My Father's House
George Dance
----------------------------
This is my father's house, although
Some others live here now, I know.
They told me that it was all right
To come inside and see it now.
Dad laid those gray foundation blocks
And built the rest (out of a box)
Toiling after a full day's work.
I helped, though I was only six.
See, here's the back door I would use
And here's where I'd remove my shoes
On entry; here I'd put my stuff
then, when allowed, climb up these stairs.
In this room I'd wash many a dish,
Gaze out this window, and I'd wish
To be so many other places.
(Wishy-washy? Yeah, I guess!)
Outside, the garden that he grew
Where I would work the summer through
While watching my friends run and play
Mysterious games I never knew.
That room's all changed; oh, where is it,
The one chair I was let to sit?
(For boys can be such dirty things)
Which the corner where boys were put?
Down that hall there is a room
Where I'd be shut (as in a tomb)
After the meal, to make no noise,
To play with toys or read, and then
Lights out, in bed by nine each night:
Some nights wanting to pee with fright,
Face and pajama bottoms down
Where for my father's belt I'd wait.
Oh, if I were a millionaire
I'd buy my father's house, and there
I'd build a bonfire, oh so high
Its flames would light up all the air.
Amadeus Jinn
"George Dance" <george...@yahoo.ca> wrote in message news:1188738292.0...@r29g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
Wow... :)
--
AJ http://Here.Nu
http://Midis.Here.Nu
http://Art.Here.Nu
Vera
stepfather.
If your story is real, George, did this boy have siblings who were
treated differently?
Had Mum reacted?
Who bought the toys?
Just interested in this disturbing poem.
Regards,
Vera
"George Dance" <george...@yahoo.ca> wrote in message
news:1188738292.0...@r29g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
>I've heard a similar story but in that case, the master was the child's
stepfather.
*
If your story is real, George, did this boy have siblings who were
treated differently?
Had Mum reacted?
Who bought the toys?
Just interested in this disturbing poem.
Regards,
Vera
George Dance
My Father's House
----------------------------
This is my father's house, although
Some others live here now, I know.
They said that it was quite all right
For me to come and see it now.
Dad laid those gray foundation blocks
And built the rest (out of a box)
Toiling after a full day's work.
I helped, though I was only six.
See, here's the back door I would use
And here's where I'd remove my shoes
On entry; here I'd put my stuff
Then, when allowed, climb up these stairs.
In this room I'd wash many a dish,
Gaze out this window, and I'd wish
To be so many other places.
(Wishy-washy? Yeah, I guess!)
Outside, the garden that he grew
Where I would work the summer through,
Watching my friends run and play
Mysterious games I never knew.
That room's all changed; oh, where is it,
The one chair I was let to sit?
(For boys can be such dirty things)
Which the corner where boys were put?
Down that hall there is a room
Where I'd be shut (as in a tomb)
After the meal, to make no noise,
To play with toys or read, and then
Lights out, in bed by nine each night:
Some nights wanting to pee with fright,
Face and pajama bottoms down
While for my father's belt I'd wait.
George Dance
> I've heard a similar story but in that case, the master was the child's
> stepfather.
>
> If your story is real, George, did this boy have siblings who were
> treated differently?
>
> Had Mum reacted?
>
> Who bought the toys?
>
> Just interested in this disturbing poem.
>
> Regards,
>
> Vera
>
The boy is a composite; largely based on my own experience, but with
some details other men have told me about their childhoods. In my
case, I have one sibling, a sister; she was never spanked, but her
workload was at least as heavy as mine.
> Had Mum reacted?
>
I has a stepmother; I don't recall her and Dad ever disagreeing on how
to treat the children. Nor would we complain about one parent to the
other: that was "tattling," itself a punishable offence (when done by
a child on an adult).
> Who bought the toys?
>
Oh, both my parents. I always had toys and books, clean warm clothes,
and food to eat. They weren't abusive or neglectful. I'd call it a
rather normal childhood for the time. IME every home had special rules
for the children to follow, every child had chores to do, and most of
the boys were subject to corporal punishment. In fact, I'd judge that
parents who didn't do those things would have been judged neglectful
of a parent's duty.
> Just interested in this disturbing poem.
>
Thank you for reading and commenting.
> Regards,
>
> Vera
Rob
George Dance <george...@yahoo.ca> writes
should do so with some kind of regular pattern. When it fails (as here)
to do that then the reader's expectation is destroyed and the suspicion
of laziness creeps in.
And more showing and less telling wouldn't hurt, either.
Rob
--
Rob Evans
--
Posted via NewsDemon.com - Premium Uncensored Newsgroup Service
------->>>>>>http://www.NewsDemon.com<<<<<<------
Unlimited Access, Anonymous Accounts, Uncensored Broadband Access
George Dance
> In message <1188821442.393973.242...@o80g2000hse.googlegroups.com>,
> George Dance <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> writes
> of laziness creeps in.
>
This rhymes in a regular pattern: essentially the aaba of Frost's
"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". To make it different from
Frost's poem, I varied the last a in this pattern:
S1: off-rhyme
S2: off-rhyme
S3: consonance
S4: off-rhyme
S5: perfect rhyme
S6: off-rhyme
S7: consonance
S8: off-rhyme
S9" perfect rhyme
I like that, even if no one else does.
> And more showing and less telling wouldn't hurt, either.
>
I dunno about that. This piece is a monologue, after all. And there is
plenty of showing going on: the speaker's walking all over the house
pointing to different things.
> Rob
> --
> Rob Evans
>
> --
> Posted via NewsDemon.com - Premium Uncensored Newsgroup Service
> ------->>>>>>http://www.NewsDemon.com<<<<<<------
> Unlimited Access, Anonymous Accounts, Uncensored Broadband Access- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
George Dance
> In message <1188821442.393973.242...@o80g2000hse.googlegroups.com>,
Sorry, Rob. In my last reply, I got caught up in what you were saying,
and forgot to say thank you. Thank you, as always, for giving my work
your time and attention.
Amadeus Jinn
"Rob" <r...@mla001.demon.co.uk> wrote in message news:2q4pGDBZ...@mla001.demon.co.uk...
Not at all to me. Although I'm always suspicious of you.
>
> And more showing and less telling wouldn't hurt, either.
True.
Amadeus Jinn
"George Dance" <george...@yahoo.ca> wrote in message news:1188831016.5...@r29g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
I think that off-rhyme has been used by the best poets I know.
I wish it was more prevalent.
>
>
>> And more showing and less telling wouldn't hurt, either.
>>
>
>
> I dunno about that. This piece is a monologue, after all. And there is
> plenty of showing going on: the speaker's walking all over the house
> pointing to different things.
True, you post images.
Its monologue nature requires a lot.
Vera
I'm puzzled, George. You say that you don't remember your stepmother
yet "both parents bought toys" !
I was just looking for the kind soul in that household.
I did deserve a few slaps in my childhood but with the hand, never with a
belt. At the age of nine I and my siblings worked at side of our parents
in the cotton fields. I didn't mind the work but the Queensland sun
was savage even in winter midday. I suffered bad headaches and my nose
used to bleed.
However, we didn't resent our parents for our work load. This was during
the depression and we were glad to find a way to earn a few shillings.
As far as toys!!!
My sister and I had to share one doll but I wasn't interested in toys. My
greatest love was a pet magpie and I used to sit and watch the ants
going about their business.
By the way, I had no problem with your rhyming!
Regards,
Vera
Rob
George Dance <george...@yahoo.ca> writes
A vital first step in settling for Duckrish poetry.
>
>
>> And more showing and less telling wouldn't hurt, either.
>>
>
>
>I dunno about that.
Clearly.
>This piece is a monologue, after all. And there is
>plenty of showing going on: the speaker's walking all over the house
>pointing to different things.
>
It's certainly mono-something.
Spyder
Spyder
ggamble
wrote:
>
>I'm
>I
>I
>I
>I
>I
>
>we
>we
>I I
>I
>I
>
>Regards,
>Vera
Josh Hill
Beautiful.
--
Josh
"This keeps out the stalkers, the obsessed, the dysfunctional, the abusive, and
the general, all-around jerks who get off on turning a group so toxic that nobody's
left after a while but the person and some of his associates or collaborators.
It's the slow poisoning of a group." - J. Michael Straczynski
Leisha
"My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning. Is there a character, a
recognizable situation within a detail-rich, invoked scene, or any
tension created by your monologue? You leave the boy in bed with his
face and his pants down, but nothing happens. Where's the action?
There are only formless feelings about the action, except washing
dishes, which is in itself vague: what kind of dishes? Were the dishes
cracked or broken, rich or poor? Did you have to stand on a chair to
wash them?
At first I thought the child was homeless, living in a box. Taking
shoes off made sense, but then came stairs and a kitchen, etc. Unlike
Vera, I am not looking for some related-to-the-real-world *truth*
about this poem, but I would like it if the poem were true to itself.
How do you get from the kitchen to the bedroom? The house is a
collection of disconnected, floating rooms. Who is this kid? What does
this all mean to him? There is more in your answer to Vera than there
is in the poem. If doing chores and being spanked doesn't matter, why
write a poem about it, except as a rhyming exercise? (I love slant
rhymes, fwiw.) Have you read any Harold Brodkey?
I would lose the "wishy-washy" line.
Leisha
ggamble
wrote:
>On Mon, 03 Sep 2007 18:42:03 -0700, ggamble <f...@net.com> wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 4 Sep 2007 07:51:58 +1000, "Vera" <vera...@iinet.net.au>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>I'm
>>>I
>>>I
>>>I
>>>I
>>>I
>>>
>>>we
>>>we
>>
>>>I I
>>>I
>>
>>>I
>>>
>>>Regards,
>>
>>>Vera
>
>Beautiful.
Hey Josh,
long time no see.
How's it going?
George Dance
>
> > I dunno about that. This piece is a monologue, after all. And there is
> > plenty of showing going on: the speaker's walking all over the house
> > pointing to different things.
>
> Monologues require a lot of showing because they are monologues. Read
> "My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning.
Hi, Leisha. I've read Browning's poem, though not when I was writing
MFH. I reread it after your mention, though, and found I'd remembered
its plot more or less correctly:
http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/288.html
All that the Duke shows is the two pieces of art; the rest is him
mainly an account of his memories.
> Is there a character, a
> recognizable situation within a detail-rich, invoked scene, or any
> tension created by your monologue?
I would say so. The 'boy' is the character; he may be talking to a
friend, or to himself. The only place I could see us disagreeing is on
'detail-rich'.
> You leave the boy in bed with his
> face and his pants down, but nothing happens.
Right; it's a picture from which you infer that the boy was beaten (as
opposed to any statement that the boy was beaten).
(Though that's not really what's happening. What's really happening is
that the speaker - the man or older boy - is standing in the house
remembering himself in bed etc.)
> Where's the action?
Well, if I'd put in action - have the father using the belt, with the
boy yelling - that would have been telling. Instead, I gave just one
visual image - one picture - that showed that. That's the approach I
used throughout the poem (which is one reason I didn't understand
Rob's comment at all).
> There are only formless feelings about the action, except washing
> dishes, which is in itself vague: what kind of dishes?
Ah, I thought we'd disagree about 'detail-rich'. That's the Naturalist/
Romantic distinction I've spoken about before. A Naturalist would say:
"Include as many details as you can, to make your story seem as real
as possible"; a Romantic: "Include only details which enhance the
story or some other aspect of the piece." It wouldn't have enhanced
anything if I'd given the dishes' colour, texture, or any other info
about them.
> Were the dishes
> cracked or broken, rich or poor? Did you have to stand on a chair to
> wash them?
>
There's the above distinction in practice: I can't see that it makes
any difference to the story what the dishes looked like. OTOH, there
is a very good reason for not describing them: Any reader who has
washed dishes as a kid would imagine those dishes, which would help
him identify with the speaker. In general, I think it's best to give
the reader only the details that he must know for the sake of your
theme, and let her fill in the rest from her own memory.
> At first I thought the child was homeless, living in a box. Taking
> shoes off made sense, but then came stairs and a kitchen, etc.
Hmm ... that's a concern that no one has mentioned before; is '(out of
a box)' unclear? I like that ref., not just for the rhyme but for the
story (it makes it credible that one man could build a quite nice
house); how big a worry is it that someone might not get it? That's
definitely something for me to look at on any later revision; I'm
gonna think about that.
> Unlike
> Vera, I am not looking for some related-to-the-real-world *truth*
> about this poem, but I would like it if the poem were true to itself.
> How do you get from the kitchen to the bedroom?
You'd walk - d'uuh! <jk>. But in this case the speaker doesn't walk
anywhere but up the stairs to the kitchen, where he first looks out
the window and then turns to look 'that room' and 'that hall'. (Then
there's a coda, which could be him anywhere or years afterward; that
detail does not matter a whit.)
> The house is a
> collection of disconnected, floating rooms.
The only thing about the rooms is that they're used to show, rather
than tell, the story of the speaker's childhood. For example, 'that
room' that he sees from the kitchen could be either the dining room or
the living room. Even that's not important. The only important details
of that room are the ones that show (don't tell) the reader that: (1)
the boy was allowed to sit on only one chair; and (2) the boy did
corner time.
> Who is this kid?
It's a memory of the speaker's: of himself, back when he lived with
his father in that house. That's all that's important: this poem's
about the speaker - the older boy or man - and the details are all
meant to show (not tell) the reader about him.
> What does
> this all mean to him?
That's what the last stanza is about. I don't tell you what the
speaker's memories mean to him, but I give one thought of that should
show what they mean to him: He'd like to burn the house down.
> There is more in your answer to Vera than there
> is in the poem. If doing chores and being spanked doesn't matter, why
> write a poem about it, except as a rhyming exercise?
Who said it doesn't matter? I was pretty fucked up by memories of my
childhood for a number of years, and I bet a lot of others are that
way still. It would matter to them. I think it could also matter to
some present or future parents, who could see things differently as a
result of reading it. I'm as proud of this poem's message as I am of
its rhyme.
> (I love slant
> rhymes, fwiw.) Have you read any Harold Brodkey?
>
No. I'll google.
> I would lose the "wishy-washy" line.
>
There's a good chance I'll do that. It's strange, something I've never
seen a precedent for: interrupting the poem to make a pun, as it were.
OTOH, the fact that I've never seen it done inclines me to use it.
The reason it's there now is as precisely one of the reality-enhancing
details that we were talking about earlier. The speaker is either
thinking all this or talking a blue streak to an unheard companion.
(That's not important.) It's perfectly reasonable either for him to
think the pun, or for his companion to do so and say it.)
Thanks for taking the time to read and comment in detail, Leisha. When
I reconsider a poem, I go to the relevant thread and reread the crits
as well. I'm glad to have yours in hand.
George Dance
> "George Dance" <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> wrote in messagenews:1188831016.5...@r29g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
>
> >> A poem can rhyme or not rhyme. However, if it's going to rhyme, it
> >> should do so with some kind of regular pattern. When it fails (as here)
> >> to do that then the reader's expectation is destroyed and the
> > spicion
> >> of laziness creeps in.
>
> > This rhymes in a regular pattern: essentially the [aaxa] of Frost's
> > "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". To make it different from
> > Frost's poem, I varied the last a in this pattern:
>
> > S1: off-rhyme
> > S2: off-rhyme
> > S3: consonance
> > S4: off-rhyme
> > S5: perfect rhyme
> > S6: off-rhyme
> > S7: consonance
> > S8: off-rhyme
> > S9" perfect rhyme
>
> > I like that, even if no one else does.
>
> I think that off-rhyme has been used by the best poets I know.
> I wish it was more prevalent.
>
>
You, know, that's funny to me, because the poet who I think uses off-
rhyme best on this list is Peter Gnome, whom you've killfiled. It's
sad how the poetry appreciation on these lists comes second to the
politics.
>
> >> And more showing and less telling wouldn't hurt, either.
>
> > I dunno about that. This piece is a monologue, after all. And there is
> > plenty of showing going on: the speaker's walking all over the house
> > pointing to different things.
>
> True, you post images.
>
Yeah; one thing I liked about this was that the speaker never actually
stated his grievanes with his father; he just pointed to a view and
described it in a way that the reader understood the grievance. So
Rob's 'show, don't tell' comment floored me; I thought that's what I'd
been doing throughout.
> Its monologue nature requires a lot.
>
>
But not too many. I hope you're not agreeing with Leisha that I should
describe the color etc. of the dishes?
George Dance
> In message <1188831016.521194.177...@r29g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
I'm not familiar with that term, but it seems essential for writing
anything with integrity: use all and only what enhances it, whether
some readers might object, or all of them, or not.
>
> >> And more showing and less telling wouldn't hurt, either.
>
> >I dunno about that.
>
> Clearly.
>
Clearly. On my reading, everything I wanted the reader to know, I
showed him.
> >This piece is a monologue, after all. And there is
> >plenty of showing going on: the speaker's walking all over the house
> >pointing to different things.
>
> It's certainly mono-something.
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dramatic_monologue
> Rob
> --
> Rob Evans
>
> --
> Posted via NewsDemon.com - Premium Uncensored Newsgroup Service
> ------->>>>>>http://www.NewsDemon.com<<<<<<------
George Dance
> > to treat the children. Nor would we complain about one parent to the
> > other: that was "tattling," itself a punishable offence (when done by
> > a child on an adult).
>
> > > Who bought the toys?
>
> > Oh, both my parents. I always had toys and books, clean warm clothes,
> > and food to eat. They weren't abusive or neglectful. I'd call it a
> > rather normal childhood for the time. IME every home had special rules
> > for the children to follow, every child had chores to do, and most of
> > the boys were subject to corporal punishment. In fact, I'd judge that
> > parents who didn't do those things would have been judged neglectful
> > of a parent's duty.
>
> I'm puzzled, George. You say that you don't remember your stepmother
> yet "both parents bought toys" !
>
I meant that I don't remember her ever disagreeing with my father over
how he treated the children. OTC, when he spanked me, it was usually
at her urging. I remember her well enough.
> I was just looking for the kind soul in that household.
>
Well, both those parents were kind at times; they weren't evil
caricatures like those the speaker of the poem seems to be recalling.
My father beat me, but he also bought me toys; my stepmother inclicted
much of the work and rules on me, and got Dad to beat me at times, but
she also made my favorite desserts and even got me a puppy. (None of
that is going into this poem, of course; though some day I might write
a poem about the nice memories.)
