A Nation’s Donald Duck

About this poem

Bedecked with a yellow orange bill, legs, and webbed feet, the ubiquitous Donald Duck, like Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger too, is a fictional American cartoon puppet from the Walt Disney Company, depicted usually sporting a sailor shirt, cap, and a bow tie, and wearing trousers. As an anthropomorphic duck, Donald Duck is characterized as being easily provoked and as displaying an explosive temper, not unlike some prominent politicians and public officials who serve the general public; often quacking nonsensically in cacophonous polysyllabic diatribe to garner public attention at any cost with information portrayed as breaking news to some, and as sheer propaganda to others. This poem, “A Nation’s Donald Duck,” is written as an allegorical composition with the aim of presenting both a moral and a political message. Love him or dislike him, Donald Duck is always quacking with pizazz. This four-stanza 7-7-7-7 metered poem, with the second and fourth lines rhyming in each stanza, is composed to display how cartoon characters can be projected onto living characters, just as living characters can be easily projected onto fictional characters. Fiction often reveals the truth, even as the truth is often glossed over or masked by fiction. more »