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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: Mon, 10 Feb 2025 19:06:36 +0000
Organization: novaBBS
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On Mon, 10 Feb 2025 18:52:17 +0000, HarryLime wrote:

> Will Dockery wrote:
>> On Mon, 10 Feb 2025 4:18:39 +0000, HarryLime wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, 10 Feb 2025 2:10:00 +0000, Will Dockery wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sun, 9 Feb 2025 19:58:55 +0000, HarryLime wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Sun, 9 Feb 2025 18:36:08 +0000, Will Dockery 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.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> 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?
>>>>>
>>>>> Are you trying to troll
>>>>
>>>> No, you're the super troll, Pendragon.
>>>>
>>>> I'm here for the poetry.
>>>
>>> You're only here for the waffles.
>>
>>
>> While you're only here to lie and misrepresent, Harry.
>>
>> And so it goes.
>
>
> Are you denying that you posted each of the statements listed below,

As part of a discussion with others.

Context matters.