Pity the Beautiful

The poem that I chose to recite for Poetry Out Loud was Pity the Beautiful by Dana Gioia. If I haven't ever mentioned before, I strongly dislike poetry all together. None of it makes sense to me and I just can't grasp why everything has to have a meaning that leads to something else. So of course, when Mrs. Healey announced that POL was starting again I began to feel worried. Not only did I hate poetry, I hated talking in front of a class even more. When I began my search for my poem, I never thought that I would enjoy reading it this much. Pity the Beautiful is a poem that I feel like I can truly understand. Being a five-stanza poem, it was relatively easy for me to learn it quickly and be able to rattle it off in maybe fifteen seconds. The more I rehearsed it, the more I liked it. The first three stanzas say that we should feel sorry for the beautiful women and handsome men. It may sound like a crazy thing to say, but it makes sense. However, the last two stanzas reveals the true reasoning as to why the speaker thinks we should feel sorry for these people. It is because these beautiful women and handsome men won't always be this good looking and desirable forever. Not only does this make me laugh a bit, but it shows me that the speaker and I have something in common-we see people for who they really are. When I look at a person, I don't automatically judge them. And I try my best as to not let others think that just because I look this way, does not reflect it. What I also don't like is how beautiful people get things handed to them, just because they are beautiful. Knowing that the person right beside them might have worked even harder for that very same thing and not even getting it. This poem is a great stab to society and even celebrities. I'm glad I'm not the only person who can see that 'beautiful people' such as Kim Kardashian or Justin Bieber, won't always be looked upon as the "babes with big daddies granting their wishes" or "the golden lads whom success always follows”.