Oh fuck, it's one of *those* poems.
One that everyone else understands better than I do.
Judy Prince <[log in to unmask]> says
> Astonishing. In one little sentence-transposition you brought the poem to
> ordered meaning.
How do you mean?
"Ordered meaning" - that's a bit scary!
I get the digest, so hadn't actually read your comments before revising
the poem (sorry if that disappoints you Judy).
> Originally, I'd analyzed your poem because you asked for comments; otherwise
> I wouldn't have given my views.
Oh, go for it - everyone's views are interesting.
I've been writing too long to take analysis & criticism personally!
As to your earlier comments:
> Main part's the most developed part, and is, I think, (crazy me) a gendered
> connection. Hence my confusion at your repeating the "genderless" lines.
> Now, if you are female and your dreamlover's female, well, doggone, I'm
> wrong.
The poem really is based on a dream I had, but it is not supposed to be just
about me (or some version or persona of me). If readers cannot connect
it to their own lives, feelings, dreams, whatever, then I'm communicating
only with myself and would rather not trouble the world with it.
The gender thing is deliberately confusing, intentionally ambiguous.
Gender, or sex, does not come into it... and yet it does.
The line with "genderless" says that it doesn't,
yet the other lines may suggest that it does.
> I really like the schoolchildren lining up nervous and the schoolenemies
> tittering---but I don't get why they are in the poem, and I don't get why
> they only appear "in dream." That makes it seem as if they don't appear in
> "real" life, which they surely do. But if you say they only appear "in
> dream" to you---well, why do you say that?
Because it's the truth. They are recurring elements in certain types
of dream that I have. If they are there, then I should be able
to recognise that it is a dream, as I can if I find myself flying.
(anyone else on here ever have lucid dreams?)
However I'm not sure that they do belong in this poem; it might
be stronger without. Maybe I should put them in another poem.
Or expand on them somehow in this poem so they make more sense.
This poem seems to have gotten a reaction, on this list and
on another, so I guess it's worth continuing with.
Janet
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Janet Jackson <[log in to unmask]>
Poems at Proximity:
http://www.arach.net.au/~huxtable/janet/proximity.html
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