Mike,
Yes, I am very interested in the telling and showing thing which a lot of
people have mentioned and which I don't feel I have got to the bottom of
yet.
At the time I wrote this poem I didn't know that such a distinction was
important. Also, even if I had been aware of the distinction at
that time I don't know that I would have agreed with it. What I do/did
varies from poem to poem and in some poems I was aware of avoiding showing
(or as I would have called it describing, if it is the same thing) as an
inferior mode to the symbol. If I had known to say it, I might have said,
"don't show, but pare the poem to a brief telling of events and let the
symbol do
the work".
However modes of poetry are rarely incompatible and if tactile symbolism
were possible then it might be one of the best things that poetry could
offer and of neccessity include a great deal of showing.
As I say I am not sure that I have understood the distinction between
showing and telling as used in poetic circles and what it would really mean
in a poem and am eager to learn. I was thinking about it today as I pushed a
heavy door, that I could say, "I pushed a heavy door" or alternatively, "As
I pushed the door sweat gushed from my forehead and my arm broke", a
flippant example perhaps but demonstrating consequences of the heaviness.
Nevertheless I'm not sure that I will ever accept it as a universal truth
that showing is better than telling. It is something that I want to know
about, and please ensure that I do, but at the end of the day, it is just
one style of communication which may be favoured to a greater or lesser
extent in different times and places.
Thanks for the crit and keep it coming,
Colin
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Horwood" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2003 6:02 AM
Subject: Re: newsub/salesgirl
Hello Colin,
I like the idea of this poem, the way you analyse the behaviour
of the salesgirl, very much. There are also some very nice phrases - `you
lean to me like a flower/collapsing under its own weight of sweetness´ -
this is great. But what and I don´t like, and I´m afraid it spoils the poem,
is authorial intrusion - `I do not blame you...´, `To lose only this is...´,
`So I don´t know why it makes...´. This is what is often called `telling,
not showing´. I really think you´ve overstepped the limit here. One way to
rectify it might be to remove the `I´ narrator and make the whole thing more
objective and distanced. If you can put this right I think you´d have a
really good poem.
Best wishes, Mike
--- Alkuperäinen viesti ---
Salesgirl Smile
I do not blame you for your falseness,
your well-conditioned hair,
an ever-willing handshake
and that dazzling smile.
If life must mark us-
coalminer's hands, doctor's health,
you merely stand to lose sincerity.
To lose only this is accomplishment.
So I don't know why it makes me sad
to see that enamelled smile.
Perhaps your radiant glow
is worse than ill-intent,
knows darkness so deep
not even love can escape,
because you lean to me like a flower
collapsing under its own weight of sweetness,
ever-sinking, ever-rising to lift itself
from a colourless despair.
Tokyo, April 1995
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