> I did deserve a few slaps in my childhood but with the hand, never with a
> belt.
Good to hear. Cats give random slaps; it's rather instinctive, which
makes it understandable.
> At the age of nine I and my siblings worked at side of our parents
> in the cotton fields. I didn't mind the work but the Queensland sun
> was savage even in winter midday. I suffered bad headaches and my nose
> used to bleed.
>
> However, we didn't resent our parents for our work load. This was during
> the depression and we were glad to find a way to earn a few shillings.
>
> As far as toys!!!
>
> My sister and I had to share one doll but I wasn't interested in toys. My
> greatest love was a pet magpie and I used to sit and watch the ants
> going about their business.
>
Thx for the memories, and for reminding me of some good ones of my
own. I don't resent my parents any more, but I did for a while, and
this poem is really about that.
> By the way, I had no problem with your rhyming!
>
Thx again. I hope that you could see my my reason for using mainly off-
rhymes (and even one non-rhyme) in the last line of each stanza.
George Dance
> NIce revision George. I like your style in what you write
>
> Spyder
>
Thanks, Joe. But IMO we must be more critical of each other; otherwise
we might look like a Mutual Admiration Society, and there's already
too much of that for my taste on the poetry lists. Which is why I've
looked for things to be critical of in your work.
> >>- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
Amadeus Jinn
"George Dance" <george...@yahoo.ca> wrote in message news:1188942798.7...@50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
What email name? I looked, and can't find him.
Anyone that calls me names or gives me trouble I killfile.
Why would I not? Life is hopefully short.
>
>
>
>>
>> >> And more showing and less telling wouldn't hurt, either.
>>
>> > I dunno about that. This piece is a monologue, after all. And there is
>> > plenty of showing going on: the speaker's walking all over the house
>> > pointing to different things.
>>
>> True, you post images.
>>
>
>
> Yeah; one thing I liked about this was that the speaker never actually
> stated his grievanes with his father; he just pointed to a view and
> described it in a way that the reader understood the grievance. So
> Rob's 'show, don't tell' comment floored me; I thought that's what I'd
> been doing throughout.
I said "Wow"... but you want me to go through it
with a Japanese rake. ;)
>
>
>
>> Its monologue nature requires a lot.
>>
>>
>
>
> But not too many. I hope you're not agreeing with Leisha that I should
> describe the color etc. of the dishes?
Instead of calling them "dishes" call them "Delft".
Holland as lovely as Leisha. :)
I toured the Delft plant in the 90's.
I must be a kook... :)
And look! Shiphol prices: $610 in airfare
two-way from San Diego for a week...
http://www.schiphol.nl
How can you resist?
See you at the Van Gogh. :)
Amadeus Jinn
"George Dance" <george...@yahoo.ca> wrote in message news:1188945626....@w3g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
Vera:
>> By the way, I had no problem with your rhyming!
>>
>
>
> Thx again. I hope that you could see my my reason for using mainly off-
> rhymes (and even one non-rhyme) in the last line of each stanza.
Killa... :)
N Suresh
All the very best !
N Suresh
from India
Leisha
Romantic details:
O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,-that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'
Through details (marble men and women, forest branches, trodden weed)
to the universal slogan, "Beauty is truth." Per Cleanth Brooks: "the
poet can legitimately step out into the universal only by first going
through the narrow door of the particular." Your realist vs. romantic
distinction is not supportable; it falls flat and is steamrolled by
the sheer weight of details in romantic poetry. Show me the details.
Don't leave it up to me to fill in the blank spaces of your art: I
already have my own fantasy, and I don't know your story, but I want
to.
Leisha
Karla
says...
>
>[5 lines revised]
Hi George,
A couple of questions/thoughts. I've read many of your comments in response to
criticism from others. It seems clear that you're practicing poetry here, trying
various forms of poetry, reviving old poems for comment. It's not clear though
who you think your reader is or even if that matters. You seem all over the
place on a lot of things. In particular, why are you forcing your tale into
rhyme? The point of view is an adult's per your remarks to Leisha. But many of
these lines read like a kid, and the rhyme can't be justified. See comments
below.
>My Father's House
>----------------------------
>
>This is my father's house, although
>Some others live here now, I know.
Ugh, "I know" is so blatantly there to make it rhyme!
>They said that it was quite all right
>For me to come and see it now.
>
>Dad laid those gray foundation blocks
>And built the rest (out of a box)
>Toiling after a full day's work.
Awkward sentence: "...And buitl the rest (out of a box) / Toiling after a full
days's work."
>I helped, though I was only six.
>
>See, here's the back door I would use
>And here's where I'd remove my shoes
>On entry; here I'd put my stuff
>Then, when allowed, climb up these stairs.
What's the purpose of this colorless trek? How does it support the theme? Like
Leisha commented, it needs something otherwise cut it. It's laughable or, at the
very least, leaves the reader saying "so what?".
>In this room I'd wash many a dish,
>Gaze out this window, and I'd wish
>To be so many other places.
>(Wishy-washy? Yeah, I guess!)
Ugh, last line obvious a filler.
>Outside, the garden that he grew
>Where I would work the summer through,
Unnatural speech, awkward lines, bad, predictable rhyme. George, I have nothing
against rhyme except when I'm reminded that most of the world thinks a poem is
lines that rhyme. Your use throughout confirms their view. There's nothing
wonderful about any of your rhymes.
>Watching my friends run and play
>Mysterious games I never knew.
I'm still unclear how your recitation of where you took off your shoes, played,
wash dishes adds to your theme. Think about it.
>That room's all changed; oh, where is it,
"oh where is it" stinks, George. It's nursery rhyme or Dr. Seuss. Ugh! Adults
talk like this? Who is your reader? See him flinch?
>The one chair I was let to sit?
>(For boys can be such dirty things)
Same comment as the preceding comment. "For boys can be such dirty things"
sounds very affected.
>Which the corner where boys were put?
Huh? That line sounds unnatural and awkward.
>Down that hall there is a room
>Where I'd be shut (as in a tomb)
>After the meal, to make no noise,
>To play with toys or read, and then
The litany continues and I say "so what". Leisha's reference to "My Last
Duchess" is a good one. Throughout the Duke's litany, we not only hear about the
paintings, we're clued into the Duke's character, the events, his attitude
towards people, particularly women. Your litanay does nothing but bore us. And
it isn't even interesting rhyme. All of it is predictable and contrived. We
wince at the inversions and awkward, unnatural speech that seems to be there
just to serve the end rhyme.
>Lights out, in bed by nine each night:
>Some nights wanting to pee with fright,
>Face and pajama bottoms down
>While for my father's belt I'd wait.
>
>Oh, if I were a millionaire
>I'd buy my father's house, and there
>I'd build a bonfire, oh so high
>Its flames would light up all the air.
Same comments as previously. Ugh: "While for my father's belt I'd wait." Who is
your reader, George? Who enjoys unnatural lines like that? "I'd build a bonfire,
oh so high" ugh! It sounds like you're working out your beloved end rhyme again
- at the expense of the dignity of your speaker! Why malign your speaker like
that, giving him Dr. Seuss lines. Are you serious about your memory? If so,
consider a total re-write where you work something into your litany. It doesn't
serve, there's no surprise, no reward for wading through it. Every recitation of
the Duke's served our portrait of him, our understanding of his wives. I see no
point to your colorless litany. I see no point to putting silly lines into your
adult speaker. You might also consider compressing it into a handful of lines.
It may seem to you that I'm being hard on you. I just have no clue that you're
thinking about each word, each line, the tools in your poetry toolbox. A hammer
doesn't unscrew a bolt. Why are you using easy end rhymes? why are you inverting
lines and phrases? Why are you throwing in silly lines like "oh so high" in an
adult's mouth? Who is your reader, George?
Karla
--
--
George Dance
Oh, Leisha; thank you for posting Keats. He's a fave of mine.
As an obpoem, here's something I haven't found the right title for.
The title has to suggest that it's being said by a very old, very
prissy English toff; Rob Evans when he's Vera's age.
I'm sometimes amused by your bleats
And your "poems" are onanists' treats
But, Mr. Buffoon,
You are simply a loon
To think you write better than Keats.
> Through details (marble men and women, forest branches, trodden weed)
> to the universal slogan, "Beauty is truth." Per Cleanth Brooks: "the
> poet can legitimately step out into the universal only by first going
> through the narrow door of the particular." Your realist vs. romantic
> distinction is not supportable; it falls flat and is steamrolled by
> the sheer weight of details in romantic poetry. Show me the details.
> Don't leave it up to me to fill in the blank spaces of your art: I
> already have my own fantasy, and I don't know your story, but I want
> to.
>
OK. First, though, you have to realize that I'm not telling you a
story about a house; or a story about a boy who lived in a house. I'm
telling you a story about what's going on in the mind of an older
male, the speaker. It looks like he's physically returned to his
boyhood home; but he might not have. It sounds like he's with someone
to whom he's telling all this, but he might not be. The poem's solely
about what happens in his mind. Which is:
He remembers some details of the house, and at first feels pride and
affection for his father (L5). But each memory reminds him of a
grievance against his father (which, pace Mr. Evans, is never directly
told). His thoughts are jumpy and somewhat dysfunctional - witnessed
by the dysfunctional last line of each quatrain, that normally comes
short of completing the Frosty aaxa rhyme-scheme.
S3 reminds him that he was not allowed to use the front door or to
wear his shoes inside, and that he needed permission to enter at all.
(I've changed the first word in that S3 to "Look", the first and only
word in the first Dick & Jane story; it's meant, along with the
overall simplicity of the vocabulary, to indicate that the speaker's
personality regresses.)
S4 that he had to wash the family dishes ( He realizes he was unhappy
then, but represses that emotion by cracking a cracking a stupid
joke.)
S5, that he had to work long hours in the beautiful garden. (Notice
the beauty of the lines here, and the length of the line about
working. Note the Dick & Jane language of "run and play"; more
regression. This time he doesn't fight the feeling; he gives in to it
and has a moment of clear thought, signalled by the perfect rhyme.)
S6, that he was allowed to sit on only one piece of furniture, that
he'd been called a "dirty thing" for being a boy, and that he did
corner time. (He starts feeling mental conflict: note how jumpy and
bumpy the rhythm is, and how the topics similarly jump around. He's
trying to repress - he calls it "that room.", signalling that he's not
in it.)
S7, that he was confined to his bedroom after dinner. (Again he won't
go into the room, or even the hall leading to it. But he keeps
remembering. There's so much to remember about this room that it
spills over into S8)
S8, that he was put to bed at 9'oclock, and that he was beaten with a
belt. (Notice how the b-words tell the whole story - bed, bottoms,
belt - and how the p-words - pee and pajama - both indicate regression
and hint at fetishism; and how those words are emphasized by the soft
vowels used in the rest of the stanza).
Finally, in S9, he has another moment of clear thought (again
indicated by the perfect rhyme) - he wants to destroy what his father
created.
That's basically the story I was telling, and how I was trying to tell
it.
I don't normally go into explaining a poem like that - a poem
shouldn't need the support of long-winded explanations like this - but
I do like talking about how I write, and you gave me the perfect
excuse. This explanation of what I was thinking at the time of writing
may not get you to like the poem better, but I hope it will make you
more understanding of what I was trying to do.
> Leisha- Hide quoted text -
Josh Hill
Hey, Gary!
Shit, I feel like a kid who's been asked what he did at school.
"Nuttin'."
I mean, truth is, less happens in New London in a decade than happened
on a given block of New York in a day. Hey, I went to Home Depot and
bought #8 flat head screws. Hey, I saw bowling ball people on the way
back home and marveled at their ability to waddle. Hey, I drove past
the town cemeteries, one for Catholics and one for Protestants (guess
Jews got buried at the dump or something). They always impress me with
their astute imitations of Charles Addams cartoons.
Or I could just say that I took job as a hit man for a billionaire
industrialist. Turned out he was cloning intelligent orangutans for
the Pentagon. Caught wind of the plot, and in concert with a beautiful
Russian superspy, blew up the billionaire's hydrofoil, whereupon we
returned to his private island to live in luxury, served hand and foot
by a fiercely loyal coterie of genetically-modified simians.
OK, OK, I lied: the monkeys aren't that loyal. So what's with you?
George Dance
> It is a nice poem
>
> All the very best !
>
> N Suresh
> from India
>
Thank you for your kind words. All the best to you as well.
George Dance
from Canada
George Dance
> "George Dance" <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> wrote in messagenews:1188942798.7...@50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
Sorry; Peter Gnome is just a name I've used for Peter Ross. ("I am no
writer of poem / Like Ham or Peter Gnome"). Sure, killfile if you
like, but I don't use them; as I see it, the only person they deprive
of anything (information and opportunity to corect statements) is
oneself.
> >> >> And more showing and less telling wouldn't hurt, either.
>
> >> > I dunno about that. This piece is a monologue, after all. And there is
> >> > plenty of showing going on: the speaker's walking all over the house
> >> > pointing to different things.
>
> >> True, you post images.
>
> > Yeah; one thing I liked about this was that the speaker never actually
> > stated his grievanes with his father; he just pointed to a view and
> > described it in a way that the reader understood the grievance. So
> > Rob's 'show, don't tell' comment floored me; I thought that's what I'd
> > been doing throughout.
>
> I said "Wow"... but you want me to go through it
> with a Japanese rake. ;)
>
Nah, I'm just venting about Rob's crit. "Wow" works for me.
>
>
> >> Its monologue nature requires a lot.
>
> > But not too many. I hope you're not agreeing with Leisha that I should
> > describe the color etc. of the dishes?
>
> Instead of calling them "dishes" call them "Delft".
> Holland as lovely as Leisha. :)
> I toured the Delft plant in the 90's.
> I must be a kook... :)
Hmm ... I could rhyme 'Delft' with 'sorry for myself', and use
'somewhere else' as the near-rhyme. Let me think about it. 5-4-3-2-1.
No.
> And look! Shiphol prices: $610 in airfare
> two-way from San Diego for a week...
> http://www.schiphol.nl
"You said this was a classy airport? This place is a Schiphol!"
>
> How can you resist?
> See you at the Van Gogh. :)
>
Gogh, already.
> --
> AJ http://Here.Nu
> http://Midis.Here.Nu
> http://Art.Here.Nu- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
Amadeus Jinn
"George Dance" <george...@yahoo.ca> wrote in message news:1189034066.2...@50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
Sure, I used "peewee" for ages, but others don't /get it/...
I went to "peter"...
> ("I am no
> writer of poem / Like Ham or Peter Gnome").
But you are a person.
As long as you don't attack me I won't attack you.
Hammes wrote gagillions of sonnets and couldn't sell.
I quite Oracle when I was making $120k (gross)...
Thought I'd make more... Couldn't sell. Still can't.
Never lived in a duckblind...
> Sure, killfile if you
> like, but I don't use them; as I see it, the only person they deprive
> of anything (information and opportunity to corect statements) is
> oneself.
That's enough...
"Correcting Statements" isn't rational with the sandbox kiddies.
They /tilt/ at brainmills... :)
Hang ten and be a thieving plagiarist gay pedophile.
It's poetic.
>
>> >> >> And more showing and less telling wouldn't hurt, either.
>>
>> >> > I dunno about that. This piece is a monologue, after all. And there is
>> >> > plenty of showing going on: the speaker's walking all over the house
>> >> > pointing to different things.
>>
>> >> True, you post images.
>>
>> > Yeah; one thing I liked about this was that the speaker never actually
>> > stated his grievanes with his father; he just pointed to a view and
>> > described it in a way that the reader understood the grievance. So
>> > Rob's 'show, don't tell' comment floored me; I thought that's what I'd
>> > been doing throughout.
>>
>> I said "Wow"... but you want me to go through it
>> with a Japanese rake. ;)
>>
>
>
> Nah, I'm just venting about Rob's crit. "Wow" works for me.
It was a story loosely prosodized.
I could understand it, though word usage could have been more...
If you have fun... Great...
Usenet Joke: Three Birds
A teacher asks her student at school the following:
Teacher:
If there are three birds sitting on a line,
and I give you a gun to shoot one,
how many are left?
Student:
None.
Teacher:
None? How did you come to that?
Student:
Well, I shoot one with the gun, it drops dead.
And the other two will fly away from the noise of the gun.
Teacher:
Well that isn't correct, but I like the way you think.
Student:
I have a question for you to Miss:
There are three ladies walking on the street,
all have a lollypop,
the first one sucks it,
the second one nibbles it,
the third one bites it.
Which one of them is married?
Teacher:
I'll have to go for the first lady, the one who sucks it.
Student:
That's wrong! The one who's married wears a ring round her
finger. But I like the way you think!
Another Usenet Joke: "Three Birds V3"
The ocean slathers foam across the sand,
and salt rimmed driftwood stacks in paltry piles.
White gulls, with sideward glances, journey north,
and find new haven, on kind breaths of spring.
In mountain crags, eagle's claws find a brace,
ravin bent, attending fields rife with spoils.
They thunder down, with pious savage rage,
and savor blood, the sacrifice still warm.
From city's crannies, bobbing pigeons beg,
donating feathers, to the urban mire.
Subsist on peanuts, wayward vagabonds,
gray oil-slicked rainbows, lackluster peacocks.
>
>
>>
>>
>> >> Its monologue nature requires a lot.
>>
>> > But not too many. I hope you're not agreeing with Leisha that I should
>> > describe the color etc. of the dishes?
>>
>> Instead of calling them "dishes" call them "Delft".
>> Holland as lovely as Leisha. :)
>> I toured the Delft plant in the 90's.
>> I must be a kook... :)
>
>
> Hmm ... I could rhyme 'Delft' with 'sorry for myself', and use
> 'somewhere else' as the near-rhyme. Let me think about it. 5-4-3-2-1.
> No.
See what I mean? Best for you to think up your own
precious words. :) Then you can copyright and sue.
>
>
>> And look! Shiphol prices: $610 in airfare
>> two-way from San Diego for a week...
>> http://www.schiphol.nl
>
>
> "You said this was a classy airport? This place is a Schiphol!"
Not bad.
http://tinyurl.com/2z5759
See where the A4 goes under a walkway, and then under a runway...
Pretty wild...
>
>
>>
>> How can you resist?
>> See you at the Van Gogh. :)
>>
>
>
> Gogh, already.
The Van Gogh museum is at the left end of Vondelpark
http://tinyurl.com/238olk
I went to a coffee shop near by and ordered some coffee.
