September Poems II: The Pawpaw

  

I love the way old newspapers ran poetry on every subject imaginable. A lot of it was really bad poetry, but one can admire the enthusiasm and the range of topics. (Read my article “Newspaper Poetry: Loved and Scorned” for more on this enthusiasm.) This month, I offer two sets of poems, one on school days, and these samples of  poems about pawpaw, America’s forgotten native fruit. Do you remember the childhood song, "Way Down Yonder in the Pawpaw Patch?" In nursery school, as we sang, "picking up pawpaws, put 'em in your pocket," we walked in a circle, stooping and pretending to pick up pawpaws. I had no idea as a child what they were and later thought it must have been something imaginary.

I was raised in pawpaw states, but my parents, who are from Colorado and Washington state, were not. However, pawpaws were very familiar to my ancestors - and probably yours, too, if they lived outside of cities in the eastern, southern and midwestern states as far west as southeast Nebraska. They are America's largest native fruit, the only temperate tree in a tropical family. It’s said that chilled pawpaws were George Washington’s favorite dessert; Thomas Jefferson planted the understory trees at Monticello. I was able to finally try some last year thanks to my friend Jim, who planted them in his yard.

     So why are they largely unknown today? Habitat loss affected them, but also, they have a very short shelf life - about two days unrefrigerated and a week refrigerated - making commercial production of fresh pawpaw impractical. Known by a variety of nicknames, they’ve been called the Hoosier banana, Panama plum, tomato of the woods, custard apple, Missouri banana, Appalachian banana, etc. Most people describe their taste as similar to a cross between a banana, mango and cantaloupe. Others describe hints of pineapple or passion fruit.

     Newspapers where my ancestors lived mentioned the pawpaw routinely, as in an 1883 notice that “The luscious pawpaws are ripe” in a September 1883 Fort Wayne Sentinel, or “The pawpaw business – ask the girls” in a September 1878 Coffeyville Weekly Journal. There were pawpaw parties, just as there were “nutting” parties and persimmon hunts – a fun, acceptable way for young men and women to get together. It’s not surprising then, that they would be the subject of poems.

“The Pawpaw” 

Asia hath banyon, and Africa hath palm,

And Europe the sweet-scented haw

And the isles of the South hath their forests of balm,

Where blazes the brilliant macaw;

The fern on the ground and the pine on the crest

Of the mountain, my sympathies draw

But far more I love thee, thou plant of the west,

My native, my backwoods Pawpaw. 

Where the woodland is darkest – so dark is its shade,

That the sun on the roof of its trees

Can only peep through where a parting is made

In the thatch, by the hands of the breeze

In Kentucky’s deep woods, where my heart has its home,

Where the flashing-eyed hunter 

And squaw of old were oft wont to roam,

There grows the green, polished Pawpaw. 

  

     It’s true that pawpaws grow where this poem describes, “where the woodland is darkest.” They are an understory tree and grow in the shade. The next poem starts off like a nature poem, but it is not. It was written by the editor of the newspaper. Newspaper editors often complained about the awful original poetry readers sent in, but several couldn't seem to resist writing their own.

“Pawpaws Is Ripe” 

By Sol Miller

     

The sunny plains of Kansas dozed

In soft October haze;

The wayside leaves and grass disclosed

Scarce sign of autumn days

The cornstalks bent their ears of gold

To list the cricket’s din:

The fields of sprouting wheat foretold

The farmers’ laden bin. 

     Eight stanzas follow, with the narrator watching a steady stream of homesteaders moving into Kansas. Then he sees one lone wagon headed the opposite direction. Instead of the crisp white canvas top of a Conestoga-type wagon, it has a faded quilt. The wheels are four different sizes with “many a missing spoke,” and it is pulled with a three-legged mule and a one-horned cow. The master of the wagon had a brimless hat with his hair poking through the crown and a boot on one foot, a shoe on the other. He had nine “rheumy-eyed” kids and six “hungry curs of low degree.” His wife is described thus: 

The mother, as a penance sore

For loss of youth and hope,

 Seemed to have vowed, long years before,

To fast from comb and soap.

     The narrator urges the ragged traveler to turn back around and head to rich, free Kansas farmland to support his brood. But the man replies, “Stranger, pawpaws is ripe!”

“Don’t tell me of your corn and wheat —

What do I care for sich?

Don’t say your schools is hard to beat

And Kansas sile is rich.

Stranger, a year’s been lost by me,

Searching your Kansas siles

And not a pawpaw did I see,

For miles and miles and miles!

