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From: mpsilvertone@yahoo.com (HarryLime)
Newsgroups: alt.arts.poetry.comments,rec.arts.poems
Subject: Re: My Father's House / gjd (for new comments)
Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2025 19:46:12 +0000
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On Mon, 24 Feb 2025 19:31:03 +0000, W.Dockery wrote:

> On Mon, 24 Feb 2025 19:16:33 +0000, HarryLime wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 24 Feb 2025 18:24:25 +0000, 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.
>>>
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