They said if I ordered a joint the coffee was free.
I thanked them, and said I had my own... :)
George Dance
> On 4 Sep, 10:20, Leisha <lei...@decisionresearch.org> wrote:
>
>
> > At first I thought the child was homeless, living in a box. Taking
> > shoes off made sense, but then came stairs and a kitchen, etc.
>
> Hmm ... that's a concern that no one has mentioned before; is '(out of
> a box)' unclear? I like that ref., not just for the rhyme but for the
> story (it makes it credible that one man could build a quite nice
> house); how big a worry is it that someone might not get it? That's
> definitely something for me to look at on any later revision; I'm
> gonna think about that.
>
One thing I learned quickly on the poetry groups is that even the most
hostile critique is worth paying attention to, as it can draw
attention to an overlooked weakness in the poem. This line's a good
case in point; it's easy enough to read L6 as implying that the family
was living in poverty in a converted crate (which makes no sense in
light of the rest of the poem, as Leisha points out).
So it's a line that needs revision. The immediate fix is
"and built the whole thing (from a box)".
That doesn't rule out 'box' being misinterpreted, but at least is an
improvement in that 'whole thing' indicates the father's achievement
is a bit more impressive than cutting a doorway into a crate.
That may not be the final wording, but it is an obvious improvement.
> as well. I'm glad to have yours in hand.- Hide quoted text -
George Dance
> In article <1188821442.393973.242...@o80g2000hse.googlegroups.com>, George Dance
> says...
>
> >[5 lines revised]
>
> Hi George,
>
> A couple of questions/thoughts. I've read many of your comments in response to
> criticism from others. It seems clear that you're practicing poetry here, trying
> various forms of poetry, reviving old poems for comment.
Yes; I'm here to learn how to write poetry, and to share what I'm
learning about that elsewhere.
> It's not clear though
> who you think your reader is or even if that matters.
I'm my first and perhaps harshest critic; and one thing I have learned
is that I'm the only important one: if a poem of mine is to be any
good, it has to have integrity, which means it has to exactly match my
vision of it. As for who else might read me, posting on Usenet gives
me the opportunity to discover that by the feedback I get.
> You seem all over the
> place on a lot of things.
Yeah; I'm trying to try everything, to learn everything at once.
> In particular, why are you forcing your tale into
> rhyme?
Well, that was part of the exercise here; to write in a stanza form
I'd never tried before: 4-line tetrameter rhyming aaxa. Why do I want
to learn something like that? Well, because two things I have learned
are that (1) there are a lot of beautiful verse forms out there, and
(2) there are a lot of people who enjoy reading them. Being able to
write formal verse is a way of finding and satisfying a large
potential readership.
> The point of view is an adult's per your remarks to Leisha. But many of
> these lines read like a kid, and the rhyme can't be justified. See
> comments below.
I'm hope you caught my last post to Leisha. The one thing I'll add
here is that I deliberately tried to make the language as child-like
as possible. While the speaker is a man or a youth, while thinking
about the house he is taken back to his childhood - it's part of the
power this house has over him - and the vocabulary reflects that.
> >My Father's House
> >----------------------------
>
> >This is my father's house, although
> >Some others live here now, I know.
>
> Ugh, "I know" is so blatantly there to make it rhyme!
>
Less blatantly, it's there to tell the reader which stanza form is
being used as a template: that of Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a
Snowy Evening" (which uses the same rhyme in its opening couplet).
That allows the reader to accept 'right' in the next line (which isn't
supposed to rhyme with anything), but it draws attention to 'now'
which almost but doesn't quite rhyme, and (I hope) gets him interested
in the rhyming of those end lines.
> >They said that it was quite all right
> >For me to come and see it now.
>
> >Dad laid those gray foundation blocks
> >And built the rest (out of a box)
> >Toiling after a full day's work.
>
> Awkward sentence: "...And buitl the rest (out of a box) / Toiling after a full
> days's work."
>
All it actually needs, to be perfectly correct, is a comma after
"box)". But since that was the end of both a parenthesis and a line, I
thought I could safely omit it. (The parenthesis is there because
otherwise the participle would dangle; it would sound like the box had
been toiling.)
> >I helped, though I was only six.
>
Now, I'd thought that line - so naturally the way a child would
express it - was an obvious clue that the speaker, though a man,
regresses to thinking like a child here.
> >See, here's the back door I would use
> >And here's where I'd remove my shoes
> >On entry; here I'd put my stuff
> >Then, when allowed, climb up these stairs.
>
> What's the purpose of this colorless trek? How does it support the theme?
Well, what do you think the theme is? The theme, as I see it, is
Philip Larkin's, "They fuck you up, your mom and dad" - how parents
shape and misshape their children. The trek's purpose is to start
showing how that's done, by listing three of the rules the child had
to live under: he's not allowed to enter the house when he wants, to
wear his shoes inside it, or to use the front door.
> Like
> Leisha commented, it needs something otherwise cut it. It's laughable or, at the
> very least, leaves the reader saying "so what?".
Actually, I'm hoping the reader will say, 'so what'. Virtually every
household has rules like that; so virtually every reader will
understand the dominance/submission game the parent and child are
playing, and accept it as the norm. Then in later stanzas, as the
game gradually gets more brutal, the reader has the problem of how to
object to it from inside, after having already accepted it.
> >In this room I'd wash many a dish,
> >Gaze out this window, and I'd wish
> >To be so many other places.
> >(Wishy-washy? Yeah, I guess!)
>
> Ugh, last line obvious a filler.
>
Not at all. Men have two trained-in defence mechanisms to cope with
strong emotion: humour and anger. Here's the first defence being
tripped: the speaker starts to realize how sad and lonely he was as a
child, and reacts by making a totally inappropriate joke. That may
read strangely, but it's exactly how I can imagine a normal male mind
to work. (Yeah, I'm sure that will go over a lot of readers' heads,
and they won't like the line, but tough - I understand why it belongs
there.)
> >Outside, the garden that he grew
> >Where I would work the summer through,
>
> Unnatural speech, awkward lines, bad, predictable rhyme.
Look; I just offended dull readers at least with my 'filler' line, so
now I'm compensating them by giving them some pretty lines: perfect
iambs, soft consonants, happy words like 'garden' 'summer' and 'play'.
I'm also continuing to tell the story of the dominance/submission
game: the child is now made to work - not only chores (as in S3) but
long hours in the garden. That last is the first place where the
dominance of the child becomes abnormal - he's made to work when other
children get to play - but it's still the same game.
> George, I have nothing
> against rhyme except when I'm reminded that most of the world thinks a poem is
> lines that rhyme.
'Most of the world' likes rhyme. As you said, think about who your
reader is to be: if I'm to count 'most of the world' as readers, I'll
have to learn
to write in rhyme
at least some of the time.
> Your use throughout confirms their view. There's nothing
> wonderful about any of your rhymes.
>
Agreed; I didn't try any clever rhyming with the couplets. The rhymes,
like the word choices, were all kept simple and compatible with a
child's voice - the whole point of all that being to indicate that the
speaker has regressed to his childhood and is now mentally caught back
up in the dominance/submission game he was forced to play then.
> >Watching my friends run and play
> >Mysterious games I never knew.
>
> I'm still unclear how your recitation of where you took off your shoes, played,
> wash dishes adds to your theme. Think about it.
>
I hope I've made that clearer. But again I'll have to ask you: What
did you think my theme was?
I'm not sure how you understand my poem; especially when you talk
about "your recitation" of where "you played." First of all, this poem
is not about me, but about an imaginary speaker. Second, nothing in
the damn thing so far has said that the speaker played; what's been
said is that the speaker did not play, but had to work long hours in
the garden; not only must he use the servant or slave door of the
house, but he has to work like one as well. And this game goes on for
years: 'I would workthe summer through' tells you that it's not just
one summer, but recurs (presumably, all the time the speaker lived in
that house).
A reader who thinks the poem's been about where the author "played" as
a boy will miss all that. But I'll have to dismiss him as someone who
didn't understand my poem, presumably because he did not put enough
attention into reading it.
> >That room's all changed; oh, where is it,
>
> "oh where is it" stinks, George. It's nursery rhyme or Dr. Seuss. Ugh! Adults
> talk like this? Who is your reader? See him flinch?
>
Hmm ... I missed the Seussian style. But: great! The speaker is
starting to regress completely, to become trapped in the games his
father forced him to play (which, remember, is by now purely a mind
game).
> >The one chair I was let to sit?
> >(For boys can be such dirty things)
>
> Same comment as the preceding comment. "For boys can be such dirty things"
> sounds very affected.
>
It sounds like something he's been told (presumably by his father). I
originally had it in quotation marks; I took them off to show that the
speaker has internalized it, that he has accepted being a dirty
thing.
> >Which the corner where boys were put?
>
> Huh? That line sounds unnatural and awkward.
>
That whole stanza sounds unnatural and awkward (especially right after
the pretty iambic tetrameter verse about the garden). It should; the
speaker is starting to feel anger (his sole remaining defence
mechanism). Imagine this poem being read: this stanza should be said
in a louder voice than the previous, with some of it (like "dirty
things") almost shouted.
> >Down that hall there is a room
> >Where I'd be shut (as in a tomb)
> >After the meal, to make no noise,
> >To play with toys or read, and then
>
> The litany continues and I say "so what".
Then I have to ask you: what do you think the theme of this poem is?
It's obvious, to me, what the child's being shut away in his room
every night, and warned to make no noise, has to do with the theme of
parents dominating their children. But I can't say how it relates to
some other possible theme, if I don't know what that theme is.
> Leisha's reference to "My Last
> Duchess" is a good one. Throughout the Duke's litany, we not only hear about the
> paintings, we're clued into the Duke's character, the events, his attitude
> towards people, particularly women. Your litanay does nothing but bore us.
Come on; there have been quite a few people who said other things
about the litanay [sic]. The first person in understood the game it
was describing; that the father was the boy's 'master' in a master/
servant game. You can only say that the litanay does nothing for you,
and for other readers like you who don't get the theme or plot.
(Which I am not saying is your fault; it could be due to my
inexperience.)
> And
> it isn't even interesting rhyme. All of it is predictable and contrived.
As I told Rob, I happen to find the fourth-line rhymes interesting,
and not predictable at all. The couplets are fairly standard, for
reasons I've already explained - cleverly rhymed couplets a la Pope or
Auden would have been completely out of place here.
> We
> wince at the inversions and awkward, unnatural speech that seems to be there
> just to serve the end rhyme.
>
Certainly, if one thinks that the purpose of a poem is to serve the
rhyme (rather than vice versa), that's reason to wince.
> >Lights out, in bed by nine each night:
> >Some nights wanting to pee with fright,
> >Face and pajama bottoms down
> >While for my father's belt I'd wait.
>
> >Oh, if I were a millionaire
> >I'd buy my father's house, and there
> >I'd build a bonfire, oh so high
> >Its flames would light up all the air.
>
> Same comments as previously. Ugh: "While for my father's belt I'd wait."
I guess by 'same comment' you mean:
> We
> wince at the inversions and awkward, unnatural speech that seems to be there
> just to serve the end rhyme.
But that's nonsense. I didn't invert that sentence just to rhyme
'wait' with 'night'. That's an off-rhyme. If I'd have written:
While I'd wait for my father's belt
it would have worked just as well as an off-rhyme.
If I'd written this in free verse, I would have written the line
exactly the same way as I did here - because that would seem to put
the emphasis on 'wait' rather than 'belt', and because that's where I
wanted it to be. Because it's 'wait' that shows the degree the child
has been shaped by the game: every instinct in his body is telling him
to flee, while he's been trained to lie still and wait.
That's why I wrote the line that way. Nothing to do with rhyming
'night' and 'wait'.
> Who is
> your reader, George?
Obviously not someone who has an aversion to rhyme, or a prejudice
that if a poet rhymes he can't be doing anything else at the same
time. Those types of readers will hate me. You sound like you may be
one.
> Who enjoys unnatural lines like that? "I'd build a bonfire,
> oh so high" ugh! It sounds like you're working out your beloved end rhyme again
WTF? "High" doesn't rhyme with anything; it's not supposed to rhyme
with anything.
> - at the expense of the dignity of your speaker! Why malign your speaker like
> that, giving him Dr. Seuss lines.
Yes, the 'ohs' in the lines do suggest Dr. Seuss; not a bad thing, as
I said. They were also meant to suggest that the speaker is moaning;
he's just remembered being beaten with his father's belt. This line
also answers the violence of that belt with some b-consonant violence
of the speaker's own: he wants to burn the house down, to 'build a
bonfire' (which isn't from Dr. Seuss but from Peter Gabriel; it's what
Adolph did).
The speaker's anger has fully kicked in here, as the only thing that
can save him from being controlled by his father's old game. Which
will win: can he burn the house down or not? At least he's decided to,
and that's a healthy first step.
Originally the poem ended on a note of pure anger:
I'd build a bonfire, oh so high
Its flames would burn up all the air.
As if the speaker only wanted to use his anger to destroy. At the last
minute, I got the inspiration to change 'burn' to 'light': the speaker
now wants to use his anger to illuminate.
I'm sorry that that was all unclear to you, and that you thought I was
merely trying to write some clever end-rhymes. And I'm curious as to
what you thought my theme was.
> Are you serious about your memory?
What, did you think this poem was a piece of nostalgia; a
reminiscence?
> If so,
> consider a total re-write where you work something into your litany.
Work what into my litany? I don't know what you think my theme is
supposed to be; but I can't talk about that theme without first
knowing it. And if I wished to talk about that theme, in a piece
without end-rhymes, why wouldn't I just write a new poem? If I scrap
this poem's theme, plot, and stanza form, in what way would the result
be a "rewrite" rther than a new poem.
> It doesn't
> serve, there's no surprise, no reward for wading through it.
What would have been a 'surprise' or reward?
> Every recitation of
> the Duke's served our portrait of him, our understanding of his wives.
No; the poem said nothing about the wives. It was all about the Duke,
just as mine's all about my persona (and certainly not about my
childhood; some of those things happened to me, but not all of them.)
> I see no
> point to your colorless litany. I see no point to putting silly lines into your
> adult speaker. You might also consider compressing it into a handful of lines.
>
Perhaps you can give me an example: a poem that successfully does
manage to convey the theme that you think I'm supposed to be
conveying, in the style you think that I should be using. If I'm
impressed enough, I'll try to write a poem like that. But I won't call
that a 'rewrite' but a new poem.
> It may seem to you that I'm being hard on you. I just have no clue that you're
> thinking about each word, each line, the tools in your poetry toolbox.
Yes, it's obvious that you didn't understand what I was trying to do
here; which probably was my fault more than yours, as I'm new at all
this. OTOH, you seem to have a strong dislike of end rhyme as some
kind of cancer that takes over a poem, and that may keep you from
appreciating some new poetry that uses end-rhyme.
> A hammer
> doesn't unscrew a bolt. Why are you using easy end rhymes? why are you inverting
> lines and phrases? Why are you throwing in silly lines like "oh so high" in an
> adult's mouth? Who is your reader, George?
>
All good questions, and I thank you for raising them. As usual, your
critique was thoughtful and went to the heart of the matter. You made
me think deeply about my poem and my reasons for writing it as I did;
you underscored the importance of having good reasons (not silly
reasons like writing clever rhyme) for writing a poem in one way or
another. Since I've gone on rather too long replying to your last
questions earlier, I won't rehash those points, but end on that note
of appreciation and thanks.
Josh Hill
<george...@yahoo.ca> wrote:
>> >My Father's House
>> >----------------------------
>>
>> >This is my father's house, although
>> >Some others live here now, I know.
>>
>> Ugh, "I know" is so blatantly there to make it rhyme!
>>
>
>
>Less blatantly, it's there to tell the reader which stanza form is
>being used as a template: that of Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a
>Snowy Evening" (which uses the same rhyme in its opening couplet).
>That allows the reader to accept 'right' in the next line (which isn't
>supposed to rhyme with anything), but it draws attention to 'now'
>which almost but doesn't quite rhyme, and (I hope) gets him interested
>in the rhyming of those end lines.
Either way, it's a forced rhyme, and has an ugly effect upon the
reader, one which is magnified by the singsong meter of the second
line.
>> >They said that it was quite all right
>> >For me to come and see it now.
>>
>> >Dad laid those gray foundation blocks
>> >And built the rest (out of a box)
>> >Toiling after a full day's work.
>>
>> Awkward sentence: "...And buitl the rest (out of a box) / Toiling after a full
>> days's work."
>>
>
>
>All it actually needs, to be perfectly correct, is a comma after
>"box)". But since that was the end of both a parenthesis and a line, I
>thought I could safely omit it. (The parenthesis is there because
>otherwise the participle would dangle; it would sound like the box had
>been toiling.)
It's awkward any way you look at it, though I think there are worse
harms here, e.g., the blocks/box rhyme, which is reminiscent of Dr.
Seuss.
BTW, you said that you attempted to write like a child, but "toiling"
is not a child's word, nor is "full day's work" a child's concept. See
the Songs of Innocence and Experience for a successful (and famously
subtle) example of that. It isn't easy to bring off.
>> >I helped, though I was only six.
>>
>
>
>Now, I'd thought that line - so naturally the way a child would
>express it - was an obvious clue that the speaker, though a man,
>regresses to thinking like a child here.
For me, it has more the effect (along with "They said it was quite all
right") of seeming a burlesque of T. S. Eliot's ennui trope.
>> >See, here's the back door I would use
>> >And here's where I'd remove my shoes
>> >On entry; here I'd put my stuff
>> >Then, when allowed, climb up these stairs.
>>
>> What's the purpose of this colorless trek? How does it support the theme?
>
>
>Well, what do you think the theme is? The theme, as I see it, is
>Philip Larkin's, "They fuck you up, your mom and dad" - how parents
>shape and misshape their children. The trek's purpose is to start
>showing how that's done, by listing three of the rules the child had
>to live under: he's not allowed to enter the house when he wants, to
>wear his shoes inside it, or to use the front door.
Here are some lines from Larkin, also in a mundane setting:
Groping back to bed after a piss
I part thick curtains, and am startled by
The rapid clouds, the moon's cleanliness.
Can you see why those work so magnificently, while yours do not? Among
other things, they've an extra layer, one of imagery, which is
actually (this being a poem) the primary one. You've given us a rhyme,
Larkin has given us verse. You've given us carpet squares, he's given
us exaltation.
