I liked it, too, Fred. I hope I won't spoil the party -- I don't intend to!
-- by saying I find parts of the poem insufficiently fictionalized, raw
rather than cooked. This is of course partly the result of dealing with
autobiographical material. As a reader, I usually prefer to think, "Hmmm, I
wonder if this is autobiographical," rather than knowing it is. Something
about dramatizing the voice. As I say, I don't want my carping to detract
from either the strength of the work itself, nor from the praise it has
received here.
jd
On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 9:24 PM, Frederick Pollack <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kenneth Wolman" <
> [log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 8:50 PM
> Subject: Re: "Old Dog"
>
>
> Fred, the poem builds to a conclusion that could make plaster fly off the
>> walls, so great is the impact.
>>
>> Did I say I like it?
>>
>> Ken
>>
>>
> Thanks, Ken. I seldom deal at such length with autobiographical material,
> but the more I looked at the memory the more I saw shape and meaning in it.
> For me the key word is "existentialism." The themes are all Sartrean:
> choice, good and bad faith, having to create rather than merely find the
> self. The latter is what the self *wants to do - in revolution (the Cuban
> pavilion); scientific progress (the "domed cities"); good works (like
> Gordon's); in love (like, at least, Gordon's for Lisa); even in one's own
> "genius" (some remarks of the narrator's) - but can't. The strange
> "honesty" that twice overcomes the narrator - and Lisa - has as much to do
> with intuiting this fact as it does with lust. ---- I'm just thinking aloud.
> Some friends have not liked the poem - they've said it's too much of a short
> story, too much of a memoir, or just too crowded. So your feeling that it
> has a cumulative power means a lot.
>
--
Joseph Duemer
Professor of Humanities
Clarkson University
Weblog: sharpsand.net
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