Thanks Doug. I may settle for upright rather than vertically, steering
clear of erect.
Bill
On Thursday, 18 August 2016, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Well, following this whole exchange has been illuminating. Even knowing
> some of those terms, I didn’t really pick up on the potential allusiveness
> here.
>
> It did point to another time, those learning-to-write days before the new
> language of the smartphone etc.
>
> I wa a bit bothered, Bill, by the double adverbial endings of stanza 2…
>
> Doug
> > On Aug 17, 2016, at 12:20 AM, Millicent Borges Accardi <
> [log in to unmask] <javascript:;>> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Bill
> >
> >
> > Thanks for your thoughtful response to my message. . . perhaps "lust" IS
> a bit too strong, but there is a sense of seduction with the pen and the
> muscles and the way the poem falls together. It is, in a sense, a seduction
> of the activity and an admiration of the hand-writers, those past student
> heroes. . . I think it was perhaps worth pointing out the subtle. . . notes
> or hints of homosexuality that could linger in the poem or could be brought
> to mind, especially apparent is riding bareback, a vernacular for two men
> having sex without a condom.
> >
> >
> > While I cannot always comment, I appreciate and have appreciated being a
> member of this list for many many years.
> >
> >
> > Millicent
> >
> >
> > Kale Soup for the Soul
> >
> >
> > http://www.MillicentBorgesAccardi.com
> >
> > @TopangaHippie on Twitter
> >
> > Água mole em pedra dura tanto dá até que fura
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask] <javascript:;>>
> > To: POETRYETC <[log in to unmask] <javascript:;>>
> > Sent: Tue, Aug 16, 2016 11:10 pm
> > Subject: Re: Handwriting heroes
> >
> > Thanks for your thoughtful observations, Millicent. I certainly was not
> > aware of the calibre of the allusions you point out. Thanks Max for the
> > correction too. Definitely 'none' not 'one' would have been aware, is
> what
> > I meant to say. Also a bifurcated 'nib' not 'rib' was at the working end
> of
> > dipping pens and even the later 'cartridge' pens. Max would know that I
> > have been a fan of the Western genre for some time and I did slip those
> > words into the final stanza deliberately. But I can see how they may be
> > interpreted as being on a different sexual spectrum. Of all the penmen I
> > mention, only one, as far as I know, ended up being gay, the O figure.
> > Those first three were primary school friends, A and K were secondary
> > school and G, much later, was a fellow teacher. O is the only one who
> > 'crossed' so to speak, with me from primary to secondary school but we
> > drifted apart midway through secondary school. In primary school we had
> > been quite close and had even experimented sexually in low-key sorts of
> > ways, ie without touching each other. The reason I know he was gay was
> > overhearing him and seeng him in company with his 'like' in a Carlton
> bar a
> > few years after school had finished for us. We didn't speak. I don't
> think
> > he even saw me.
> >
> > Maybe there is something in what you say but I think 'lusting' is too
> > strong. I did admire each of those guys in their turn and their
> handwriting
> > seemed to reflect a certain solidity of character. But it's not the
> clutch
> > of the pen I recall, nor even the posture, with the exception of A, who
> did
> > have to contort his arm to get the required forward slant. It is more my
> > memory of the rich blue ink on project paper books which we used or even
> > exercise books. In G's case, he took union minutes for me when he served
> as
> > secretary to my president of a local school branch.
> >
> > Not sure if anyone needs to know all that, but thanks for the attention
> > again, Millicent and Max. Nowadays, few people would even see the
> > handwriting of their friends I suppose, in the keyboard age, much less
> > recognise it or store it in memory.
> >
> > Bill
> >
> > On Wednesday, 17 August 2016, Millicent Borges Accardi <
> > [log in to unmask] <javascript:;>> wrote:
> >
> >> The poem is almost a subtle allusion to gay sex. A schoolboy discussing
> >> handwriting and lusting after the other boys in secret:
> >> one of the above would have known
> >> what I was up to.
> >>
> >>
> >> I'm reminded of one of Eduardo Corral's poems about a violin. . .
> >>
> >>
> >> So many allusions: riding bareback, stirrups, bifurcated rib, forearm
> >> sprawl, the longer he went at it, pressed so hard, K's tight, neat
> >> "script" Even Peter Sellars (spelled differently, I know), the openly
> >> gay theater director. . .
> >>
> >>
> >> A school boy watching the other students's muscles flex as they practice
> >> handwriting and imagining more.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> millicent
> >>
> >>
> >> On Aug 16, 2016, at 14:34, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]
> <javascript:;>
> >> <javascript:;>> wrote:
> >>
> >>> L pressed so hard on his bifurcated nib
> >>> that it splayed, sending out a shadow script
> >>>
> >>> B's bright text stood up vertically
> >>> looping over lines playfully
> >>>
> >>> O's letters raced; ps and qs lost their
> >>> bulbousness the longer he went at it
> >>>
> >>> Each of these styles I endeavoured
> >>> to replicate for as long as I admired the writer
> >>>
> >>> A's left-handed lurch to the right
> >>> required a forearm sprawl
> >>>
> >>> K's tight, neat script anticipated
> >>> his composed later life as a dentist
> >>>
> >>> G's letters leapt left and right randomly
> >>> Hard to emulate but I gave it a shot
> >>>
> >>> None of the above would have known
> >>> what I was up to.
> >>>
> >>> In between adoptions, my own script
> >>> tentatived on lined pages until
> >>>
> >>> I latched on to a new cursive hero
> >>> to marshal my letters.
> >>>
> >>> Peter Sellers could be any man
> >>> but drew a blank at himself
> >>>
> >>> No bareback writer, my ideas
> >>> trotted out but needed stirrups.
> >>>
> >>> bw
> >>
>
> Douglas Barbour
> [log in to unmask] <javascript:;>
> https://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
>
> Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuations
> 2 (UofAPress).
> Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
>
> Four or five couplets trying to dance
> into Persia. Who dances in Persia now?
>
> A magic carpet, a prayer mat, red.
> A knocked off head of somebody on her broken knees.
>
> Phyllis Webb
>
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