses into a mix of romantic longing and absurd fixation on food, treating both with equal intensity. The shift from "I love her!" to "Have hamburgers!" creates a comical contrast, as if the urgency of passion is indistinguishable from the urgency of hunger. The phrase "Have hamburgers!" is repeated three times, almost like a chant, reducing human impulse to something primal and immediate.

In "Louisiana Perch," Padgett explores how words and emotions alike can transform, disappear, or persist in unexpected ways. By juxtaposing linguistic theory with a half-formed love story, the poem underscores the instability of meaning, the fleeting nature of desire, and the way language can both articulate and obscure our deepest impulses. The final repetition of hamburgers suggests that, in the end, even grand declarations of love are no more permanent than a craving—both are subject to change, to disappearance, to being replaced by something else entirely.

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