>> Like
>> Leisha commented, it needs something otherwise cut it. It's laughable or, at the
>> very least, leaves the reader saying "so what?".
>
>
>Actually, I'm hoping the reader will say, 'so what'. Virtually every
>household has rules like that; so virtually every reader will
>understand the dominance/submission game the parent and child are
>playing, and accept it as the norm. Then in later stanzas, as the
>game gradually gets more brutal, the reader has the problem of how to
>object to it from inside, after having already accepted it.
Perilous game, I think, in that if the reader says so what, he's
likely to wander off and watch TV. Better to use the novelist's
technique of arousing curiosity and suspense.
>> >In this room I'd wash many a dish,
>> >Gaze out this window, and I'd wish
>> >To be so many other places.
>> >(Wishy-washy? Yeah, I guess!)
>>
>> Ugh, last line obvious a filler.
>>
>
>
>Not at all. Men have two trained-in defence mechanisms to cope with
>strong emotion: humour and anger. Here's the first defence being
>tripped: the speaker starts to realize how sad and lonely he was as a
>child, and reacts by making a totally inappropriate joke. That may
>read strangely, but it's exactly how I can imagine a normal male mind
>to work. (Yeah, I'm sure that will go over a lot of readers' heads,
>and they won't like the line, but tough - I understand why it belongs
>there.)
Let me offer a belated apology for piggybacking on George's crit, I
didn't see the original post.
Which being said, you know you have a problem when your explanation
runs longer than the lines they're explaining.
Having these ideas in your head is a good start, but it isn't enough.
You have to get in the habit of getting them into the reader's heads
without the benefit of footnotes. Art is a form of communication, and
it's your job to make sure that the audience to which you've directed
the work -- in this case, those who are versed in and enjoy and are
reasonably proficient at reading poetry -- gets what you have to say.
The poet should not be limited by the unintelligent or unlettered
reader, but the writing off of the failures of one's own technique to
subtlety is a prelude to crankdom.
Besides, the joke is just plain terrible, and not masculine enough.
I'm not sure that anything could be, given that you're trying to have
the guy speak with a child's voice and an adult's emotions. Just can't
work from a dramatic perspective.
>> >Outside, the garden that he grew
>> >Where I would work the summer through,
>>
>> Unnatural speech, awkward lines, bad, predictable rhyme.
>
>
>Look; I just offended dull readers at least with my 'filler' line, so
>now I'm compensating them by giving them some pretty lines: perfect
>iambs, soft consonants, happy words like 'garden' 'summer' and 'play'.
>I'm also continuing to tell the story of the dominance/submission
>game: the child is now made to work - not only chores (as in S3) but
>long hours in the garden. That last is the first place where the
>dominance of the child becomes abnormal - he's made to work when other
>children get to play - but it's still the same game.
For fuck's sake, stop defending yourself! The majority that does that
never improves; the minority that hungers for good, tough criticism
usually becomes proficient.
The crit was correct. Your iambs can baa till the end of time, but
your artistic choices are wrong here: forced rhyme, soft consonants in
a passage that should be harrowing, constipated syntax, singsong
rhythm reinforced by the short measure and the rhyming couplet. You
hope to scald, but you're using fluffy bunny technique.
>> George, I have nothing
>> against rhyme except when I'm reminded that most of the world thinks a poem is
>> lines that rhyme.
>
>'Most of the world' likes rhyme. As you said, think about who your
>reader is to be: if I'm to count 'most of the world' as readers, I'll
>have to learn
>to write in rhyme
>at least some of the time.
>
>
>> Your use throughout confirms their view. There's nothing
>> wonderful about any of your rhymes.
>>
>
>
>Agreed; I didn't try any clever rhyming with the couplets. The rhymes,
>like the word choices, were all kept simple and compatible with a
>child's voice - the whole point of all that being to indicate that the
>speaker has regressed to his childhood and is now mentally caught back
>up in the dominance/submission game he was forced to play then.
The Chimney Sweeper by William Blake
When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue,
Could scarcely cry weep weep weep weep,
So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.
Theres little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head
That curled like a lambs back was shav'd, so I said.
Hush Tom never mind it, for when your head's bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair
And so he was quiet. & that very night.
As Tom was a sleeping he had such a sight
That thousands of sweepers Dick, Joe, Ned, & Jack
Were all of them lock'd up in coffins of black,
And by came an Angel who had a bright key
And he open'd the coffins & set them all free.
Then down a green plain leaping laughing they run
And wash in a river and shine in the Sun.
Then naked & white, all their bags left behind.
They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind.
And the Angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father & never want joy.
And so Tom awoke and we rose in the dark
And got with our bags & our brushes to work.
Tho' the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm
So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.
I don't mean to compare your poem to a "disproportion'd" work that
none of us can match or ever hope to -- that would be unfair -- but
merely to give an example of someone who's done something roughly akin
to what I think you're trying to do with great success.
Note that Blake has used childlike rhymes in a way that conveys the
voice of a child rather than that of a poet struggling with rhyme.
That's true of his diction in general -- of the simple but cunningly
chosen words, of the childlike syntax, of the simple rhythms and
apparently simple thoughts. Note too how he's used the child's
inability to pronounce "sweep" -- he pronounces it " 'weep" instead --
for ironic effect.
Blake lays this surface, like a simple skin, on a fiendishly complex
machine. And he contrasts the child's innocence, his naivete, with his
slavery and fated death from cancer of the scrotum.
That never-resolved contrast, between the child's trusting naivete and
incipient death, gives the poem emotional power. The presence of the
adult behind the child's naivete gives it intellectual scope.
It's an unexcelled example of the sort of technique you seem to be
angling for. It's also a reminder that one of the reasons you've
failed to accomplish your objectives is that you've given us the
shopping mall version of suffering. You need to show us about the whip
marks on the protagonists's soul, but you've given us "We Look and
See" instead. I mean, every kid has to do chores, c'mon. Tell us why
this kid wants to burn his father's house down.
>> >Watching my friends run and play
>> >Mysterious games I never knew.
Less poetry than the wailing of a critically acclaimed because
self-pitying teen folk singer who will never have her second hit.
It sounds affected. No man not a hairdresser would say it.
>> >Which the corner where boys were put?
>>
>> Huh? That line sounds unnatural and awkward.
>>
>
>
>That whole stanza sounds unnatural and awkward (especially right after
>the pretty iambic tetrameter verse about the garden). It should; the
>speaker is starting to feel anger (his sole remaining defence
>mechanism). Imagine this poem being read: this stanza should be said
>in a louder voice than the previous, with some of it (like "dirty
>things") almost shouted.
You're using the wrong fucking voice!
A written poem can't convey anything but the crassest inflections. One
could potentially read these lines in a scathing way, yes, but there's
nothing on the page to tell the reader that that voice is to be used,
no way to hear the anger and sardonicisim that are conveyed in real
life speech through changes of pitch, intensity, intonation. You have
to find a way to convey the same thing with the words themselves, or
with description.
>> >Down that hall there is a room
>> >Where I'd be shut (as in a tomb)
>> >After the meal, to make no noise,
>> >To play with toys or read, and then
>>
>> The litany continues and I say "so what".
>
>
>Then I have to ask you: what do you think the theme of this poem is?
>It's obvious, to me, what the child's being shut away in his room
>every night, and warned to make no noise, has to do with the theme of
>parents dominating their children. But I can't say how it relates to
>some other possible theme, if I don't know what that theme is.
>
>
>> Leisha's reference to "My Last
>> Duchess" is a good one. Throughout the Duke's litany, we not only hear about the
>> paintings, we're clued into the Duke's character, the events, his attitude
>> towards people, particularly women. Your litanay does nothing but bore us.
>
>
>Come on; there have been quite a few people who said other things
>about the litanay [sic]. The first person in understood the game it
>was describing; that the father was the boy's 'master' in a master/
>servant game. You can only say that the litanay does nothing for you,
>and for other readers like you who don't get the theme or plot.
>(Which I am not saying is your fault; it could be due to my
>inexperience.)
'Tis. Of course, none of us can hope to equal Browning any more than
we can hope to equal Blake, but he's still a profitable source of
study, master as he is of the sly revelation of character.
Here and elsewhere, you've a tendency to overintellectualize these
things. "Yoda I am." It's an inversion, and no one talks that way
'cept Yoda. Not to mention that your line reminds me of the "Sheik of
Araby":
I'm the sheik of Araby;
Your love belongs to me.
At night when you're asleep,
Into your tent I'll creep.
>> Who is
>> your reader, George?
>
>Obviously not someone who has an aversion to rhyme, or a prejudice
>that if a poet rhymes he can't be doing anything else at the same
>time. Those types of readers will hate me. You sound like you may be
>one.
Rhyme, like anchovies or the soprano voice, must be used with great
care lest it overwhelm everything else.
You can't invoke Dr. Seuss and make your guy out to be foaming at the
mouth at the same time. C'mon.
>> It doesn't
>> serve, there's no surprise, no reward for wading through it.
>
>What would have been a 'surprise' or reward?
Think of the twist of a sonnet: the idea is to do the unexpected but,
in retrospect, inevitable. It's not enough to say "Joe was unhappy, he
wanted to burn down his Dad's house, after the proper assumption of
ownership, of course." You need to spin it in an interesting way, to
tell the reader something that he didn't already know.
Rob
<usere...@gmail.com> writes
also at "Timothy Winters": a poem written ostensibly for children,
within the language boundaries of children, and still capable of hitting
an adult like a lightning bolt.
George Dance
>
> For George's further (I suspect wasted) education we should point him
> also at "Timothy Winters": a poem written ostensibly for children,
> within the language boundaries of children, and still capable of hitting
> an adult like a lightning bolt.
>
> Rob
> --
> Rob Evans
>
http://torch.cs.dal.ca/~johnston/poetry/timothy.html
It's an excellent poem. Anyone who hasn't read it could profit from
doing so.
George Dance
> On Thu, 06 Sep 2007 02:54:15 -0700, George Dance
>
>
>
>
>
> <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> wrote:
> >> >My Father's House
> >> >----------------------------
>
Thank you for reading and commenting on the poem, Josh. I've snipped
down to my lines and your coments; I don't think the poor reader has
to wade through it.
> >> >This is my father's house, although
> >> >Some others live here now, I know.
>
>
> Either way, it's a forced rhyme, and has an ugly effect upon the
> reader, one which is magnified by the singsong meter of the second
> line.
>
Well, OK; to some readers it will read like a forced rhyme. But of
course it isn't; there's plenty of other rhymes that I could have
used, some of which might have made a better story.
This is my father's house, although
We buried him six years ago
is a better rhyme, which took me 10 seconds.
> >> >They said that it was quite all right
> >> >For me to come and see it now.
>
> >> >Dad laid those gray foundation blocks
> >> >And built the rest (out of a box)
> >> >Toiling after a full day's work.
>
>
> It's awkward any way you look at it, though I think there are worse
> harms here, e.g., the blocks/box rhyme, which is reminiscent of Dr.
> Seuss.
>
> BTW, you said that you attempted to write like a child
Not exactly. The speaker's an older male who regresses to a childlke
state, and the childlike language was meant to reflect that.
> , but "toiling"
> is not a child's word, nor is "full day's work" a child's concept. See
> the Songs of Innocence and Experience for a successful (and famously
> subtle) example of that. It isn't easy to bring off.
>
Well, sure. But I wasn't trying to make the child the speaker.
> >> >I helped, though I was only six.
>
>
> For me, it has more the effect (along with "They said it was quite all
> right") of seeming a burlesque of T. S. Eliot's ennui trope.
>
Ennui fits, though in Eliot I always think of it as repression. I
don't see it here, though you're right about 'quite all right'. That's
still there at the end, when he wants to burn the house but only after
buying it. (Even the formal verse treatment was meant to underscore
that).
> >> >See, here's the back door I would use
> >> >And here's where I'd remove my shoes
> >> >On entry; here I'd put my stuff
> >> >Then, when allowed, climb up these stairs.
>
>
> Here are some lines from Larkin, also in a mundane setting:
>
> Groping back to bed after a piss
> I part thick curtains, and am startled by
> The rapid clouds, the moon's cleanliness.
>
> Can you see why those work so magnificently, while yours do not? Among
> other things, they've an extra layer, one of imagery, which is
> actually (this being a poem) the primary one. You've given us a rhyme,
> Larkin has given us verse. You've given us carpet squares, he's given
> us exaltation.
>
Compare that to the Larkin poem I quoted, "This Be the Verse" - which
is also rhymed, and completely telly with only one image ("like a
continental shelf") that sounds like a forced rhyme itself. Different
poems use different techniques, and a poet has to use these or those
as the poem requires it.
Of course Larkin could use all the techniques better than I can today;
he's worked at it more. But you're comparing my apple to his orange.
>
> Perilous game, I think, in that if the reader says so what, he's
> likely to wander off and watch TV. Better to use the novelist's
> technique of arousing curiosity and suspense.
>
>
There are lots of ways someone could write about this or any subject.
Most potential readers aren't gonna read any of them anyway, but turn
on the TV instead. I do what I can by posting here: that way I both
reach readers and get feedback. And I listen to all of it.
>
> >> >In this room I'd wash many a dish,
> >> >Gaze out this window, and I'd wish
> >> >To be so many other places.
> >> >(Wishy-washy? Yeah, I guess!)
>
>
> Let me offer a belated apology for piggybacking on George's crit, I
> didn't see the original post.
>
> Which being said, you know you have a problem when your explanation
> runs longer than the lines they're explaining.
Well, I don't think the poem needs any explanation; but explaining
what I was up to allows me to find out where I could have done that
better. Whereas not explaining, and having a reader tell me how I
could have done something else instead, doesn't tell me anything.
Karla knows how to write poetry, and I've always found I could learn
something from one of her crits, no matter how hostile. (This is not
the first time 8) But not this time; this time it seemed like she was
telling me how to write some other poem.
> Having these ideas in your head is a good start, but it isn't enough.
> You have to get in the habit of getting them into the reader's heads
> without the benefit of footnotes.
I certainly don't intend for the poem to have footnotes - well perhaps
one for 'box' saying 'prefab home,' it it's really necessary. It's not
impossible for it to be understood without them.
> Art is a form of communication, and
> it's your job to make sure that the audience to which you've directed
> the work -- in this case, those who are versed in and enjoy and are
> reasonably proficient at reading poetry -- gets what you have to say.
>
True; that's where the value of the Usenet feedback comes in; to see
how much of the audience gets it. Some got the theme immediately, some
didn't; some readers like one poem of mine, and hate another. It's all
valuable feedback.
> The poet should not be limited by the unintelligent or unlettered
> reader, but the writing off of the failures of one's own technique to
> subtlety is a prelude to crankdom.
>
I won't deny that I have much to learn in the way of technique. This
is the first poem I've written on thsi theme, and the first using this
stanza form; I didn't expect it to be the last word on the subject,
and don't think it is.
> Besides, the joke is just plain terrible, and not masculine enough.
> I'm not sure that anything could be, given that you're trying to have
> the guy speak with a child's voice and an adult's emotions. Just can't
> work from a dramatic perspective.
>
Some will chuckle; some will groan.
> >> >Outside, the garden that he grew
> >> >Where I would work the summer through,
>
>
> For fuck's sake, stop defending yourself! The majority that does that
> never improves; the minority that hungers for good, tough criticism
> usually becomes proficient.
>
I haven't been defending the merits of the poem; I don't think it's
the perfect poem. It's not as good as the Frost one I used for a
template, for instance.
What I've been doing, in talking about the poem at all, is looking for
specific criticisms that will improve what I've written. And I've got
a few which I've revised in; for example, I realize that 'the summer
through' should be either 'the summers through' or 'each summer
through' - that says something I forgot to say originally. That type
of criticism helps.
> The crit was correct. Your iambs can baa till the end of time, but
> your artistic choices are wrong here: forced rhyme, soft consonants in
> a passage that should be harrowing, constipated syntax, singsong
> rhythm reinforced by the short measure and the rhyming couplet. You
> hope to scald, but you're using fluffy bunny technique.
>
Considering the length of this, that's a good note to close on. I
might comment latr on the Blake you posted, in a separate post.
Once again, thanks for writing and commenting.
ggamble
<george...@yahoo.ca> wrote:
>
>> >> >This is my father's house, although
>> >> >Some others live here now, I know.
>>
>>
>> Either way, it's a forced rhyme, and has an ugly effect upon the
>> reader, one which is magnified by the singsong meter of the second
>> line.
>>
>
>
>Well, OK; to some readers it will read like a forced rhyme. But of
>course it isn't; there's plenty of other rhymes that I could have
>used, some of which might have made a better story.
It's forced rhyme no matter how you try to defend it.
George Dance
> On Thu, 06 Sep 2007 10:48:58 -0700, George Dance
>
I'm not trying to defend it; if someone doesn't like it, there's no
point in my telling them it's good anyway.
I'm just pointing out that I wasn't forced to use it for the sake of
the rhyme-scheme. If that's not what 'forced rhyme' means, then WTF
does it mean?
George Dance
On Sep 5, 11:29 am, Karla <karl...@sbcNOSPAMglobal.net> wrote:
> In article <1188821442.393973.242...@o80g2000hse.googlegroups.com>, George Dance
> says...
>
>
> >That room's all changed; oh, where is it,
>
> "oh where is it" stinks, George. It's nursery rhyme or Dr. Seuss. Ugh! Adults
> talk like this?
Just for fun, I decided to do a google search to see whether adults do
use phrases like "oh, where is it"? Google found 12,300 instances of
"oh, where is" on groups, and 153,000 on the web. (Some of those are
references to children's literature, of course; but plenty of them are
adults speaking about some other topic.)
Karla
says...
The vocabulary reflects the speaker, yes. But I don't find him regressing. It
begins with a child-like sing-songy voice, which sounds to this ear like the
writer is inexperienced or is deliberately giving the speaker an affected voice,
maybe hoping to imitate poetry of old. Look at those first two lines. This could
be an eleven year old boy remembering a year ago. Nothing about those first
lines let's us know that an adult stands before his father's house.
>> >My Father's House
>> >----------------------------
>>
>> >This is my father's house, although
>> >Some others live here now, I know.
>>
>> Ugh, "I know" is so blatantly there to make it rhyme!
>>
>
>
>Less blatantly, it's there to tell the reader which stanza form is
>being used as a template: that of Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a
>Snowy Evening" (which uses the same rhyme in its opening couplet).
