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Tarzan and me
(4)Edgar Rice Burroughs is a total hack writer and racist, and yet there was something about his Tarzan books that appealed to me when I was a child. Perhaps things would have been different if my parent’s house had contained a stack of Rudyard Kipling books instead, and then maybe not. Maybe Kipling was just Burroughs with style.
I’m moved to share this factoid with you because, when tagged on Facebook to name 15 books that have “stayed with you” in 15 minutes, up popped Edgar Rice Burroughs, along with Faulkner and Welty and O’Connor.
Riding the ElephantWhen I was a wild jungle child,
I called the queen of heaven tree my home
and rejoiced that I had Tarzan for my father.Those days I rode the fuel-tank elephant,
I laughed through slapping leaves and tangling vines,
I smiled to be a wild jungle child.Feral and free, I swung from tree to tree,
I beat my undeveloped chest and screamed
in the days when I had Tarzan for my father.I danced to drumbeats under the full moon.
My berth was in the lofty tree of heaven
when I was a wild jungle child,peering outside in through the window,
big-eyed at my mother’s picture kitchen,
in the days when I had Tarzan for my father.I leapt from overhanging limbs with leopards,
I walked with lions and I ran with panthers
when I was a wild jungle child,
in the days when I had Tarzan for a father.— Sherry Chandler, from Dance the Black-Eyed Girl (Finishing Line, 20003)
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poetry, Sherry Chandler
4 Responses to “Tarzan and me”
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I loved your poem Riding the Elephant. I, too, was a child of Tarzan. To some extent, I still am–I use the pseudonym Korak or Korakk on the web.
But I’m going to argue with you. Burroughs was not a total racist. His protagonist was a white man in a black world, but many of his black characters were as well realized and sympathetic as his blacks. Certainly by the time you’ve reached the tenth book or so, Tarzan himself prefers the people who naturally lived in the jungle. Outsiders from civilization are consistently shown as either foolish or evil.
Tarzan wasn’t a symbol of white superiority. If anything, he was a symbol of animal superiority. Burroughs was a man of his time, and about as open-minded and fair a man of his time as can be imagined. 100 years from now, we will all be regarded as racists too.
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Joanie DiMartino March 30th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Always loved the cadence and imagery of this one! A beautiful blending of the perspective of an adult with the imagination and whimsy of a child! Thanks for reintroducing me to an old friend!
Ciao!
Joanie
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Sherry, what fun…I love this! And it was such a treat to hear you read it.
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sherry April 1st, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Thanks, Joanie & Jessica — It’s a fun piece. I needed to remember some of my older work. And the reading was a lot of fun.
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Sherry has also received an Artist Enrichment grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women.
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