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From: will.dockery@gmail.com (W.Dockery)
Newsgroups: alt.arts.poetry.comments,rec.arts.poems
Subject: Re: I Met A Girl / Will Dockery
Date: Sat, 8 Feb 2025 14:44:06 +0000
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On Thu, 6 Feb 2025 19:37:22 +0000, HarryLime wrote:

> On Thu, 6 Feb 2025 17:02:38 +0000, W Will Dockery wrote:
>>>
>>>> Harry Lime continues to lie and misrepresent about my poem, so here's
>>>> the original unedited version so the readers can decide for
>>>> themselves:
>>>>
>>>> ***
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I Met A Girl
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I met a girl
>>>>>>>>>> she came from California.
>>>>>>>>>> It was in a dream
>>>>>>>>>> we knew each other instantly.
>>>>>>>>>> She was a little freckled girl
>>>>>>>>>> from out of
>>>>>>>>>> my high school past.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> And she looked up at me
>>>>>>>>>> and talked real spacey.
>>>>>>>>>> I've forgotten her name
>>>>>>>>>> though she told it to me twice.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> We talked
>>>>>>>>>> a really detached situation.
>>>>>>>>>> She said years ago
>>>>>>>>>> I was so shy
>>>>>>>>>> she thought I was gay.
>>>>>>>>>> At this point I kissed her
>>>>>>>>>> and put my finger to her hole.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> And she looked up at me
>>>>>>>>>> and talked real spacey.
>>>>>>>>>> I have forgotten her name
>>>>>>>>>> though she told it to me twice.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I don't know why it was
>>>>>>>>>> that I would think of her.
>>>>>>>>>> I made a couple of puns
>>>>>>>>>> about her name that made me blush.
>>>>>>>>>> But her softness in tone
>>>>>>>>>> made me feel all right.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> All I want to do
>>>>>>>>>> is get in contact.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> -Will Dockery / May 8 1982
>>>>
>>>> ***
>>>>
>>>> Again, this poem was written in 1982, during my time in the Atlanta
>>>> Georgia New Wave punk rock scene, while also influenced by the earlier
>>>> Beatnik poets
>>>> I was reading at the time, such as Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and
>>>> Charles Bukowski among others.
>>>>
>>>> Both styles employed a sort of crude swagger in the tone and content
>>>> which I also used in many of my poems.
>>>>
>>>> Once again, all apologies to those offended.
>>>>
>>>> And so it goes.
>>>
>>> And again, the poem is your attempt to recast
>>
>> Not really.
>>
>> Read the George Dance critique, since he understands the poem so much
>> better than you apparently do, Harry:
>>
>> On Wed, 5 Feb 2025 21:55:28 +0000, George J. Dance wrote:
>>
>>> Michael Monkey Peabrain aka "HarryLime" wrote:
>>>> Will Dockery wrote:
>>>>> Michael Monkey Peabrain aka "HarryLime" wrote:
>>>>>> On Tue, 4 Feb 2025 17:42:27 +0000, Will Dockery wrote:
>>>>>>> "HarryLime" wrote:
>>>>>>> Will Dockery wrote:
>>>>>>>> Mummy chunk wrote:
>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Again, why do you lie and misrepresent so much, monkey boy Michael
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Pendragon?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Just curious.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The problem with you is that you lie and misrepresent so much, Michael
>>>>>>> Pendragon.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> That simply isn't true
>>>>>
>>>>> Of course I don't expect you to admit it, Pendragon.
>>>>
>>>> You know the rules,: PPSFU (Post Proof or Shut the Fuck Up).
>>>>
>>>> Any so-called "misrepresentation" you can find was based on one of
>>>> *your* posts.
>>>
>>> Oh, so HarryLiar wants proof? Let's look at his next paragraph:
>>>
>>>> I only know you from what you post here.  If you write a poem
>>>> based on a "romantic interlude" where you grope a woman you barely knew,
>>
>> I did know her and I didn't grope her. We kissed and made out a bit. All
>> completely consensual.
>
> That's fine, Donkey.  And I have nothing to say about that statement.
>
> However, we are discussing your poem. And your poem casts it in a
> completely different light.
>
> A critical reading of your poem makes the following things 100% clear:
> you barely knew the girl, she told you she used to think you were gay,
> you responded to that by forcing a kiss on her and "put[ting your]
> finger to her hole."
>
> You have since explained, and I accept your explanation, that the
> "interlude" took place over a longer time period than the 5 minutes
> which the narrative implies; and that you made out for a bit (which
> included some genital touching).
>
> I'm completely fine with all of that, Donkey.
>
> But that is *NOT* what you wrote in your poem.
>
> You've probably heard this before, but it's worth repeating.  Pablo
> Picasso was famous for his Cubist paintings wherein people were
> presented with grotesquely misshapen bodies (both eyes on the same side
> of their face, and such), which made his critics think that he didn't
> understand the basics of artistic composition.  However, nothing could
> be farther from the truth.  Before experimenting with breaking the rules
> of traditional painting, Picasso first mastered them.
>
> By the same token, you need to master the art of English composition
> *before* you can set yourself upon breaking its rules (composing poetry
> in Stream of Consciousness thought fragments, for example).
>
> When you don't understand even the basics of literary composition,
> anything you write is going to turn out as unintelligible -- in the
> worst possible way.  This almost invariably happens with your poetry,
> and "I Met a Girl" is a prime example.  Because you stupidly (no other
> word really applies) assume that your readers were not only present at
> the "event" that took place on May 8, 1982, somewhere in Atlanta, GA,
> but that they were privy to your conversations with the unnamed freckled
> girl.
>
> You know that you talked for 20 or 40 minutes (possibly even longer),
> started kissing (as college age kids often do at parties), and as the
> hormones started kicking in, the kissing extended to petting.  But your
> readers have no means of knowing this.
>
> We only know the specific things your poem tells us:
>
> 1) That you dreamt of meeting a girl who you recognized from high
> school, but whose name you didn't know.
> 2) She was a *little* freckled girl who had stepped into your dream
> directly from your high school past (which would make her 17 or younger
> depending on whether she was in your class, or whether she was an
> underclassman).
> 3) She told you that she had been living in California, and talked in a
> "spacey" voice (which sounds as if she had been stoned out of her mind).
> 4) You talked together in "a really detached situation" -- which is so
> grammatically incorrect as to have no intelligible meaning.  My best
> guess (and it's only a guess) is that (partly because she was stoned,
> and partly because you barely knew one another) you had little to talk
> about, and weren't connecting with one another intellectually.
> 5) She said that because you were so quiet and shy in high school, that
> she thought you had been gay.
> 6) "At this point," that is, as an immediate reaction to her words, you
> "kissed her and put [your] finger to her hole."
> 7) You then repeat the stanza about here talking "spacey" and about
> you're being unable to remember her name -- even though she had told it
> to you twice.
> 8) You then tell the reader that you don't know what made you dream of
> her.
> 9) You say that you'd made a couple of puns about her name (the one you
> couldn't remember), and that the puns made *you* blush.
> 10) Now, having awoken from your dream, you just want to find her (i.e.,
> stalk some girl you barely knew).
>
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