Aren't the first lines of that "Whose woods these are I think I know / His house
is in the village though"? That's pretty straightforward, even with the first
inversion which I think he did to draw us to the woods first, the snowy woods
where we will spend our time.
>That allows the reader to accept 'right' in the next line (which isn't
>supposed to rhyme with anything), but it draws attention to 'now'
>which almost but doesn't quite rhyme, and (I hope) gets him interested
>in the rhyming of those end lines.
>
>
>> >They said that it was quite all right
>> >For me to come and see it now.
These aren't bad lines. My main complaint is "and see it now" which are filler
words. Nothing in the first four lines informs me that it's an adult speaking.
>> >Dad laid those gray foundation blocks
>> >And built the rest (out of a box)
>> >Toiling after a full day's work.
>>
>>Awkward sentence: "...And buitl the rest (out of a box) / Toiling after a full
>> days's work."
>>
>
>
>All it actually needs, to be perfectly correct, is a comma after
>"box)". But since that was the end of both a parenthesis and a line, I
>thought I could safely omit it. (The parenthesis is there because
>otherwise the participle would dangle; it would sound like the box had
>been toiling.)
>
>
>> >I helped, though I was only six.
>>
>
>
>Now, I'd thought that line - so naturally the way a child would
>express it - was an obvious clue that the speaker, though a man,
>regresses to thinking like a child here.
No clue that he's an adult. Nothing amiss in those lines either that would get
anyone thinking that he'd later want to burn down the house. I loved helping my
parents at that age. I wanted to learn to iron (silly me). I'm not dragging this
out because I hate rhyme, hate you or dislike your poem's theme, George, I'm
trying to show you that your first eight lines do not establish the age of your
speaker, his regression or any hint that anything is wrong in the box.
>> >See, here's the back door I would use
>> >And here's where I'd remove my shoes
>> >On entry; here I'd put my stuff
>> >Then, when allowed, climb up these stairs.
>>
>> What's the purpose of this colorless trek? How does it support the theme?
>
>
>Well, what do you think the theme is? The theme, as I see it, is
>Philip Larkin's, "They fuck you up, your mom and dad" - how parents
>shape and misshape their children. The trek's purpose is to start
>showing how that's done, by listing three of the rules the child had
>to live under: he's not allowed to enter the house when he wants, to
>wear his shoes inside it, or to use the front door.
It's in your head, this supposed "fuck you up". Plenty of kids enter at the
backdoor to leave their boots and scarves, take off their muddy shoes. It's not
horrible to teach a young kid of six to close the door ("We're not heating the
outdoors!"), take off the muddy shoes and then come in. Even today, a lot of
homes are set up so you enter through the garage, the back door, etc. It's just
not clear that your young boy was mistreated or demeaned. You need to make it
clear. Working on that may make you overstate it, and maybe you'll have to
soften it later. As it stands now though, your text is no where near the picture
in your head.
>
>> Like
>>Leisha commented, it needs something otherwise cut it. It's laughable or, at the
>> very least, leaves the reader saying "so what?".
>
>
>Actually, I'm hoping the reader will say, 'so what'. Virtually every
>household has rules like that; so virtually every reader will
>understand the dominance/submission game the parent and child are
>playing, and accept it as the norm. Then in later stanzas, as the
>game gradually gets more brutal, the reader has the problem of how to
>object to it from inside, after having already accepted it.
>
>
>> >In this room I'd wash many a dish,
>> >Gaze out this window, and I'd wish
>> >To be so many other places.
>> >(Wishy-washy? Yeah, I guess!)
>>
>> Ugh, last line obvious a filler.
>>
>
>
>Not at all. Men have two trained-in defence mechanisms to cope with
>strong emotion: humour and anger. Here's the first defence being
>tripped: the speaker starts to realize how sad and lonely he was as a
>child, and reacts by making a totally inappropriate joke. That may
>read strangely, but it's exactly how I can imagine a normal male mind
>to work. (Yeah, I'm sure that will go over a lot of readers' heads,
>and they won't like the line, but tough - I understand why it belongs
>there.)
Okay, George, are we at 12 lines? Still, no indication of anything abnormal.
What kid doesn't wish to be any other place than washing dishes? Why is a
longing to be somewhere else, probably out playing with other kids, wishy-washy?
It's just not clear and not anywhere near your lovely explanation.
>> >Outside, the garden that he grew
>> >Where I would work the summer through,
>>
>> Unnatural speech, awkward lines, bad, predictable rhyme.
>
>
>Look; I just offended dull readers at least with my 'filler' line, so
>now I'm compensating them by giving them some pretty lines: perfect
>iambs, soft consonants, happy words like 'garden' 'summer' and 'play'.
>I'm also continuing to tell the story of the dominance/submission
>game: the child is now made to work - not only chores (as in S3) but
>long hours in the garden. That last is the first place where the
>dominance of the child becomes abnormal - he's made to work when other
>children get to play - but it's still the same game.
The very words you call pretty, I call bland and forgettable. Perhaps, but I'm
not convinced, a reader might wonder if it was unusual that the kid had to work
all summer. Many more readers might think that the kid had chores during the
summer. It still doesn't smell at all like abuse to this reader.
>> George, I have nothing
>>against rhyme except when I'm reminded that most of the world thinks a poem is
>> lines that rhyme.
>
>
>'Most of the world' likes rhyme. As you said, think about who your
>reader is to be: if I'm to count 'most of the world' as readers, I'll
>have to learn
>to write in rhyme
>at least some of the time.
Well, this helps me understand who you want your reader to be. Correct me if I'm
wrong here. Your reader knows nothing about poetry. Your reader thinks a poem is
lines that rhyme. If I'm correct, ignore all of my comments. You've done it!
>> Your use throughout confirms their view. There's nothing
>> wonderful about any of your rhymes.
>>
>
>
>Agreed; I didn't try any clever rhyming with the couplets. The rhymes,
>like the word choices, were all kept simple and compatible with a
>child's voice - the whole point of all that being to indicate that the
>speaker has regressed to his childhood and is now mentally caught back
>up in the dominance/submission game he was forced to play then.
I know that you want your poem to be about that, but it isn't. There's no
indication that your speaker is an adult as I've pointed out before. The only
thing close to any problem in the box is your kid working during the summer. And
I'm being generous by allowing for that.
>> >Watching my friends run and play
>> >Mysterious games I never knew.
>>
>>I'm still unclear how your recitation of where you took off your shoes, played,
>> wash dishes adds to your theme. Think about it.
>>
>
>
>I hope I've made that clearer. But again I'll have to ask you: What
>did you think my theme was?
Your last couple of stanzas and the title. You waste your first stanzas with
bland diction and awkward grammar.
>I'm not sure how you understand my poem; especially when you talk
>about "your recitation" of where "you played." First of all, this poem
>is not about me, but about an imaginary speaker. Second, nothing in
>the damn thing so far has said that the speaker played; what's been
>said is that the speaker did not play, but had to work long hours in
>the garden; not only must he use the servant or slave door of the
>house, but he has to work like one as well. And this game goes on for
>years: 'I would workthe summer through' tells you that it's not just
>one summer, but recurs (presumably, all the time the speaker lived in
>that house).
Well, George, you're giving us information that you need to subtly work into the
poem. If only the reader knew that the boy used a slave door while the rest of
the family came in through the front door. That's not in your poem. What is in
your poem is vague and bland leaving us with little reason to read to the end.
>A reader who thinks the poem's been about where the author "played" as
>a boy will miss all that. But I'll have to dismiss him as someone who
>didn't understand my poem, presumably because he did not put enough
>attention into reading it.
>
>
>> >That room's all changed; oh, where is it,
>>
>> "oh where is it" stinks, George. It's nursery rhyme or Dr. Seuss. Ugh! Adults
>> talk like this? Who is your reader? See him flinch?
>>
>
>
>Hmm ... I missed the Seussian style. But: great! The speaker is
>starting to regress completely, to become trapped in the games his
>father forced him to play (which, remember, is by now purely a mind
>game).
No, George, the reader will conclude that the writer is inexperienced.
>> >The one chair I was let to sit?
>> >(For boys can be such dirty things)
>>
>> Same comment as the preceding comment. "For boys can be such dirty things"
>> sounds very affected.
>>
>
>
>It sounds like something he's been told (presumably by his father). I
>originally had it in quotation marks; I took them off to show that the
>speaker has internalized it, that he has accepted being a dirty
>thing.
Italicize it. Hope your reader thinks grandma said it.
>> >Which the corner where boys were put?
>>
>> Huh? That line sounds unnatural and awkward.
>>
>
>
>That whole stanza sounds unnatural and awkward (especially right after
>the pretty iambic tetrameter verse about the garden). It should; the
>speaker is starting to feel anger (his sole remaining defence
>mechanism). Imagine this poem being read: this stanza should be said
>in a louder voice than the previous, with some of it (like "dirty
>things") almost shouted.
Maybe it should show anger but don't fool yourself. That is an awkward line, not
the decomposition of a man to child.
>> >Down that hall there is a room
>> >Where I'd be shut (as in a tomb)
>> >After the meal, to make no noise,
>> >To play with toys or read, and then
>>
>> The litany continues and I say "so what".
>
>
>Then I have to ask you: what do you think the theme of this poem is?
>It's obvious, to me, what the child's being shut away in his room
>every night, and warned to make no noise, has to do with the theme of
>parents dominating their children. But I can't say how it relates to
>some other possible theme, if I don't know what that theme is.
See above.
>> Leisha's reference to "My Last
>>Duchess" is a good one. Throughout the Duke's litany, we not only hear about the
>> paintings, we're clued into the Duke's character, the events, his attitude
>> towards people, particularly women. Your litanay does nothing but bore us.
>
>
>Come on; there have been quite a few people who said other things
>about the litanay [sic]. The first person in understood the game it
>was describing; that the father was the boy's 'master' in a master/
>servant game. You can only say that the litanay does nothing for you,
>and for other readers like you who don't get the theme or plot.
>(Which I am not saying is your fault; it could be due to my
>inexperience.)
I understood the last stanza quite well. As they stand, your first stanzas do
nothing for that stanza or the theme.
>> And
>> it isn't even interesting rhyme. All of it is predictable and contrived.
>
>As I told Rob, I happen to find the fourth-line rhymes interesting,
>and not predictable at all. The couplets are fairly standard, for
>reasons I've already explained - cleverly rhymed couplets a la Pope or
>Auden would have been completely out of place here.
So, before you master "4-line tetrameter rhyming aaxa", you've abandoned it. Why
choose this form for this theme? Why make the quick assumption tht it's
completely out of place? Think about it before answering. No knee-jerk
responses. I'm asking to help you and I could be doing many other things.
>> We
>> wince at the inversions and awkward, unnatural speech that seems to be there
>> just to serve the end rhyme.
>>
>
>
>Certainly, if one thinks that the purpose of a poem is to serve the
>rhyme (rather than vice versa), that's reason to wince.
>
>
>> >Lights out, in bed by nine each night:
>> >Some nights wanting to pee with fright,
>> >Face and pajama bottoms down
>> >While for my father's belt I'd wait.
>>
>> >Oh, if I were a millionaire
>> >I'd buy my father's house, and there
>> >I'd build a bonfire, oh so high
>> >Its flames would light up all the air.
>>
>> Same comments as previously. Ugh: "While for my father's belt I'd wait."
>
>
>I guess by 'same comment' you mean:
>> We
>> wince at the inversions and awkward, unnatural speech that seems to be there
>> just to serve the end rhyme.
>
>
>But that's nonsense. I didn't invert that sentence just to rhyme
>'wait' with 'night'. That's an off-rhyme. If I'd have written:
>While I'd wait for my father's belt
>it would have worked just as well as an off-rhyme.
Please re-read my comment. I didn't say that the inversion was the end-rhyme.
The whole line forsakes a natural word order.
>If I'd written this in free verse, I would have written the line
>exactly the same way as I did here - because that would seem to put
>the emphasis on 'wait' rather than 'belt', and because that's where I
>wanted it to be. Because it's 'wait' that shows the degree the child
>has been shaped by the game: every instinct in his body is telling him
>to flee, while he's been trained to lie still and wait.
>
>
>That's why I wrote the line that way. Nothing to do with rhyming
>'night' and 'wait'.
See above.
>> Who is
>> your reader, George?
>
>
>Obviously not someone who has an aversion to rhyme, or a prejudice
>that if a poet rhymes he can't be doing anything else at the same
>time. Those types of readers will hate me. You sound like you may be
>one.
An aversion to bad rhyme, yes. I love it when it's used well and the writer has
given some thought as to why she's included it in her poem.
>> Who enjoys unnatural lines like that? "I'd build a bonfire,
>>oh so high" ugh! It sounds like you're working out your beloved end rhyme again
>
>
>WTF? "High" doesn't rhyme with anything; it's not supposed to rhyme
>with anything.
You're right. It's the third line and doesn't rhyme with anything. I haven't a
clue why you put "oh so high" in your speaker's mouth. It does strike me as
filler though.
Work some color into your litany. You said the kid enters a slave door and I
gathered that no one else does. Your reader doesn't know that the way that it's
now written.
>> It doesn't
>> serve, there's no surprise, no reward for wading through it.
>
>
>What would have been a 'surprise' or reward?
Okay, if there's no payoff for reading the colorless first three or four
stanzas, if they serve no purpose, get rid of them.
>> Every recitation of
>> the Duke's served our portrait of him, our understanding of his wives.
>
>
>No; the poem said nothing about the wives. It was all about the Duke,
>just as mine's all about my persona (and certainly not about my
>childhood; some of those things happened to me, but not all of them.)
Gee, when the Duke said everything stopped, I thought it was because his wife
and her lover was killed. I'm going on memory here. I thought he hinted that she
smiled too much, was common perhaps. That's three things now that I remember
about his wife.
>> I see no
>>point to your colorless litany. I see no point to putting silly lines into your
>>adult speaker. You might also consider compressing it into a handful of lines.
>>
>
>
>Perhaps you can give me an example: a poem that successfully does
>manage to convey the theme that you think I'm supposed to be
>conveying, in the style you think that I should be using. If I'm
>impressed enough, I'll try to write a poem like that. But I won't call
>that a 'rewrite' but a new poem.
Today, others have offered up some poems. I can't think of one off the top of my
head but I did recall this boy's remembrance of his father. It's not as dark,
but look at the detail!
Those Winter Sundays
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?
Robert Hayden
>>It may seem to you that I'm being hard on you. I just have no clue that you're
>> thinking about each word, each line, the tools in your poetry toolbox.
>
>
>Yes, it's obvious that you didn't understand what I was trying to do
>here; which probably was my fault more than yours, as I'm new at all
>this. OTOH, you seem to have a strong dislike of end rhyme as some
>kind of cancer that takes over a poem, and that may keep you from
>appreciating some new poetry that uses end-rhyme.
George, I read your many comments. I understood what you'd hoped to do with your
poem. I offered to you a reflection back of what your poem contains. And it
doesn't contain 90% of what you think it does. If your poem contained what you
said, I'd have applauded it.
>> A hammer
>>doesn't unscrew a bolt. Why are you using easy end rhymes? why are you inverting
>>lines and phrases? Why are you throwing in silly lines like "oh so high" in an
>> adult's mouth? Who is your reader, George?
>>
>
>
>All good questions, and I thank you for raising them. As usual, your
>critique was thoughtful and went to the heart of the matter. You made
>me think deeply about my poem and my reasons for writing it as I did;
>you underscored the importance of having good reasons (not silly
>reasons like writing clever rhyme) for writing a poem in one way or
>another. Since I've gone on rather too long replying to your last
>questions earlier, I won't rehash those points, but end on that note
>of appreciation and thanks.
I am not sure if I've offered this poem before to you. I cheer it's great end
rhyme. And it's gorgeous diction. And much more. It's "The Self-Portrait of Ivan
Generalic: by Gjertrud Schnackenberg. Here are the first few lines:
"Once distant villages hung in the trees
Like God the Father's stars, and pigs transformed
The grass with wedding feasts, and goslings swarmed
Running like kindergarteners from the geese,
Glad in the farmyard of the sacred heart,
The windows of the Lord where sunsets brimmed
Around the heads of sheep, as gold-leaf rimmed
The gospel pages where we played a part"
And here's a link to the complete poem (which is at the end of the post):
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/rec.arts.poems/msg/e642dd96fbcbd77e
In a longer piece, Edna St. Vincent Millay does what you want to do. Read
"Renascence". Look how deceptively simple it begins:
"ALL I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked another way,
And saw three islands in a bay.
So with my eyes I traced the line
Of the horizon, thin and fine,
Straight around till I was come
Back to where I'd started from;
And all I saw from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood."
I almost dismissed it the first time I read it. Instead, it bit me for life.
Karla
--
--
Josh Hill
It does, doesn't it. Admirable restraint -- anything more and it would
have been treacle.
Josh Hill
<george...@yahoo.ca> wrote:
>On Sep 6, 8:01 am, Josh Hill <userepl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, 06 Sep 2007 02:54:15 -0700, George Dance
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> wrote:
>> >> >My Father's House
>> >> >----------------------------
>>
>
>
>Thank you for reading and commenting on the poem, Josh. I've snipped
>down to my lines and your coments; I don't think the poor reader has
>to wade through it.
The pleasure's mine. I don't do this enough anymore, which is to say,
almost never. Have to get over to Gary's place sometime.
>> >> >This is my father's house, although
>> >> >Some others live here now, I know.
>>
>>
>> Either way, it's a forced rhyme, and has an ugly effect upon the
>> reader, one which is magnified by the singsong meter of the second
>> line.
>>
>
>
>Well, OK; to some readers it will read like a forced rhyme. But of
>course it isn't; there's plenty of other rhymes that I could have
>used, some of which might have made a better story.
>This is my father's house, although
>We buried him six years ago
>is a better rhyme, which took me 10 seconds.
No need to be defensive -- it isn't really about your capabilities,
though, or your ego: it's about what appears on the page, and what the
(reasonably competent) reader makes of it.
>> >> >They said that it was quite all right
>> >> >For me to come and see it now.
>>
>> >> >Dad laid those gray foundation blocks
>> >> >And built the rest (out of a box)
>> >> >Toiling after a full day's work.
>>
>>
>> It's awkward any way you look at it, though I think there are worse
>> harms here, e.g., the blocks/box rhyme, which is reminiscent of Dr.
>> Seuss.
