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From: will.dockery@gmail.com (W.Dockery)
Newsgroups: alt.arts.poetry.comments,rec.arts.poems
Subject: Re: My Father's House / gjd (for new comments)
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2025 00:32:58 +0000
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On Mon, 24 Feb 2025 19:46:10 +0000, HarryLime wrote:

>  Will-Dockery wrote:
>> HarryLime wrote:
>>> Will Dockery wrote:
>>>> HarryLime wrote:
>>>>> Will Dockery wrote:
>>>>>> George J. Dance wrote:
>
>>>>>> My Father's House
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This is my father's house, although
>>>>>> The man died thirteen years ago.
>>>>>> They said it would be quite all right
>>>>>> To take a drive to see it now.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Dad laid those grey 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; there I'd leave my things
>>>>>> And, 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? Oh, I guess!)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Outside, the garden that he grew
>>>>>> Where I would work the summers 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 filthy things.)
>>>>>> Which, the corner where boys were put?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Oh ... down that hall there is a room
>>>>>> Where I'd be shut (as in a tomb)
>>>>>> After the meal, to make no noise,
>>>>>> To read or play alone, and then
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Lights out: in bed by nine each night,
>>>>>> Some nights wanting to pee with fright,
>>>>>> Face and pyjama bottoms down
>>>>>> As 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.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ~~
>>>>>> George J. Dance
>>>>>> from Logos and other logoi, 2021
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Here it is, MFH.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thank you for reposting this poem of mine, Will. While it's true that it
>>>>>> has been discussed a lot over the years, it also true that at least one
>>>>>> person wants to discuss it now; and this would be the appropriate place
>>>>>> to move those comments, rather than leaving them scattered all over the
>>>>>> group. So let's start with this one:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Mon, 3 Feb 2025 16:15:27 +0000, Michael Monkey Peabrain (MPP) aka
>>>>>> "HarryLime" wrote:
>>>>>> On Mon, 3 Feb 2025 13:06:00 +0000, George J. Dance wrote:
>>>>>> Why do you lie so much, George?
>>>>>> (That's a rhetorical question, as you've already intimated that your
>>>>>> pathological lying stems from you having been abused as a child.)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> No, Lying Michael: I have never said, or even "intimated" (!)
>>>> that I was
>>>>>> pathological, lying, or
>>>>>> "abused as a child".
>>>>>>
>>>>>> You wrote a "mostly autobiographical" poem detailing the abuses
>>>> you
>>>>>> suffered as a child, George.  And you're demonstrating your pathological
>>>>>> obsession with lying in your trio of denials, listed above.
>>>>>> https://www.novabbs.com/arts/article.php?id=15801&group=rec.arts.poems
>>>>>>
>>>>>> HarryLiar has manufactured yet another fake quote; I have never called
>>>>>> this poem "mostly autobiographical" or autobiographical in many
>>>> ways. I
>>>>>> have distinctly told him in the past that, while some of the speaker's
>>>>>> memories were based on my own childhood experiences, not all of them
>>>>>> were; I was using them in a work of creative fiction, not an
>>>>>> autobiography of any kind. So he lied and made up a fake quote to
>>>>>> support his lie.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The poem is meant to be a dramatic monolgue, in the style of Browning
>>>>>> (His "My Last Duchess" is a good example), meant to get inside
>>>> the
>>>>>> psychology of a  speaker or persona. The speaker may have experienced
>>>>>> his childhood as "abuse" - HarryLiar calls it that but the
>>>> speaker
>>>>>> doesn't. The memories of it, though, have stayed on his mind, and he
>>>>>> wants to get rid of those memories (symbolized by burning down the house
>>>>>> at the end).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It's deliberately left to the reader to decide if the speaker actually
>>>>>> had been abused by his father or not. I did structure it, for effect,
>>>>>> from the least to the most abusive-seeming experiences; from having to
>>>>>> use a back door and remove his shoes to enter the house, to doing
>>>>>> household chores, to doing garden work in the summertime, to not being
>>>>>> allowed to use some of the furniture, to having to stay inside alone at
>>>>>> night and be in bed early, to being subjected to corporal punishment.
>>>>>> Adding them together like that, it's easy enough to conclude that the
>>>>>> father had been abusive; but I'll point out that all of those events
>>>>>> were things children commonly experienced 50-60 years ago, and that none
>>>>>> of them were commonly considered abusive.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> As Karla Rogers often reminded us:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "Try not to mistake the speaker in the poem with the writer of the
>>>>>> poem."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> As I'd noted in my post, Karla's oft-quoted adage (oft-quoted by you,
>>>>>> that is), is simply incorrect.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> My previous post explains why:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "In fact, Karla's oft-quoted adage aside, one can *never* fully
>>>> separate
>>>>>> the two.
>>>>>> For instance, all of the characters in any author's fictional novel are
>>>>>> going to represent some aspect of the author.  Every poem stems from its
>>>>>> author's imagination... regardless of what external persons and/or
>>>>>> events might have inspired it.  Every literary work is similar to a
>>>>>> dream construct in that regard; and like a dream construct, can be
>>>>>> analyzed by a psychologist, a literary critic, or even the average
>>>>>> reader.  Since "My Father's House" was based to a large extent on
>>>> your
>>>>>> own childhood experiences, it literally begs for a psychoanalytical
>>>>>> reading."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> You dispute the wisdom of the mighty Karla Rogers?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'm here for the poetry.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> You're only here to lie and misrepresent, Harry.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> While I've been discussing the poetry of Robert Creeley for a
>>>>>> week now.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> You've made very few attempts to discuss anyone's poetry over the years
>>>>>>
>>>>>> No, I've discussed dozens of poems and poets here over more than two
>>>>>> decades.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I challenged you to pick a Bukowski
>>>>>> poem of you choice, and write at least one paragraph
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I posted that months ago, Harry.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Look it up.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 1) I'm not going to search though 1,000s of Usenet threads
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I've bumped it to the top for you several times, Pendragon.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Apparently you didn't want to see it because it proves you wrong and we
>>>>>> all know you're not good with being proven wrong.
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't open 99% of your
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Well, that thread you should open rather than whining endlessly about
>>>> it.
>>>>
>>>> The thread is easy to spot, I think the title is:
>>>>
>>>> Bukowski.
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