“Missouri’s got enough for me,

The bottom timber’s wide;

The best of living thar is free,

And spread on every side.

In course, the health ain’t good for some,

But we’re not of that stripe.

Hey! Bet and Tobe! We’re gwien home!

Git up! Pawpaws is ripe!

     The narrator watched them as they disappeared on their way back to Missouri. Pawpaws are native to eastern Kansas, though, so maybe the traveler was returning from the western plains, where there definitely were no pawpaws. 

Pawpaws were associated with a small-town and country lifestyle. The following poem emphasizes that.

“The Papaw” 

By Edwin S. Hopkins for the Courier-Journal

Don’t like pawpaws, well I swan!

Your taste mus’ be right fur gone!

Why, persimmons and blackhaws

Jist ain’t no where to pawpaws!

Elm tree buds and wild cherries,

May apples and mulberries,

Sheep sorrel and peppergrass

Spicewood bark and sassafras

Hackberries and hickory nuts,

Blackberries and black caps,

Chickasaws, to be edzact –

Noth’ to us boys, in fact,

We’d find growin’ wild to eatin the woods, 

Er sour er sweet

Ever tasted half as good

Ez them frosted pawpaws would. 

     The poem continues in this vein. Edwin Sylvester Hopkins (1848-1919) was born in Kentucky but lived most of his life in Indiana. He served as president of Franklin College in Franklin, Indiana. He was also superintendent of schools in Richmond, Indiana, and for 15 years in Jeffersonville, Indiana. He published poetry in Hoosier newspapers and other publications like Puck. 

If these really bad original pawpaw poems haven't wowed you, how about two even worse examples? They were shared in columnist Bide Dudley's column in 1939 after he told readers how much he loved pawpaws. The first is by Frances Davis of St. Joseph, Missouri, which she wrote especially for Bide, along with a promise to send him the fruit.

Out in the old Missouri woods

Where the pawpaws grow!

Out to gather them by the load!

And when the frost is in the air

When the fall is here,

Then time to begin to stir,

Out for pawpaw land!

And the foliage on the trees turns

To grandeur,

There are red, yellow, and

Emerald green,

Then the pawpaws will turn from

Green to golden yellow

It will be time time to gather them,

Said Bide to thee,

"Please remember me."

Miss Ellabelle Mae Doolittle of Pee Dee, Missouri penned the next (bizarre) gem.

The pawpaws will be ripe in the fall,

And I shall be very delighted

Some of them are big and some small.

At least, those I have sighted.

They are gooey inside like custard

And have black or brown seeds

I wonder how they'd taste with mustard!

I don't like the idea -- no indeed!

My sister's child, Teeny Rickets

threw a rock at Grandpa Bone

Don't do that, Teeney,

You little jiggets,

Would you make an old man groan?

But getting back to dear old pawpaws ---

I say again they are a delight,

Did you notice that school teacher

Tuesday?

I swear she was high as a kite.

There were also, of course, poems in which pawpaws were part of the scenery, but not the focus of the poem, as in Maurice Thompsons’ sonnet, “The Wabash.” It's a treat to read after Ellabelle Mae Doolittle's verses. This is the first stanza:

There is a river singing in between

Bright fringes of the pawpaw and sycamore

That stir to fragrant winds on either shore,

Where tall blue herons stretch lithe necks and lean

Over clear currents flowing cool and thin

Through the clean furrows of the pebbly floor. 

     Maurice Thompson is best known today as the author of Alice of Old Vincennes, or at least to anyone from Vincennes. He returned to this locale in another poem which begins:

Where water grass grows over green

On damp cool flats by gentle streams,

Still as a ghost and sad of mien

With half closed eyes the heron dreams. 

Above him in the sycamore

The flicker beats a dull tattoo

Through pawpaw groves the soft airs pour

Gold dust of bloom and fragrance new. 

Sources:

     Sonnet: Evansville Journal (Evansville, Indiana), 31 Jan 1877, p. 8.

     “The Pawpaw,” The Kansas Chief (Troy, Kansas), 23 Oct 1879, p. 1. 

     “Pawpaws Is Ripe,” Smith County Pioneer (Smith Centre, Kansas), 5 Nov 1885, p. 3.

     Hopkins, Edwin S. “The Papaw,” The Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky), 27 Oct 1889, p. 19. 

     “Go To the Woods,” The Coffeyville Weekly Journal, 20 Oct 1893, p. 1. 

"Bide Dudley In New York," St. Joseph News-Press (St. Joseph, Missouri), 22 March 1939, p. 5.