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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, 13 Feb 2025 06:55:56 +0000
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On Tue, 11 Feb 2025 17:11:19 +0000, George J. Dance wrote:

> On Sun, 9 Feb 2025 18:28:12 +0000, HarryLime wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 9 Feb 2025 14:12:44 +0000, George J. Dance wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, 7 Feb 2025 20:15:36 +0000, HarryLime wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Fri, 7 Feb 2025 19:31:54 +0000, George J. Dance 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.
>>>>
>>>> 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.
>>>
>>> If you don't have time, get your NastyGoon to search for it. In this
>>> case I have to call your bullshit. You claimed the poem was
>>> "autobiographical", and I tried to explain to you the difference between
>>> creative literature and autobiography - repeatedly. You believe it's
>>> autobiographical because you said it was autobiographical, and for no
>>> other reason.
>>
>> George, George, George... no autobiography is 100% accurate.
>
> As I've told you before, I don't think the difference between creative
> literature and autobiography is merely one of "accuracy." The difference
> is that in the latter one is trying to be as accurate and comprehensive
> as possible: to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
> truth. Whereas in the former, one is selectively recreating an
> experience, using experiences that reinforce the story.
>
>> People
>> present *their* interpretation of the various events comprising their
>> lives.  And everyone's interpretation is colored by various factors.
>
> The question, though, is whose interpretation? If I were writing an
> autobiographical account, it surely wouldn't be 100% accurate; but in
> this case I was creating a fictional persona, and giving his
> "interpretation".
>
> Your constant misrepresentation of the poem as an autobiography
> (including misquoting me, as we've seen) indicates that you're convinced
> that you just can't see that difference; you've got the idea in your
> head that this is how I'd "interpret" the events of my childhood (not to
> mention my young manhood).
>
>> This is why your perception of Dr. NancyGene's and my analyses of your
>> poem strike you as personal attacks, whereas from my perspective the
>> *only* way to examine a semi-autobiographical poem on child abuse is
>> consider the speaker and the poet as being essentially the same
>> individual.
>
> Well, no, HarryLiar, I "interpret" your comments on the poem, and "Dr."
> NastyGoon's as personal attacks because you use them for personal
> attacks. A good example is your opening paragraph that I quoted, where
> you use your account of the poem, plus your misinterpretation of
> something else I'd said, to call me a "pathological liar". The more you
> try to pretend comments like that that are not personal attacks, but
> just comments on a poem, the harder it is to believe anything you say.
>>
>> 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.
>
> That sounds like another contradiction to me. Previously you said that
> "every" character in a novel represents an aspect of the author, and now
> you admit that at least some are actually inspired by other people. Of
> course they're filtered through the author's imagination, but that's the
> precisely the point I'm trying to make to you: that the poem is a work
> of imagination, not simply a recitation of facts. The poem uses my
> memories, but it's not based on my memories; it's based on my speakker's
> memories as I imagined them to be.
>
>> 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.
>
> Forgive me if I use the term "psychobabble" again, but that's precisely
> what your mention of "analyzing" dream constructs put into my head. It
> reminded me of how your Dr. Freud came up with his theory of the Oedipus
> Complex (which you and the other "doctor" claimed I suffered from) by
> "analyzing" a child's dream about two giraffes.
>
>> Despite your claims of taking the reader through Little George's home
>> (with the same floor plan as its real life counterpart) on a
>> room-by-room basis, you jump from the kitchen to the garden.
>
> Your insistence on calling the speaker "George" is annoying (although it
> is preferable to the "Boy George" nickname you previously borrowed for
> him him and then insisted on calling me). I think you're just playing
> with words to blur the very distinction between speaker and writer that
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