Smile for the camera
Undress
Smile for me
Ruthless
Surely you want the
Part
Right Sweetheart?
I'm gonna make you a star
Only if you let me go too far
My casting couch is prepared
How badly do you want it?
Don't be scared
It's our little secret
Don't tell a soul
I make the rules
I have the gold
I run this town
It's a two -way street
You give I take
What a treat, now get off your feet
Never mind that I'm shady
I can make you a leading lady, Baby!
Enter: 2018
Big names from the big screen
And you? Me too they all scream
Why we ask and why not they said
Now comes the day they all dread...
Reigning men are being exposed
Doors are now opened
Once locked and closed
Truth is being spoken across the globe
Dirty little secrets have hit the big time
No more silence for their violent crimes
And the say this is a man's world
I suggest we train our young girls
Minute by minute they pilfer and devour
There is no excuse
For the abuse of Power
From: Uptown Déjà Vu
Summary
“Reigning Men” by Jimmie Ware is a poem centered on place and geography, love and relationships, social justice. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
Analysis
Voice
A personal, first-person speaker combines recollection with direct emotional address.
Style and form
The poem is line-driven, compressed, first-person. The poem moves by accumulation: images, references, and tonal turns build on one another, so meaning emerges from their relationships as much as from narrative sequence.
Themes and imagery
Its strongest thematic currents include place and geography, love and relationships, social justice, aging. Concrete images give those abstractions physical weight, while changes in diction and pace keep the poem from settling into a single emotional register.
Reading the poem
A productive way to read “Reigning Men” is to watch how its images change function as the poem progresses. Details that initially establish scene or memory become emotional evidence. The result is a poem whose argument is carried through association, rhythm, and image as much as through explicit statement.
Explore this poem
Source & rights
Source: Uptown Déjà Vu
Rights: Copyright controlled by the rights holder. Published here with permission.