>>
>> BTW, you said that you attempted to write like a child
>
>Not exactly. The speaker's an older male who regresses to a childlke
>state, and the childlike language was meant to reflect that.
I'm not sure why he would regress. Alzheimers? You have to do
something to make this somewhat unusual situation plausible, and to
clue the reader in to it. Also have a reason for it. I mean, just
portraying some drooling coot in the corner of a room isn't enough.
Everything must count -- word, idea. And the effect must be both valid
and unique.
>> , but "toiling"
>> is not a child's word, nor is "full day's work" a child's concept. See
>> the Songs of Innocence and Experience for a successful (and famously
>> subtle) example of that. It isn't easy to bring off.
>>
>Well, sure. But I wasn't trying to make the child the speaker.
We readers are simple: you have to make things fairly plain for us, at
lest by poetry standards. Also keep in mind that until the prizes and
appointments start flowing your way, you're an unknown. Readers,
editors, judges aren't going to give your poem the reading it deserves
unless you grab them somehow, intrigue them somehow.
>> >> >I helped, though I was only six.
>>
>>
>> For me, it has more the effect (along with "They said it was quite all
>> right") of seeming a burlesque of T. S. Eliot's ennui trope.
>>
>
>
>Ennui fits, though in Eliot I always think of it as repression. I
>don't see it here, though you're right about 'quite all right'. That's
>still there at the end, when he wants to burn the house but only after
>buying it. (Even the formal verse treatment was meant to underscore
>that).
It's one of the things I have trouble with, I think. In all fairness,
I didn't read the poem straight through, just caught it in segments in
the crit. But if that's not the cause of my failure to catch on, you
may need to include more cues. (Eliot includes about a thousand per
line, doesn't he, but we mere mortals are usually OK with one or two.)
>> >> >See, here's the back door I would use
>> >> >And here's where I'd remove my shoes
>> >> >On entry; here I'd put my stuff
>> >> >Then, when allowed, climb up these stairs.
>>
>>
>> Here are some lines from Larkin, also in a mundane setting:
>>
>> Groping back to bed after a piss
>> I part thick curtains, and am startled by
>> The rapid clouds, the moon's cleanliness.
>>
>> Can you see why those work so magnificently, while yours do not? Among
>> other things, they've an extra layer, one of imagery, which is
>> actually (this being a poem) the primary one. You've given us a rhyme,
>> Larkin has given us verse. You've given us carpet squares, he's given
>> us exaltation.
>>
>
>
>Compare that to the Larkin poem I quoted, "This Be the Verse" - which
>is also rhymed, and completely telly with only one image ("like a
>continental shelf") that sounds like a forced rhyme itself. Different
>poems use different techniques, and a poet has to use these or those
>as the poem requires it.
>
>Of course Larkin could use all the techniques better than I can today;
>he's worked at it more. But you're comparing my apple to his orange.
A few more than that if you include the old-fashioned dress, but I
agree that Larkin is scanty with the imagery. "Like a continental
shelf" doesn't sound to me like a forced rhyme -- rhymes written
backwards seldom do, even if they are, and I found the image witty and
had the impression that he was chuckling as he wrote it.
But -- chuckling is part of the key here. This is a humorous poem,
light rather than serious verse, and while imagery has an important
role in light verse as well and in some cases is key, it seems to me
less crucial.
>> Perilous game, I think, in that if the reader says so what, he's
>> likely to wander off and watch TV. Better to use the novelist's
>> technique of arousing curiosity and suspense.
>>
>There are lots of ways someone could write about this or any subject.
>Most potential readers aren't gonna read any of them anyway, but turn
>on the TV instead. I do what I can by posting here: that way I both
>reach readers and get feedback. And I listen to all of it.
Sure. The thing is, you have to use some of the multitude of
techniques that appeal to the serious reader. Or perhaps something
cheaper, like the shock jock openings in the Larkin poems.
>> >> >In this room I'd wash many a dish,
>> >> >Gaze out this window, and I'd wish
>> >> >To be so many other places.
>> >> >(Wishy-washy? Yeah, I guess!)
>>
>>
>> Let me offer a belated apology for piggybacking on George's crit, I
>> didn't see the original post.
>>
>> Which being said, you know you have a problem when your explanation
>> runs longer than the lines they're explaining.
>
>
>Well, I don't think the poem needs any explanation; but explaining
>what I was up to allows me to find out where I could have done that
>better. Whereas not explaining, and having a reader tell me how I
>could have done something else instead, doesn't tell me anything.
>Karla knows how to write poetry, and I've always found I could learn
>something from one of her crits, no matter how hostile. (This is not
>the first time 8) But not this time; this time it seemed like she was
>telling me how to write some other poem.
It's not so much the fact that you wrote the explanations as that you
/had/ to write the explanations. Had you done your job, Karla wouldn't
have needed them. I wouldn't have needed them.
Which reopens the question of what to do with a 50-50 split. Never
quite figured that out myself. It's true that if you seek to please
everybody, you're likely to please nobody, but on the other hand,
there's something to be said for a groundswell of approbation.
>> >> >Outside, the garden that he grew
>> >> >Where I would work the summer through,
>>
>
>>
>> For fuck's sake, stop defending yourself! The majority that does that
>> never improves; the minority that hungers for good, tough criticism
>> usually becomes proficient.
>>
>I haven't been defending the merits of the poem; I don't think it's
>the perfect poem. It's not as good as the Frost one I used for a
>template, for instance.
Can anyone here write a poem the equal of Frost's? Hell, can anyone
living?
>What I've been doing, in talking about the poem at all, is looking for
>specific criticisms that will improve what I've written. And I've got
>a few which I've revised in; for example, I realize that 'the summer
>through' should be either 'the summers through' or 'each summer
>through' - that says something I forgot to say originally. That type
>of criticism helps.
>
>
>> The crit was correct. Your iambs can baa till the end of time, but
>> your artistic choices are wrong here: forced rhyme, soft consonants in
>> a passage that should be harrowing, constipated syntax, singsong
>> rhythm reinforced by the short measure and the rhyming couplet. You
>> hope to scald, but you're using fluffy bunny technique.
>>
>Considering the length of this, that's a good note to close on. I
>might comment latr on the Blake you posted, in a separate post.
>
>Once again, thanks for writing and commenting.
Amadeus Jinn
"George Dance" <george...@yahoo.ca> wrote in message news:1189103924.1...@y42g2000hsy.googlegroups.com...
This was the best piece I've read by you.
The disregard of perfect rhyme was nice.
Sometimes simply not rhyming is nice.
The word "box" did denote "box houses" but hard
to get that from first reading.
Cheers
George Dance
> "George Dance" <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> wrote in messagenews:1189103924.1...@y42g2000hsy.googlegroups.com...
> > On Sep 6, 11:11 am, ggamble <f...@net.com> wrote:
> >> On Thu, 06 Sep 2007 10:48:58 -0700, George Dance
>
> >> <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> wrote:
>
> >> >> >> >This is my father's house, although
> >> >> >> >Some others live here now, I know.
>
> >> >> Either way, it's a forced rhyme, and has an ugly effect upon the
> >> >> reader, one which is magnified by the singsong meter of the second
> >> >> line.
>
> >> >Well, OK; to some readers it will read like a forced rhyme. But of
> >> >course it isn't; there's plenty of other rhymes that I could have
> >> >used, some of which might have made a better story.
>
> >> It's forced rhyme no matter how you try to defend it.
>
> > I'm not trying to defend it; if someone doesn't like it, there's no
> > point in my telling them it's good anyway.
>
> > I'm just pointing out that I wasn't forced to use it for the sake of
> > the rhyme-scheme. If that's not what 'forced rhyme' means, then WTF
> > does it mean?
>
> This was the best piece I've read by you.
>
Thank you. That's exactly how I feel about it, though in my case some
of that is certainly due to creator's prejudice: my last work is
always the best. Which makes the feedback all the more important.
> The disregard of perfect rhyme was nice.
> Sometimes simply not rhyming is nice.
>
I like the contrast between the perfect rhymes in the first lines of
each stanza, and the lack of rhymes in the rest; it's different,
something bound to hit the reader's attention leave him with the
problem of figuring out why it's written that way. (Of course some
readers, like Rob, may decide that's only because the poet was too
lazy to think of more rhymes; but as I told him, I don't want to write
for that type of reader anyway.)
> The word "box" did denote "box houses" but hard
> to get that from first reading.
>
'Box' is still one word that disturbs me. I've changed the line to
And built the whole thing (from a box)
which at least makes it clear that the house wasn't merely a box; but
I don't know how much clearer it is. 'Home in a box' is a standard
term in the industry up here for a prefrab home, and (since we bought
one) I've been familiar with it since childhood. But apprently it
means little or nothing to those who've had no acquaintance with such
homes.
http://www.canadianbusiness.com/my_money/spending/home/article.jsp?content=20051006_151507_932
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/homes/story.html?id=cc5e5727-dd69-4cc6-bfcf-2ca9bb6d52a1
The ref could be changed; but I'm reluctant to do that. It seems to me
that's a step toward spoonfeeding a reader, encouraging him to turn
off his brain when he reads. I prefer reading poems where I have to
read in focus, paying attention to and trying to understand every word
or else I might miss something; so that's what I'd prefer to write as
well.
George Dance
On a superficial reading, it can be quite powerful. However, a more
careful reading allows one to spot the holes and cracks, which
somewhat diminish the impact.
Those begin to show up in the third stanza:
The welfare Worker lies awake
But the law's as tricky as a ten-foot snake,
So Timothy Winters drinks his cup
And slowly goes on growing up.
The first two lines look like forced rhyme; as if they were written
that way only to get the forced rhyme in. Ignore that, and concentrate
on the sense, and what are the lines saying? "The Welfare worker
knows about the situation, but tricks in the law won't allow him to do
anything about it." Why not? What tricks? These lines raise more
questions than they answer; other than being two lines that rhyme,
they don't serve the poem in any way.
On first reading, the next line "Timothy Winters drinks his cup" also
looks like a forced rhyme. Deeper reflection reveals a meaning to it:
Timothy is being compared to Christ; he's suffering because it's God's
will that he suffers. Further reflection shows that's not something
children go around saying; it's clearly inconsistent with the poet's
apparent goal of "staying within the language boundaries of children.
However, someone who's liked the poem up to now could shrug that off -
the speaker could be precocious, or just have accidentally thought of
a cup - and move on to the next stanza:
At Morning Prayers the Master helves
for children less fortunate than ourselves,
And the loudest response in the room is when
Timothy Winters roars "Amen!"
The reader's attention is drawn to 'helves.' That's certainly not a
word a child uses; nor is it a word that an adult uses; nor is it a
word that even appears in abridged dictionaries. So what's it doing
there? The only answer is that it's there because it's an end-rhyme;
the author wanted to use the phrase 'less fortunate than ourselves',
and was left scrambling for a rhyme - a forced rhyme, IOW, disguised
only by another common trick (of putting the forced rhyme first). So
both suspicions raised from the previous stanza - that the author is
rhyming for the sake of rhyming, and that he's not staying true to a
child's voice -are confirmed.
However, a reader might still shrug off this evidence of his own eyes
- telling himself that, as Causley is a published poet, he can't be
doing any such things - and move on to the last stanza:
So come one angel, come on ten
Timothy Winters says "Amen
Amen amen amen amen."
Timothy Winters, Lord. Amen
To a lazy reader, this may just seem like the poet is lazy; that he
ran out of rhymes. There's a clear meaning, though: the masters keep
'helving', Timothy keeps 'amening,' but nothing ever happens; the
'helving' is not only hypocritical but completely ineffective. Which
adds a bitterly ironic twist to the last 'amen' ["so be it"], which
has to be interpreted descriptively - 'that's how it has to be' -
rather than prescriptively - 'make it so.'
That is a powerful ending, which makes the message clear: 'helving' or
lip service about the 'unfortunate' is both hypocritical and useless,
as it accomplishes nothing. The poem is bound to affect the reader,
and one can hope that some of the readers are moved into doing
something about poverty themselves - as those moved merely into being
touched by the poem are merely 'helving' themselves.
Cauley has written a powerful piece, which draws attention to the
unfortunate and arouses sympathy in their plight. However, that is
exactly what the Masters (the school masters, but obviously symbolic
of all the authorities) do - talk about the unfortunate to arouse
sympathy. The poet is 'helving' just like the Masters, and so is the
reader who gets "hit like a lightning bolt" and then moves on to the
next poem. Since 'helving' is hypocritical and useless, Cauley's poem
(being more 'helving') is hypocritical and useless, and so is the idle
reader's reaction - a further ironic twist that utterly deflates the
poem's impact for a careful reader.
George Dance
> In article <1189072455.069937.314...@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com>, George Dance
L2 tells one that the speaker is no longer the boy of the story; as
the story was when the father lived in the house, and he no longer
does. But I see your point; the family could have moved out at 10,
with the boy now 11.
> >> >My Father's House
> >> >----------------------------
>
> >> >This is my father's house, although
> >> >Some others live here now, I know.
>
> >> Ugh, "I know" is so blatantly there to make it rhyme!
>
> >Less blatantly, it's there to tell the reader which stanza form is
> >being used as a template: that of Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a
> >Snowy Evening" (which uses the same rhyme in its opening couplet).
>
> Aren't the first lines of that "Whose woods these are I think I know / His house
> is in the village though"?
Yep. Originally I had copied them even closer. My first line read:
This is my father's house, I know;
(which is how the first sentence still reads).
That's pretty straightforward, even with the first
> inversion which I think he did to draw us to the woods first, the snowy woods
> where we will spend our time.
I'm sure he did; just as I used 'house' as my first noun, to draw
attention to the house where we spend the time in my poem. The
important thing to note is that, when reading the 'know/though' rhyme,
and the inversion that serves the rhyme, you did not think "the writer
is inexperienced or is deliberately giving the speaker an affected
voice, maybe hoping to imitate poetry of old." That's the difference
I'm interested in. Is there something intrinsic to the poems
themselves? Or is it just for extrinsic reasons: because the poem
carries the Frost brandname, and you know he's a better writer than
that?
>
> >> >They said that it was quite all right
> >> >For me to come and see it now.
>
> These aren't bad lines. My main complaint is "and see it now" which are filler
> words. Nothing in the first four lines informs me that it's an adult speaking.
>
Ah ... illumination! This is precisely the kind of criticism I look
forward to getting from you - specific problems that can be fixed
without sacrificing anything else.
I'd disagree that 'see it now' is filler: that tells the reader that
the events of the poem are happening now; that it it is *not* a poem
about his childhood, but about his memories. But 'come and' is filler
- he can't see the place unless he goes to it, duh! - and that makes
the whole line sound like filler.
So, how do I revise it? Well, as soon as the problem is made clear, so
is the answer; I need to replace 'come' with a more descriptive verb.
And, in light of your second criticism, that verb has to connote that
the speaker is an adult. That's something that looks doable; and if I
do it, that will improve S1 immensely.
>
> >> >I helped, though I was only six.
>
> >Now, I'd thought that line - so naturally the way a child would
> >express it - was an obvious clue that the speaker, though a man,
> >regresses to thinking like a child here.
>
> No clue that he's an adult. Nothing amiss in those lines either that would get
> anyone thinking that he'd later want to burn down the house.
True; this stanza expresses nothing but pride and affection for his
father; that's all he's aware of, and all we're aware of, by S2. That
was deliberate.
> I loved helping my
> parents at that age. I wanted to learn to iron (silly me). I'm not dragging this
> out because I hate rhyme, hate you or dislike your poem's theme, George, I'm
> trying to show you that your first eight lines do not establish the age of your
> speaker, his regression or any hint that anything is wrong in the box.
>
Re the speaker's age, you have a point. You're correct about the other
two, but those are not flaws as I see them; I didn't want to tell the
reader up front either that the speaker was starting to think like the
child he was, or that there were problems in his childhood, but to
gradually introduce those ideas.
> >> >See, here's the back door I would use
> >> >And here's where I'd remove my shoes
> >> >On entry; here I'd put my stuff
> >> >Then, when allowed, climb up these stairs.
>
> >> What's the purpose of this colorless trek? How does it support the theme?
>
> >Well, what do you think the theme is? The theme, as I see it, is
> >Philip Larkin's, "They fuck you up, your mom and dad" - how parents
> >shape and misshape their children. The trek's purpose is to start
> >showing how that's done, by listing three of the rules the child had
> >to live under: he's not allowed to enter the house when he wants, to
> >wear his shoes inside it, or to use the front door.
>
> It's in your head, this supposed "fuck you up". Plenty of kids enter at the
> backdoor to leave their boots and scarves, take off their muddy shoes. It's not
> horrible to teach a young kid of six to close the door ("We're not heating the
> outdoors!"), take off the muddy shoes and then come in. Even today, a lot of
> homes are set up so you enter through the garage, the back door, etc. It's just
> not clear that your young boy was mistreated or demeaned. You need to make it
> clear.
Not here. That the boy (and children in general) are continually
subject to rules inside the house regarding where they go, how they
dress, and what they can do, is perfectly normal. I'm hoping that the
reader will continue to see nothing wrong at this point. I don't, of
course, say here that the boy was mistreated, or not. Pace Rob, I
don't say anything about that, but let the reader draw his own
conclusions throughout.
> Working on that may make you overstate it, and maybe you'll have to
> soften it later. As it stands now though, your text is no where near the picture in your head.
>
The picture I'd have, by S3, is that the boy is now remembering that
he was continually subject to external rules governing his behavior.
That's all that S3 establishes.
> >Actually, I'm hoping the reader will say, 'so what'. Virtually every
> >household has rules like that; so virtually every reader will
> >understand the dominance/submission game the parent and child are
> >playing, and accept it as the norm. Then in later stanzas, as the
> >game gradually gets more brutal, the reader has the problem of how to
> >object to it from inside, after having already accepted it.
>
> >> >In this room I'd wash many a dish,
> >> >Gaze out this window, and I'd wish
> >> >To be so many other places.
> >> >(Wishy-washy? Yeah, I guess!)
>
> >> Ugh, last line obvious a filler.
>
> >Not at all. Men have two trained-in defence mechanisms to cope with
> >strong emotion: humour and anger. Here's the first defence being
> >tripped: the speaker starts to realize how sad and lonely he was as a
> >child, and reacts by making a totally inappropriate joke. That may
> >read strangely, but it's exactly how I can imagine a normal male mind
> >to work. (Yeah, I'm sure that will go over a lot of readers' heads,
> >and they won't like the line, but tough - I understand why it belongs
> >there.)
