----- Original Message -----
From: "Dominic Fox" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, March 30, 2007 2:20 AM
Subject: Re: A Shorter Book Of Hours (one of three)
> Thanks Fred. I must admit I've never watched a single episode of 24...
>
> I wonder whether it would still seem obscure if I hadn't mentioned its
> obscure origin. One of the figures in Cooke's "Morning is broken" is a
> rather dejected-looking halloween pumpkin...
>
> Something I'm always trying to do is give a legible public face to an
> essentially very hermetic and private tissue of references and
> associations. It may be a mistake even to let on that this inner world
> exists, since to all intents and purposes it *doesn't* for almost any
> possible reader.
>
> Dominic
>
"Pumpkinhead" is the evil figure in a series of low-grade horror movies and,
I believe, graphic novels. Not as famous as "Jason," "Freddy," etc., but
he's out there. In the great collective moronic imaginary in which,
inevitably, we all to some degree swim. The problem with the "Pumpkinhead"
passage in your poem is that, whatever your private myth-structure, no one
will perceive it - or even that there is one - because of the more public
association. The poem does seem - in a stylized, personalized way - to be
about Jack Bauer.
FYI - since you've never seen "24" - Kiefer Sutherland's performance as
Bauer has been layered, complex, and bravura, season after season. Yes,
Bauer kills and tortures people - but only when absolutely necessary, to
ward off an imminent nuclear/gas/bio attack. Yes, he is the avenging sword
of capitalism - but he has the affect of a troubled divinity student and is
capable of great unself-conscious kindness. Your poem's protagonist,
however inadvertently, will be seen as a satirical but plausible extension
of the TV figure.
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