Stevie Smith - 'The Jungle Husband'

Dearest Evelyn, I often think of you
Out with the guns in the jungle stew
Yesterday I hittapotamus
I put the measurements down for you but they got lost in the fuss
It’s not a good thing to drink out here
You know, I’ve practically given it up dear.
Tomorrow I am going alone a long way
Into the jungle. It is all grey
But green on top
Only sometimes when a tree has fallen
The sun comes down plop, it is quite appalling.
You never want to go in a jungle pool
In the hot sun, it would be the act of a fool
Because it’s always full of anacondas, Evelyn, not looking ill-fed
I’ll say. So no more now, from your loving husband Wilfred.

Analysis: The poem was written in a letter form, the tone of the poem is quite jaunty.  It retains the same rhyming scheme (aabb) but not consistently and each stanza has a rhyming couplet at the end of lines, except line 10 & 11 which has a half rhyming and line 9 top is responding plop in the middle of line 11. 

Those irregular rhyming couplets may intend to reveal different states of this husband’s mind.  When I looked at it closer, I found that plain words were used to describe his thoughts for his wife which are in contrast to imagery descriptive words of his adventure in the jungle.  He could be a husband of male chauvinism. 

'Hittapotamus' and ‘practically’ are interesting words here, which might tell us that this husband is alcoholic and has yet given up.  

Fallen/appalling is a half rhyming which could reflect on his mind and world are collapsed. 

 

From pool/fool and ill-fed/Wilfred: the message could be that he has been escaping from his family responsibilities, he has nothing to offer but he still wanted his wife to love him.