Wednesday

1 November 2017

— still quite a few leaves on the trees beyond our fence

Good Morning All, 

I’m happy to report four of you made comment on my gun villanelle. Here they are:

If I wasn’t aware of your smirk in your poem [meaning, I think, if the writer did not know me personally]  and was a complete internet naif who had hit upon your poem by a random search hit,  I could see where one could find it a compelling argument for ownership. There is nothing to inform me otherwise. 

Your poem would go right over “their” heads.

The image of having a gun to protect oneself, and the other images that Trump has managed to hook into, have nothing to do with sensible solutions to problems. Your poem hits the core of the problem with too many voters. They vote on images they like and not on solutions to issues.

I like this poem. It's really dark and you usually don't write such a dark stuff, I am a bit scared!

I relished the first two comments because I was pretty sure while writing the poem I was making it way to obvious the persona/speaker of the poem is a true dickhead. 

For instance, when he talks about the rush of power in his nuts and holding hard his gun in his hand, I assumed not many readers would miss the allusion to fears of sexual inadequacy and impotence that—at least in Freud’s world—would be compelling reasons for purchasing a vicarious penis.

“No one can smirk now since I’m a man / No one dares laugh to make me feel small” is in that same area of physical, emotional, social, and/or mental inadequacy. The “since” is “since I own a gun”. 

The homoerotism of “standing tall” with his brothers (survivalists, misogynists, and whatnot) looked way to obvious to me. As did the shift from “It’s great to hold this gun” to “I’m great to hold this gun.” 

And Fatherland? With what country do you most associate that term? For me it’s Germany during its darkest days.

The poem is ostensibly about Sandy Hook, but the persona barely mentions it. He spends virtually all his time pathetically pumping himself up as best he can, including the humbly arrogant folksy politeness of “Yes, sir, you’re talking to a proud American.”

I think the third comment gets close to what I was trying to do in the poem. The persona, for whom—believe or not—I have some sympathy, loses contact with himself and his humanity by hiding out in all the images so carefully polished by the NRA, the extreme right-wing of the GOP,  and other de facto fascist organizations. The tragedy in the poem is that the speaker does not not who he is. 

Still, I like the last comment best. It is from a former student now living in Thailand. She is correct, my poetic efforts are generally nothing like as dark as this one. 

And to prove that, sort of, tomorrow will come a sonnet about November! Try to go bed early so that the wait will not seem as long.

Go Well and Stay Well, 

Bhekaron

P.S. Two Holly snaps: