Path: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.quux.org!news.nk.ca!rocksolid2!i2pn2.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
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: Sun, 9 Feb 2025 01:41:57 +0000
Organization: novaBBS
Message-ID: <3bd67348300682abfaea7d26fc952bb8@www.novabbs.com>
References: <364e1f41f24b2570a2d6ce465ddb3e4d@www.novabbs.com> <rnmdnV0oIrtvSDr6nZ2dnZfqnPsAAAAA@giganews.com> <b386e3ea760e60fe27456100265c7c57@www.novabbs.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Injection-Info: i2pn2.org;
	logging-data="3353560"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@i2pn2.org";
	posting-account="Vf9CM7g99yqfGvzEHTw0bhrjcIfvzYBBhUuRma0rLuQ";
User-Agent: Rocksolid Light
X-Rslight-Site: $2y$10$N2pW4zWjjOWnjY2PP/X0be46/gV8yAH5SVX6Au6TbzbnHXkmyiaN2
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 4.0.0
X-Rslight-Posting-User: acd0b3e3614eaa6f47211734e4cbca3bfd42bebc

On Sun, 9 Feb 2025 0:10:43 +0000, HarryLime wrote:

> On Sat, 8 Feb 2025 22:08:50 +0000, Will-Dockery wrote:
>
>>> HarryLime wrote:
>>> On Fri, 7 Feb 2025 19:31:54 +0000, George J. Dance wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Tue, 4 Feb 2025 11:29:25 +0000, 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.
>>>
>>> I haven't the time to go searching for the exact quote, but you had
>>> initially maintained that it was "mostly autobiographical" or
>> "mostly
>>> based on your childhood," or similar words expressing the same thing.
>>> Eventually, you specified that only *one* passage in the portions of the
>>> poem relating to your childhood had been inspired by something else.
>>> IIRC it was the use of the term "boys can be such filthy things."
>>>
>>> But why bicker over words.
>>>
>>> If you now wish to deny that any other portions of the poem were based
>>> on your actual childhood experiences, please do so.
>>>
>>>
>>>> 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.
>>>
>>> You are defaming Mr. Browning, sirrah!
>>>
>>>> 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).
>>>
>>> If the speaker (who we both know is George Dance) doesn't consider it
>>> abuse, he should take the opportunity to explain why.
>>>
>>>> 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.
>>>
>>> JFC! George.  There's no question that any of the above were forms of
>>> abuse.
>>>
>>> That poor little boy had a bleak, loveless, existence filled with
>>> verbal, emotional, and physical abuses.
>>>
>>>> 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.
>>>
>>> Um... I was a child 50-60 years ago, and my father was physically
>>> abusive (for a two year period after my mother's death) -- and I find
>>> your story to be horrifying.
>>>
>>> Normal children may occasionally have been physically punished for
>>> tracking dirt into the house, and such, but look at your poem... the
>>> other children are outside playing while Little George is stuck inside
>>> the house doing chores.
>>>
>>> --
>>
>>
>>
>> Troll much, Harry?
>
> Who am I supposed to be trolling

George Dance, obviously.

> Normal children?
>
> George said (above) that he left it to the reader to decide of abuse had
> taken place.  This reader has made, and expressed, his opinion.
>
> That's nothing for you or George to get upset over, now, is it?
>
> --

I'm not the one in the tizzy, you are, Pendragon

😏