Welcome back to the Daily Poem here on the Close Reeds Podcast Network. I'm David Currie.

Today's poem is by Phyllis McGinley. She lived from 1905 to 1978 and is known primarily for

writing children's books and poetry, poetry which is quite humorous and satirical at times.

And she won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961. A few weeks ago before Christmas, I read a sampler of

Phyllis McGinley Christmas-themed poems. But this is a New Year themed poem. It's actually called

12th Night. And while I realize today is not technically

a 12th night that I'm recording and running this episode, it still works for this particular week

as the 12 days of Christmas begin to wrap up. So here it is. 12th night by Phyllis McGinley.

Down from the window, take the withered holly, feed the torn tissue to the literal blaze.

Now, now at last, are come the melancholy anticlimactic days.

Here in the light of morning, hard, unvarnished, let us with haste dismantle the tired tree of ornaments.

A trifle chipped and tarnished.

Pretend we do not see how all the rooms seem

shabbier and meaner and the tired house a little less than snug. Fold up the tinsel.

Run the vacuum cleaner over the littered rug. Nothing is left. The postman passes by now, bearing no

gifts, no kind or seasonal word. The icebox yield no wing,

no nibbled thigh now from any holiday bird. Sharp in the streets the north wind plagues its

bedders while Christmas snow to gutters is consigned. Nothing remains except the thank-you letters, most

tedious to the mind, and the

guilt gadget duplicated, which is marked for exchange at Abercrombie Fitches.

When I was reading about Phyllis McGinley, doing a little bit of research, I was reading

about how many of her contemporaries, including Sylvia Plath, were not fond of McGinley's choice to write

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