the ocean always dreamed blue dreams

You know, I was trying to think what it was that was so remarkable about your poetry; it's not just the words, though the words are beautiful, or the rhythm, or the sense of quiet wisdom about it, but there is something else at work, a kind of vulnerability perhaps, which takes it beyond the ordinary into the extraordinary. This is no different. You handle the subject with delicacy and force, without judgement or perhaps with as little judgement as is humanly possible when writing about a mother breaking her seven year old daughter's toes and maiming her for life because of tradition. My daughter is 6 and I can't imagine how I could bring myself to do that to her, but then I am in a different world and perhaps in another one I could. Who knows? It is, perhaps, how the cycle of violence continues. The idea that one must suffer in the name of beauty. That for a woman, to have worth one must be restrained.

But this poem moved me to tears Qimi, and that's a rare event. Terrible, beautiful poetry. The best kind.

Excellent verse, q.
I don't know how societies get their ideas of beauty or why they would go to such extraordinary lengths to forced little ones will grow up with the physical alterations. Tiny feet in one culture, pointed heads(?!) among the Huns, and that supposedly enlightened culture which predicted our universal doom right before Christmas in 2012 used
to attach wooden boards to young growing skulls so that the kids would grow up with a gorgeous flat head.
In our culture, never could get the knack of walking in high heels. My enormous feet look even bigger in them, and I'd prefer looking shorter not taller. Evidently the idea is that high heels pitch a female's hip area forward, which somehow is supposed to make her look more attractive. Evidently.

This not a mere poem (indeed there's nothing "mere" about it) but a sociological elegy and in these unforgettable lines

Their persons being cultivated, she whispered in her ear, their families were regulated,
Their families being regulated, their states were rightly governed,
Their states being rightly governed, the whole kingdom was made tranquil and happy

something of an entire course in political science.

I'm afraid, however, that I didn't know what to make of that closing "Nor will I". Perhaps someone else will venture an interpretation or if not you'll offer one.

Those words come from a book of Confuscianism known as The Great Learning. See the link above.

I went back to my poem and attributed those words to him. I don't think they are probably copyrighted, but I didn't invent them, so...

Thank you, Fifth. I am very honored by your words. I cannot imagine inflicting that kind of pain on any living creature, much less a child of mine, in the name of anything. It is beyond imagining. Apparently the Chinese had a saying that a mother could not love her daughter and her daugther's feet.

Yeah, AuntShecky, the Mayans give new meaning to the idea of suffering for beauty, don't they?

Prince, thank you for saying that my poem is a sociological elegy. Wowzers.

It was difficult to write, initially. When I first had the idea I was hugely excited, but as I began to reseach and write I got a little queasey and I began to wonder if anyone would read it or even want to. But I finally figured out what I wanted to say and how, and it finally came together.

Thank you guys for being brave enough to tackle this, for seeing something good in it.

The agree entirely with FifthElement. I am truly speechless and overcome with anguish with what I have just read. I am in great admiration at how you are able to describe such a terrible event so exquisitely and so calmly. So elegant, so dreadful.

And I agree with Myshkin, your insights throughout are stunningly subtle.

Thank you, Daniel.

Nicely written poem. There is however something presumptuous of someone criticizing other culture's norms. I understand from our point of view how one could feel supercilious to such a custom. I certainly don't approve of it, don't get me wrong, but you are looking from your eyes into another world and suggesting that you know better. But it is extremely well written.

Hey that first link you posted, I noticed it came from Brooklyn College of the City University of New York (CUNY). That's where i got my master's in English lit degree.

Actually, I thought I was trying to tell as well-rounded a story as possible. Did you read my introduction at all? I very much wanted to tell the story from inside the culture, not outside.

I find it amusing that Fifth felt I told her story "without judgement or at least with as little judgement as is humanly possible..." I 'm satisfied that I did not approach this with an attitude of superiority.

However, having said that, I did write this with a more universal theme in mind than women sufferning for beauty. Please remember that foot-binding has died out in China; the last recorded incidents of it took place in the 1940's. Interestingly, the very act of eradicating this long-held practice did not come about without it's own pain:

What was beautiful had to be rendered ugly, and what was ugly, beautiful. To destroy one and replace it with another, the perception of beauty attached to bound feet had to be destroyed, which in its extreme moments necessitated an assault on the women who had them.[38] This almost-unreal process of change demanded its price, and the payment was often in the form of great individual suffering.

So I wrote this as a metaphor about people who harm or injure others in the name of...justice? love? beauty?

The last line in incomplete. This woman/girl or whomever was wronged or injured has their own story to tell.

If she was to finish the sentence, what would she say?

"Nor yet will I tell you..."

http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/...ld-13-20081031

On re-reading, I will have to apologize. It does not have a sense of superiority. Somehow my perception was altered into thinking so by your introduction. But your poem is tone neutral. You are right! My apologies Qimi.

That's OK. Thank You, Virgil.

If your last response was the explanation I sought for the last line, it's clearer to me now. Thank you, and once again, it's an extraordinary poem. And thank you for that.