>
> Okay, George, are we at 12 lines? Still, no indication of anything abnormal.
Agreed. S3 tells us that the child had to do regular chores (work at
the parent's command) and that he didn't like living there, but both
of those are still perfectly normal; every reader should be able to
identify with both.
> What kid doesn't wish to be any other place than washing dishes? Why is a
> longing to be somewhere else, probably out playing with other kids, wishy-washy?
As I said, that was a silly pun; he was wishing and washing.
> It's just not clear and not anywhere near your lovely explanation.
>
> >> >Outside, the garden that he grew
> >> >Where I would work the summer through,
>
> >> Unnatural speech, awkward lines, bad, predictable rhyme.
>
>
> The very words you call pretty, I call bland and forgettable. Perhaps, but I'm
> not convinced, a reader might wonder if it was unusual that the kid
> had to work
> all summer.
Agreed again. This example is meant to be borderline; consistent with
the earlier examples of control, but also possibly cruel. A reader has
to decide for himself whether this is 'abuse' or not. (I could tell
him that I think, simply by changing 'work' to slave' - but, as I've
been pointing out, I wanted to keep the telling out.)
> Many more readers might think that the kid had chores during the
> summer. It still doesn't smell at all like abuse to this reader.
>
>
> >'Most of the world' likes rhyme. As you said, think about who your
> >reader is to be: if I'm to count 'most of the world' as readers, I'll
> >have to learn
> >to write in rhyme
> >at least some of the time.
>
> Well, this helps me understand who you want your reader to be. Correct me if I'm
> wrong here. Your reader knows nothing about poetry. Your reader thinks a poem is
> lines that rhyme.
I'm happy to correct. My reader is one who prefers verse to non-verse.
He doesn't have to think that all poetry is verse, or otherwise be
ignorant of poetry, as not all those who prever verse are either of
those things.
> If I'm correct, ignore all of my comments. You've done it!
>
> >The rhymes,
> >like the word choices, were all kept simple and compatible with a
> >child's voice - the whole point of all that being to indicate that the
> >speaker has regressed to his childhood and is now mentally caught back
> >up in the dominance/submission game he was forced to play then.
>
> I know that you want your poem to be about that, but it isn't. There's no
> indication that your speaker is an adult ...
>
> read more »- Hide quoted text -
Damn, google always does that. I'll look at a split reply.
George Dance
> In article <1189072455.069937.314...@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com>, George Dance
> says...
>
>
>
> >On Sep 5, 11:29 am, Karla <karl...@sbcNOSPAMglobal.net> wrote:
> >>In article <1188821442.393973.242...@o80g2000hse.googlegroups.com>, George Dance
> >> says...
>
>
> >like the word choices, were all kept simple and compatible with a
> >child's voice - the whole point of all that being to indicate that the
> >speaker has regressed to his childhood and is now mentally caught back
> >up in the dominance/submission game he was forced to play then.
>
> I know that you want your poem to be about that, but it isn't. There's no
> indication that your speaker is an adult as I've pointed out before.
I've agreed it's possible to interpret it that way; and I have a fix
(just have to make it scan).
> The only
> thing close to any problem in the box is your kid working during the summer.
So far. That's exactly how I wanted it, at the midpoint.
> And
> I'm being generous by allowing for that.
>
> >> >Watching my friends run and play
> >> >Mysterious games I never knew.
>
> >>I'm still unclear how your recitation of where you took off your shoes, played,
> >> wash dishes adds to your theme. Think about it.
>
> >I hope I've made that clearer. But again I'll have to ask you: What
> >did you think my theme was?
>
> Your last couple of stanzas and the title. You waste your first stanzas with
> bland diction and awkward grammar.
>
>
> Well, George, you're giving us information that you need to subtly work into the
> poem. If only the reader knew that the boy used a slave door while the rest of
> the family came in through the front door. That's not in your poem.
What? I have to say that the adults were allowed to use the front
door? Or that they were allowed to keep their shoes on in the house?
Why? The reader, as you and I both note, is going to recognize rules
like that as normal, and know that those were rules made by the
parents for the children. Comparing that to slavery (by calling it a
'slave door') would be telling, and (as you note) it's not even
something a reader would listen to.
> What is in
> your poem is vague and bland leaving us with little reason to read to the end.
>
>
> >> >That room's all changed; oh, where is it,
>
> >> "oh where is it" stinks, George. It's nursery rhyme or Dr. Seuss. Ugh! Adults
> >> talk like this? Who is your reader? See him flinch?
>
> >Hmm ... I missed the Seussian style. But: great! The speaker is
> >starting to regress completely, to become trapped in the games his
> >father forced him to play (which, remember, is by now purely a mind
> >game).
>
> No, George, the reader will conclude that the writer is inexperienced.
>
But ... I've said those very words, "Oh, where is it?", to a family
member or to myself, when I've been frustrated looking for things.
Sometimes I'll say 'sh*t' instead of 'oh,' but the intent of those 2
words is the same: to express frustration.
Is that how others adults talk? Well, I've heard "oh, where" used by
other adults, and find it all over the web. I don't mind if the reader
thinks Seuss (as I said), but there's no reason for him or her to do
so.
> >> >The one chair I was let to sit?
> >> >(For boys can be such dirty things)
>
> >> Same comment as the preceding comment. "For boys can be such dirty things"
> >> sounds very affected.
>
> >It sounds like something he's been told (presumably by his father). I
> >originally had it in quotation marks; I took them off to show that the
> >speaker has internalized it, that he has accepted being a dirty
> >thing.
>
> Italicize it. Hope your reader thinks grandma said it.
>
> >> >Which the corner where boys were put?
>
> >> Huh? That line sounds unnatural and awkward.
>
> >That whole stanza sounds unnatural and awkward (especially right after
> >the pretty iambic tetrameter verse about the garden). It should; the
> >speaker is starting to feel anger (his sole remaining defence
> >mechanism). Imagine this poem being read: this stanza should be said
> >in a louder voice than the previous, with some of it (like "dirty
> >things") almost shouted.
>
> Maybe it should show anger but don't fool yourself. That is an awkward line, not
> the decomposition of a man to child.
>
I'd read it with anger, because I'd say these are examples of abuse -
the boy's allowed to use only one chair, he's insulted for being a
boy, and he's punished with corner time. But this is just my own
reading: other readers might still consider all this the normal way to
raise a boy, not abusive at all. After all, they're completely
consistent with the earlier examples: there's no difference between
him being forbidden to use certain doors and certain furniture;
there's no difference between him not being allowed to enter the house
when he feels like it, and not being allowed to leave a corner when he
feels like it. And, of course, the rule about removing his shoes
before entering was precisely because he is a "dirty thing."
> >> >Down that hall there is a room
> >> >Where I'd be shut (as in a tomb)
> >> >After the meal, to make no noise,
> >> >To play with toys or read, and then
>
> >> The litany continues and I say "so what".
>
Of course. Again the dominance has just gone up a notch, but it's no
different from what's gone before. The child is shut in a room alone
after dinner; but that's no different from telling him what chair to
sit on.
(Hmm .. here I can actually follow, to a degree, your advice about
making things stronger. I wanted to include 'with toys' to mitigate
things somewhat; but that's really not what I should be doing. So I'll
strike that phrase and replace it with 'alone,' which many would see
as the true horror in solitary confinement.
Again, though, I'll let the reader decide whether solitary confinement
is abusive.)
>
> >Come on; there have been quite a few people who said other things
> >about the litanay [sic]. The first person in understood the game it
> >was describing; that the father was the boy's 'master' in a master/
> >servant game. You can only say that the litanay does nothing for you,
> >and for other readers like you who don't get the theme or plot.
> >(Which I am not saying is your fault; it could be due to my
> >inexperience.)
>
> I understood the last stanza quite well.
Do you mean the second-last one; the one about the boy lying on the
bed, face and pants down? That you see that as abuse? I'm hoping so,
as I do, but depending on the reader that could also be seen as
normal. After all, it's just the previous rules applied again: there
is no essential difference for the child between ordering him to take
his shoes off and ordering him to take his pants down; no essential
difference between punishing hi with corner time and punishing him
with a belt. At the same time as readers see it as abusive, I'm
hoping, they'll accept it as still a normal situation; they might not
do things like that to their own kids, but they'll accept that a
parent can do them if he wants to.
(Which is why I did not overstate by ending with sexual abuse; that is
not something that either adults or children would see as a normal
rule of the parent/child game, but as a clear infraction.)
> As they stand, your first stanzas do
> nothing for that stanza or the theme.
>
>
> So, before you master "4-line tetrameter rhyming aaxa", you've abandoned it.
Not at all; I've just been seeing what can be done with it.
> Why
> choose this form for this theme? Why make the quick assumption that it's
> completely out of place?
> Think about it before answering. No knee-jerk
> responses.
Excuse me? I thought about what verse form to use back when I chose
the verse form; nothing knee-jerk about it. But I will hold off
replying for another go-round.
> I'm asking to help you and I could be doing many other things.
>
Yes, and (as I've told you) I'm grateful for that. I suppose it's up
to me to show you as well (in keeping with Rob's red herring). So I'll
point to two places where your criticism and advice has already helped
me improve the poem: by replacing 'with toys' with 'alone' in L32, and
replacing 'come and' with a phrase to follow in L4.
Even if you hadn't helped me at all, here's a good chance that you're
advice has helped one or two wannabe poets reading this thread; and a
slimmer chance that future wannabes will track down this post in the
archive, and benefit from it.
Even if your advice doesn't help anyone, you've still the satisfaction
of stating it, and demonstrating your own knowledge of the craft
(which is certainly based on a lot more experience than mine) - you've
had the ego-satisfaction that comes from teaching. Which,
notwithstanding that your primary desire here is to help someone else,
is almost certainly one of your motives. Think about it; no knee-jerk
responses. 8)
George Dance
My Father's House
----------------------------
This is my father's house, although
Some others live here now, I know.
They said it would be quite all right
To take a drive to see it now.
Dad laid those gray foundation blocks
And built the whole thing (from a box)
Toiling after each full day's work.
I helped, though I was only six.
Look, here's the back door I would use
And here's where I'd remove my shoes
To enter; here I'd put my stuff
Then, when allowed, climb up these stairs.
In this room I'd wash many a dish,
Gaze out this window, and I'd wish
To be so many other places.
(Wishy-washy? Yeah, I guess!)
Outside, the garden that he grew
Where I would work the summers through,
Watching my friends run and play
Mysterious games I never knew.
That room's all changed; oh, where is it,
The one chair I was let to sit?
(For boys can be such dirty things)
Which the corner where boys were put?
Down that hall there is a room
Where I'd be shut (as in a tomb)
After the meal, to make no noise,
To play alone or read, and then
Amadeus Jinn
"George Dance" <george...@yahoo.ca> wrote in message news:1189178118....@o80g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
Where was Timothy Winters when God gave the scroll of life
to the Marlboro man?
> Amen amen amen amen."
Rob
George Dance <george...@yahoo.ca> writes
>On Sep 6, 9:47 am, George Dance <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> wrote:
>> On Sep 6, 8:53 am, Rob <r...@mla001.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> > For George's further (I suspect wasted) education we should point him
>> > also at "Timothy Winters": a poem written ostensibly for children,
>> > within the language boundaries of children, and still capable of hitting
>> > an adult like a lightning bolt.
>>
>> > Rob
>> > --
>> > Rob Evans
>>
>> http://torch.cs.dal.ca/~johnston/poetry/timothy.html
>>
>> It's an excellent poem. Anyone who hasn't read it could profit from
>> doing so.
>
>On a superficial reading, it can be quite powerful. However, a more
>careful reading allows one to spot the holes and cracks, which
>somewhat diminish the impact.
>
>Those begin to show up in the third stanza:
>
>The welfare Worker lies awake
>But the law's as tricky as a ten-foot snake,
>So Timothy Winters drinks his cup
>And slowly goes on growing up.
>
>
>The first two lines look like forced rhyme; as if they were written
>that way only to get the forced rhyme in.
I disagree: awake and snake seems like a fairly fresh rhyme in the
context of this particular poem.
> Ignore that, and concentrate
>on the sense, and what are the lines saying? "The Welfare worker
>knows about the situation, but tricks in the law won't allow him to do
>anything about it." Why not? What tricks?
I understand that the historical situation regarding the perceived
failures of British social services to support vulnerable children and
the difficulties in interpreting British law in this area would not be
familiar to a North American. It doesn't matter since you've moved
beyond superficial reading (you say) and you just need to know that
there the situation is tricky.
> These lines raise more
>questions than they answer; other than being two lines that rhyme,
>they don't serve the poem in any way.
They do raise questions beyond the boundaries of the poem and this is no
bad thing. Hence the lines do serve a purpose.
And I'm wondering how shallowly you can skim a poem.
>
>On first reading, the next line "Timothy Winters drinks his cup" also
>looks like a forced rhyme. Deeper reflection reveals a meaning to it:
>Timothy is being compared to Christ; he's suffering because it's God's
>will that he suffers. Further reflection shows that's not something
>children go around saying; it's clearly inconsistent with the poet's
>apparent goal of "staying within the language boundaries of children.
Okay, you are a budding Duckrish acolyte so I'll try to offer an
alternative view. The poem works so well BECAUSE it works for adults
and children on different levels. It's a kind of subtlety which you
only partially seem to grasp.
For the child the cup is just a cup (tea, cocoa, whatever) but the adult
is free to reflect on a deeper meaning. You'll find that an astonishing
number of children are adept at using a cup (as a word and a thing) so
it's not a stretch for them.
>
>
>However, someone who's liked the poem up to now could shrug that off -
>the speaker could be precocious, or just have accidentally thought of
>a cup - and move on to the next stanza:
>
>
>At Morning Prayers the Master helves
>for children less fortunate than ourselves,
>And the loudest response in the room is when
>Timothy Winters roars "Amen!"
>
>
>The reader's attention is drawn to 'helves.' That's certainly not a
>word a child uses; nor is it a word that an adult uses;
Presumably not in the 5 mile radius that constitutes your parochial
universe.
> nor is it a
>word that even appears in abridged dictionaries. So what's it doing
>there? The only answer is that it's there because it's an end-rhyme;
>the author wanted to use the phrase 'less fortunate than ourselves',
I have always assumed that helved meant to "bang on about" (i.e. from
heft) and that it was possibly still in common use in rural Cornwall.
If that is not the case, then at least it's an example of only one
unusual word to stretch the reader.
>and was left scrambling for a rhyme - a forced rhyme, IOW, disguised
>only by another common trick (of putting the forced rhyme first). So
>both suspicions raised from the previous stanza - that the author is
>rhyming for the sake of rhyming, and that he's not staying true to a
>child's voice -are confirmed.
Your idea that selecting a striking word like "helves" as a forced rhyme
with "themselves" is...
you really ARE Duckrish.
>
>However, a reader might still shrug off this evidence of his own eyes
>- telling himself that, as Causley is a published poet, he can't be
>doing any such things - and move on to the last stanza:
>
>
>So come one angel, come on ten
>Timothy Winters says "Amen
>Amen amen amen amen."
>Timothy Winters, Lord. Amen
>
>
>To a lazy reader, this may just seem like the poet is lazy; that he
>ran out of rhymes. There's a clear meaning, though: the masters keep
>'helving', Timothy keeps 'amening,' but nothing ever happens; the
>'helving' is not only hypocritical but completely ineffective. Which
>adds a bitterly ironic twist to the last 'amen' ["so be it"], which
>has to be interpreted descriptively - 'that's how it has to be' -
>rather than prescriptively - 'make it so.'
If you'd ever heard it read, you'd know that the ending is more
compassionate than ironic. I was lucky enough to attend a function with
Causley a year or two before he died. By then, he was a little frail
but inevitably was asked to read Timothy Winters.
The last line is the poet's direct supplication to God on Timothy's
behalf. The point of the poem is that Timothy is an abused child but is
blissfully unaware of it. Every piece of small cruelty and negelect
that he suffers is clearly stated yet understated. Causley does show
rather than tell.
>
>That is a powerful ending, which makes the message clear: 'helving' or
>lip service about the 'unfortunate' is both hypocritical and useless,
>as it accomplishes nothing. The poem is bound to affect the reader,
>and one can hope that some of the readers are moved into doing
>something about poverty themselves - as those moved merely into being
>touched by the poem are merely 'helving' themselves.
Poetry changes nothing.
>
>Cauley has written a powerful piece, which draws attention to the
>unfortunate and arouses sympathy in their plight. However, that is
>exactly what the Masters (the school masters, but obviously symbolic
>of all the authorities) do - talk about the unfortunate to arouse
>sympathy.
Or, to take a more reasonable view, they seek to influence successive
generations to be as sympathetic, empathetic, and socially active as
possible.
>The poet is 'helving' just like the Masters, and so is the
>reader who gets "hit like a lightning bolt" and then moves on to the
>next poem. Since 'helving' is hypocritical and useless, Cauley's poem
>(being more 'helving') is hypocritical and useless, and so is the idle
>reader's reaction - a further ironic twist that utterly deflates the
>poem's impact for a careful reader.
What the hell is wrong with you? You're not a careful reader, you're a
precious wounded ego. You wrote a daddy poem that had crap rhyme, poor
imagery and a pedestrian construction. It was generally badly received.
Get over it. Start receiving rather than broadcasting and you might yet
avoid the Duckrish Dimension.
Rob
--
Rob Evans
When I see a swine
I reach for 45-calibre pearls.
George Dance
> "George Dance" <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> wrote in messagenews:1189178118....@o80g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
He wasn't giving him the scroll of life.
He was merely lighting his cigarette.
Josh Hill
My impression was different -- I thought immediately of the
bureaucratic snafus, chronically inadequate government resources, and
loopholes in the abuse laws that can make it difficult or impossible
to help a child.
>On first reading, the next line "Timothy Winters drinks his cup" also
>looks like a forced rhyme. Deeper reflection reveals a meaning to it:
>Timothy is being compared to Christ; he's suffering because it's God's
>will that he suffers. Further reflection shows that's not something
>children go around saying; it's clearly inconsistent with the poet's
>apparent goal of "staying within the language boundaries of children.
They'll grasp the words, if not the precise meaning. It seems to me
that many of the better children's works include references that kids
can't understand, though perhaps less today than in the past, when
standards were higher. Since children learn, for the most part, by
context, and are regularly faced with things that they don't
understand, I don't think it bothers them very much (although their
questions may annoy the hell out of their parents).
