Singles Cruise (Kathryn Maris)

Okay, I confess - I do not understand why the poem Singles Cruise by Kathryn Maris is an accomplished enough poem to be published (!) in Poetry (!) and prominently displayed on the Poetry Foundation website (!).

It's an incredibly dull read. The language is prose-y - the kind of language you'd find a manual or work document. It describes the most commonly found singles on those cruises as those who love either someone who has died or someone who does not return their affection or that they are the person whose affections for a loved one have waned. And since they are all partnered with an impossible match, they keep coming on singles cruises, sustaining the industry.

Is this poem supposed to be (darkly) funny? Perhaps for some, though not for me.

If you like this poem, will you let me know why? I seriously don't see it. But, based on its publication, I get that it's nominally good. I just wonder why/how.


Favorite line: "Some, like the recently widowed, were attached to ghosts."