The title of the poem is Nancy. It appeared in an anthology of English-language poems that I had as a textbook in a high school English class (1970-1974).
The title refers, of course, to the comic strip character drawn by Ernie Bushmiller. I vaguely remember that she was being characterized (in the poem) as being an unhappy child, perhaps prone to temper tantrums.
The poem, as I recall, opens by name-checking Fritzi Ritz, Nancy’s aunt and legal guardian. I believe she was getting ready to go out. I also believe that it was implied that Fritzi was a prostitute.
Does anyone know where I might be able to find this poem for a re-read?
PASADENA POEM An flight ah freedom flight from futures , along skyways of wonderful advertisements Ah rage of … just like Fritzi Ritz screeching NO !!! at enterprising Nancy from a dog - eared copy of Comics On Parade under the bed .
If I had to venture a guess, Joe Brainard or someone in his circle might be the poet. Their obsession with, and irreverent appropriation of Nancy was a constant thorn in Ernie Bushmiller’s side in the 60s and 70s.
I just figured that, if the poem had correctly mentioned “Aunt Fritzi”, then you and Exapno would’ve found it in no time flat — and so I instead googled poems with “Aunt Fritzy”, and it obligingly popped up.
Putting Nancy by Edward Field back into Google books doesn’t turn up any anthologies, just some later collections of Field’s poetry. I suppose that not every school-oriented textbook made it into the college libraries that Google draws from.
What really irks me is that Field misspelled Fritzi as “Fritzy”! Nobody at the august and pretentious New York Review of Books thought to fact check the spelling? And Google’s search engine was thwarted by a mere typo? Where’s artificial intelligence when you need it?