>However, someone who's liked the poem up to now could shrug that off -
>the speaker could be precocious, or just have accidentally thought of
>a cup - and move on to the next stanza:
>
>
>At Morning Prayers the Master helves
>for children less fortunate than ourselves,
>And the loudest response in the room is when
>Timothy Winters roars "Amen!"
>
>
>The reader's attention is drawn to 'helves.' That's certainly not a
>word a child uses; nor is it a word that an adult uses; nor is it a
>word that even appears in abridged dictionaries. So what's it doing
>there? The only answer is that it's there because it's an end-rhyme;
>the author wanted to use the phrase 'less fortunate than ourselves',
>and was left scrambling for a rhyme - a forced rhyme, IOW, disguised
>only by another common trick (of putting the forced rhyme first). So
>both suspicions raised from the previous stanza - that the author is
>rhyming for the sake of rhyming, and that he's not staying true to a
>child's voice -are confirmed.
Yup, it's a slip, but probably less so for a child than an adult (I'm
assuming the word will be unfamiliar to both).
One might just as well say that the reader, having seen the
schoolmaster's hypocrisy, is encouraged to ask himself whether he's
doing enough for disadvantaged children.
George Dance
> In message <1189178118.405439.75...@o80g2000hse.googlegroups.com>,
> George Dance <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> writes
> >On Sep 6, 9:47 am, George Dance <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> wrote:
> >> On Sep 6, 8:53 am, Rob <r...@mla001.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >> > For George's further (I suspect wasted) education we should point him
> >> > also at "Timothy Winters": a poem written ostensibly for children,
> >> > within the language boundaries of children, and still capable of hitting
> >> > an adult like a lightning bolt.
>
> >> > Rob
> >> > --
> >> > Rob Evans
>
> >>http://torch.cs.dal.ca/~johnston/poetry/timothy.html
>
> >> It's an excellent poem. Anyone who hasn't read it could profit from
> >> doing so.
>
> >On a superficial reading, it can be quite powerful. However, a more
> >careful reading allows one to spot the holes and cracks, which
> >somewhat diminish the impact.
>
> >Those begin to show up in the third stanza:
>
> >The welfare Worker lies awake
> >But the law's as tricky as a ten-foot snake,
> >So Timothy Winters drinks his cup
> >And slowly goes on growing up.
>
> >The first two lines look like forced rhyme; as if they were written
> >that way only to get the forced rhyme in.
>
> I disagree: awake and snake seems like a fairly fresh rhyme in the
> context of this particular poem.
>
Actually, on a later reading, I did see a use for the rhyme. It's
another Biblical reference; "the laws" that keep the welfare worker
from taking the child are being compared to Satan.
> > Ignore that, and concentrate
> >on the sense, and what are the lines saying? "The Welfare worker
> >knows about the situation, but tricks in the law won't allow him to do
> >anything about it." Why not? What tricks?
>
> I understand that the historical situation regarding the perceived
> failures of British social services to support vulnerable children and
> the difficulties in interpreting British law in this area would not be
> familiar to a North American. It doesn't matter since you've moved
> beyond superficial reading (you say) and you just need to know that
> there the situation is tricky.
>
I see: it's too complicated a situation to explain to a North
American, but in England every the children Timothy's age (including
the poem's speaker) has such extensive knowledge of them that they can
merely refer to them obliquely.
(Of course, that doesn't fit with the fact that Timothy's "never heard
ofthe Welfare State; but then Timothy is lower class, while the
speaker may be from a different class.)
> > These lines raise more
> >questions than they answer; other than being two lines that rhyme,
> >they don't serve the poem in any way.
>
> They do raise questions beyond the boundaries of the poem and this is no
> bad thing. Hence the lines do serve a purpose.
>
Of course they serve a propaganda purpose; they're designed to have
the reader question the ethics of laws that keep the state from taking
children from their parents.
> And I'm wondering how shallowly you can skim a poem.
>
Funny; I thought you'd been enlightening me on that very point the
past couple of months. For example, I've learned from you that one can
overlook even such in-your-face aspects as rhyme scheme.
Assume what you like. A 'helve' is the handle of a hammer. It looks
like Causley verbed it to mean the same as 'to hammer'.
> If that is not the case, then at least it's an example of only one
> unusual word to stretch the reader.
>
Yes, and it's quite a good one. Once again we're reminded of how
precocious those English schoolchildren like the poem's speaker (not
counting lower-class types like Timothy, of course) can be.
> >and was left scrambling for a rhyme - a forced rhyme, IOW, disguised
> >only by another common trick (of putting the forced rhyme first). So
> >both suspicions raised from the previous stanza - that the author is
> >rhyming for the sake of rhyming, and that he's not staying true to a
> >child's voice -are confirmed.
>
> Your idea that selecting a striking word like "helves" as a forced rhyme
> with "themselves" is...
>
> you really ARE Duckrish.
>
>
I see; coining a new word for the sake of a rhyme is not forced
rhyming, in your opinion. But then, I suppose, as an English child
youreself you must have spontaneously coined quite a few
etymologically correct words yourself.
>
> >However, a reader might still shrug off this evidence of his own eyes
> >- telling himself that, as Causley is a published poet, he can't be
> >doing any such things - and move on to the last stanza:
>
> >So come one angel, come on ten
> >Timothy Winters says "Amen
> >Amen amen amen amen."
> >Timothy Winters, Lord. Amen
>
> >To a lazy reader, this may just seem like the poet is lazy; that he
> >ran out of rhymes. There's a clear meaning, though: the masters keep
> >'helving', Timothy keeps 'amening,' but nothing ever happens; the
> >'helving' is not only hypocritical but completely ineffective. Which
> >adds a bitterly ironic twist to the last 'amen' ["so be it"], which
> >has to be interpreted descriptively - 'that's how it has to be' -
> >rather than prescriptively - 'make it so.'
>
> If you'd ever heard it read, you'd know that the ending is more
> compassionate than ironic. I was lucky enough to attend a function with
> Causley a year or two before he died. By then, he was a little frail
> but inevitably was asked to read Timothy Winters.
>
I'm glad to hear that; but we're talking about how the the poem reads
on the printed page, not how Causley sounded when he read it. He did
intend for it to be read, after all.
> The last line is the poet's direct supplication to God on Timothy's
> behalf.
Correct me if I'm wrong; but that is the same God that (according to
the poem) Timothy himself supplicates five days a week, with no effect
whatsoever, is it not? So what is the point of this added supplication
by the poet? Does God pay more attention to English poets than to
lower-class boys?
(More likely, Causley was simply performing - using the reading he'd
found worked most effectively for an audience - and did not mean for
his intonation to be an integral part of the poem).
> The point of the poem is that Timothy is an abused child but is
> blissfully unaware of it.
I think you need a less cliched adjective than 'blissful,' as it just
caused me to spew coffee on my keyboard. Timothy is not blissfully
anything.
> Every piece of small cruelty and negelect
> that he suffers is clearly stated yet understated. Causley does show
> rather than tell.
>
There's nothing wrong with the poet's portrayal of Timothy's home
life: it sounds gossipy and exaggerated, but one would expect that
from a school child like the poem's speaker. As you know, I didn't say
that there was.
>
> >That is a powerful ending, which makes the message clear: 'helving' or
> >lip service about the 'unfortunate' is both hypocritical and useless,
> >as it accomplishes nothing. The poem is bound to affect the reader,
> >and one can hope that some of the readers are moved into doing
> >something about poverty themselves - as those moved merely into being
> >touched by the poem are merely 'helving' themselves.
>
> Poetry changes nothing.
>
Yes, that's apparently part of the poem's message: Helving in general,
including poetical helving, changes nothing.
> >Cauley has written a powerful piece, which draws attention to the
> >unfortunate and arouses sympathy in their plight. However, that is
> >exactly what the Masters (the school masters, but obviously symbolic
> >of all the authorities) do - talk about the unfortunate to arouse
> >sympathy.
>
> Or, to take a more reasonable view, they seek to influence successive
> generations to be as sympathetic, empathetic, and socially active as
> possible.
>
Right; but they don't do that by going on about the uselessness of
their influence and their students' empathy. Causley does; yet he has
the gall to point the finger at them and call them hypocrites.
> >The poet is 'helving' just like the Masters, and so is the
> >reader who gets "hit like a lightning bolt" and then moves on to the
> >next poem. Since 'helving' is hypocritical and useless, Cauley's poem
> >(being more 'helving') is hypocritical and useless, and so is the idle
> >reader's reaction - a further ironic twist that utterly deflates the
> >poem's impact for a careful reader.
>
> What the hell is wrong with you?
No, no, Rob. Gamble's slogan is "What the fuck is wrong with you?" If
you're going to resort to that type of gambleshit now, at least try to
get it right.
> You're not a careful reader, you're a
> precious wounded ego. You wrote a daddy poem that had crap
> rhyme, poor
> imagery and a pedestrian construction.
Admit it Rob; you didn't dislike the imagery in my poem at all; you're
just pissed because I criticized one of your favourite poems.
(See, I'm capable of the same bullshit myself; so don't delude
yourself into thinking I can't notice yours.)
> It was generally badly received.
>
Well, finally you're asserting a matter of fact rather than opinion
about MFH. Unfortunately what you're saying is not true, as my poem
was not "generally badly received".
Perhaps you should send some emails to your acquaintances in rap and
auk and see if you can change that.
> Get over it.
"Get over" criticizing your personal fave poems? For God's sake, don't
let your head get too near a pin.
> Start receiving rather than broadcasting and you might yet
> avoid the Duckrish Dimension.
>
You're yowling like a Cat in heat. Go have a cold shower, and pop a
few valiums.
> Rob
> --
> Rob Evans
>
> When I see a swine
> I reach for 45-calibre pearls.
>
> --
> Posted via NewsDemon.com - Premium Uncensored Newsgroup Service
> ------->>>>>>http://www.NewsDemon.com<<<<<<------
> Unlimited Access, Anonymous Accounts, Uncensored Broadband Access- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
Rob
George Dance <george...@yahoo.ca> writes
>
>
>I see: it's too complicated a situation to explain to a North
>American,
Apparently, though perhaps it's a bit harsh to insist that they're all
as dumb as you.
>(Of course, that doesn't fit with the fact that Timothy's "never heard
>ofthe Welfare State; but then Timothy is lower class, while the
>speaker may be from a different class.)
Thank you for continuing to demonstrate your comprehensive ignorance.
Kids of all classes hear of the welfare state and understand it quite
well. Particularly kids from the poorer areas where learning to use the
system can be crucial to your... welfare.
>
>
>
>> > These lines raise more
>> >questions than they answer; other than being two lines that rhyme,
>> >they don't serve the poem in any way.
>>
>> They do raise questions beyond the boundaries of the poem and this is no
>> bad thing. Hence the lines do serve a purpose.
>>
>
>
>Of course they serve a propaganda purpose; they're designed to have
>the reader question the ethics of laws that keep the state from taking
>children from their parents.
>
>
>
>> And I'm wondering how shallowly you can skim a poem.
>>
>
>
>Funny; I thought you'd been enlightening me on that very point the
>past couple of months. For example, I've learned from you that one can
>overlook even such in-your-face aspects as rhyme scheme.
>
You mean the crumbly half-echoes where you confuse dissonance with
assonance.
It's not new. It was earned by someone even more awful than you.
>>
>> >However, a reader might still shrug off this evidence of his own eyes
>> >- telling himself that, as Causley is a published poet, he can't be
>> >doing any such things - and move on to the last stanza:
>>
>> >So come one angel, come on ten
>> >Timothy Winters says "Amen
>> >Amen amen amen amen."
>> >Timothy Winters, Lord. Amen
>>
>> >To a lazy reader, this may just seem like the poet is lazy; that he
>> >ran out of rhymes. There's a clear meaning, though: the masters keep
>> >'helving', Timothy keeps 'amening,' but nothing ever happens; the
>> >'helving' is not only hypocritical but completely ineffective. Which
>> >adds a bitterly ironic twist to the last 'amen' ["so be it"], which
>> >has to be interpreted descriptively - 'that's how it has to be' -
>> >rather than prescriptively - 'make it so.'
>>
>> If you'd ever heard it read, you'd know that the ending is more
>> compassionate than ironic. I was lucky enough to attend a function with
>> Causley a year or two before he died. By then, he was a little frail
>> but inevitably was asked to read Timothy Winters.
>>
>
>
>I'm glad to hear that; but we're talking about how the the poem reads
>on the printed page, not how Causley sounded when he read it. He did
>intend for it to be read, after all.
I'm just explaining since you are clearly hard of reading.
>
>
>> The last line is the poet's direct supplication to God on Timothy's
>> behalf.
>
>
>Correct me if I'm wrong; but that is the same God that (according to
>the poem) Timothy himself supplicates five days a week, with no effect
>whatsoever, is it not? So what is the point of this added supplication
>by the poet? Does God pay more attention to English poets than to
>lower-class boys?
It's a poem fuckwit - not a religious tract.
Let's not read Owen - who continued to fight and die despite his
anti-war poems.
Let's not read Thomas who's dad didn't bother to rage and just fuckin'
died anyway.
You're an idiot.
>
>(More likely, Causley was simply performing - using the reading he'd
>found worked most effectively for an audience - and did not mean for
>his intonation to be an integral part of the poem).
>
>
>> The point of the poem is that Timothy is an abused child but is
>> blissfully unaware of it.
>
>
>I think you need a less cliched adjective than 'blissful,' as it just
>caused me to spew coffee on my keyboard. Timothy is not blissfully
>anything.
>
And hence you miss the blissful enthusiasms of Timothy's repeated amens.
>
>> Every piece of small cruelty and negelect
>> that he suffers is clearly stated yet understated. Causley does show
>> rather than tell.
>>
>
>
>There's nothing wrong with the poet's portrayal of Timothy's home
>life: it sounds gossipy and exaggerated, but one would expect that
>from a school child like the poem's speaker. As you know, I didn't say
>that there was.
The poem's speaker is not a child.
From your comprehension skills, I'm beginning to think you are.
>
>
>>
>> >That is a powerful ending, which makes the message clear: 'helving' or
>> >lip service about the 'unfortunate' is both hypocritical and useless,
>> >as it accomplishes nothing. The poem is bound to affect the reader,
>> >and one can hope that some of the readers are moved into doing
>> >something about poverty themselves - as those moved merely into being
>> >touched by the poem are merely 'helving' themselves.
>>
>> Poetry changes nothing.
>>
>
>
>Yes, that's apparently part of the poem's message:
No it's not. The poem is at best social commentary. Stop being an
idfiot, pleeeeease!
>Helving in general,
>including poetical helving, changes nothing.
>
>
>> >Cauley has written a powerful piece, which draws attention to the
>> >unfortunate and arouses sympathy in their plight. However, that is
>> >exactly what the Masters (the school masters, but obviously symbolic
>> >of all the authorities) do - talk about the unfortunate to arouse
>> >sympathy.
>>
>> Or, to take a more reasonable view, they seek to influence successive
>> generations to be as sympathetic, empathetic, and socially active as
>> possible.
>>
>
>
>Right; but they don't do that by going on about the uselessness of
>their influence and their students' empathy. Causley does; yet he has
>the gall to point the finger at them and call them hypocrites.
Okay, continue being an idiot.
>
>
>> >The poet is 'helving' just like the Masters, and so is the
>> >reader who gets "hit like a lightning bolt" and then moves on to the
>> >next poem. Since 'helving' is hypocritical and useless, Cauley's poem
>> >(being more 'helving') is hypocritical and useless, and so is the idle
>> >reader's reaction - a further ironic twist that utterly deflates the
>> >poem's impact for a careful reader.
>>
>> What the hell is wrong with you?
>
>
>No, no, Rob. Gamble's slogan is "What the fuck is wrong with you?" If
>you're going to resort to that type of gambleshit now, at least try to
>get it right.
>
>
>> You're not a careful reader, you're a
>> precious wounded ego. You wrote a daddy poem that had crap
>> rhyme, poor
>> imagery and a pedestrian construction.
>
>
>Admit it Rob; you didn't dislike the imagery in my poem at all; you're
>just pissed because I criticized one of your favourite poems.
Now try reading thethread again. You'll discover that your poem had
already been comprehensively trashed by many BEFORE Causley's poem was
suggested as a possible example of how to do it properly. How where we
to know that you read as badly as you write?
>
>
>Well, finally you're asserting a matter of fact rather than opinion
>about MFH. Unfortunately what you're saying is not true, as my poem
>was not "generally badly received".
>
So, you can't write, you can't read and, finally, you can't count.
Congratulations on the full Duckrish monty.
George Dance
> In message <1189290396.443731.41...@o80g2000hse.googlegroups.com>,
> George Dance <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> writes
>
> >I see: it's too complicated a situation to explain to a North
> >American,
>
>
(Don't like the snip? Then don't do that again.)
>
> Thank you for continuing to demonstrate your comprehensive ignorance.
>
> You mean the crumbly half-echoes where you confuse dissonance with
> assonance.
>
> It's not new. It was earned by someone even more awful than you.
>
> I'm just explaining since you are clearly hard of reading.
>
> It's a poem fuckwit - not a religious tract.
>
> You're an idiot.
>
> Stop being an idfiot, pleeeeease!
>
> Okay, continue being an idiot.
>
> you can't write, you can't read and, finally, you can't count.
>
Thank you for demonstrating your true colours so quickly, robbietroll.
I was so afraid I'd have to be tolerant of your presence here.
George Dance
> On Sep 3, 4:17 pm, George Dance wrote:
> > [5 lines revised]
> > My Father's House
snip
> I like this very much. It has a sort of innocence to it but also an
> aggressive front. The rhyme (unfashionable these days, I know) is well
> thought out. The flow of the piece is really wonderful.
> I think this poem is very English, but it is that Englishness that is
> good.
> Thanks Mate!
Thank you for the kind words, Denis. I'm not English but Canadian,
but
I see what you mean - 'quite all right' and the general tone of
restraint. That probably comes, as Josh Hill mentioned, from T.S.
Eliot; I read and admired him much as a teenager, even trying to
write
my own "Waste Land" at one point.
I've noticed that (what I'd call my) 'Prufrock' voice come out in
poems before. I've tried to reinforce that in later revisions by eg.
having my speaker say 'take a drive to' in the next line; it adds an
interesting dimension to the poem.