Dress-Up

[vagantes]

I dress and peer in the mirror,
And a shadow comes to the glass.
Behind its wavy surface
There stands a figure of a woman,
Who looks just like myself
Dressing and raising her hand
As I raise mine to greet her.

[Buh4Bee]

I love this! But I like most of your stuff vagantes.

[MorpheusSandman]

Those last two lines are really excellent, but I worry that what precedes it is a bit bland by comparison. One suggestion I make might is to make that penultimate line clearly enjambed, as it would contrast nicely to the end-stops of the preceeding lines. Might I suggest this as a rewrite:

I dress in front of a mirror
A shadow comes over the glass
Behind its wavy surface (I really don't like "wavy surface", but I have no immediate ideas for a replacement)
A womanly figure stands
She looks just like myself
Dressing and raising her hand as I
raise mine to greet her.

One thing I like about the idea of enjambment here is that it helps to join both images together in a fluidity of motion, because in the previous end-stopped lines its as if the speaker and mirror image are separate entities, so with an enjambed ending you can suggest the connection in the form as well as the language.

[vagantes]

And you have provided a wonderful example of a bad reading.

[MorpheusSandman]

And you have provided a wonderful example of bad poetry up until those last two lines; what of it?

[vagantes]

Well all I did was write a poem.

Whereas you, obviously, have some problems you are trying to work out by displaying bad judgement, poor analysis and a general lack of critical understanding.

In addition you are demonstrating a total lack of interest in anything other than yourself.

Now I chose to write the poem the way I did because I wanted it to convey a particular type of emotion/feeling.

If you want to write a different kind of poem based on my poem then feel free to do so, but try to understand my poem before you do so.

[MorpheusSandman]

vagantes, instead of really replying to your uncalled for and weak-minded ad hominem, I'm going to refer you to here, in particular, this:

unless you are willing to accept negative criticism as well as the praise offered, you should refrain from posting your work in this section of the Forum.

[vagantes]

And can I suggest that you try to respect the writer's intentions, and equally that writers write in particular ways because they choose so to do.

Or is that beyond you?

You clearly had no idea of what my poem is about and just as clearly you were determined to vary its meaning without reason other than to demonstrate what appears to be your own inadequacies.

Enjambment does not mean simply running the line on. It is generally used in blank verse as a contrast with end-stopped lines. Grammar flows freely into the metre in order to provide variation and surprise.

My poem seeks to stop and turn - to look at itself: thus mirroring a poem about a mirror and about different selves which are the same.

What your version is doing is making it flow which is completely contrary to the idea behind the poem.

If you want to act as a good conduct monitor/ sneak / snitch then feel free, if that provides you with satisfaction.

[MorpheusSandman]

vagantes, keep this up and you will likely be banned by the admin. That's why I linked you to that excerpt from the sticky on the front page. If you really want to discuss my reading and your poem, then you should do so with respect. You do not have to agree with my suggestions or reading, but just because you don't does not mean you get to slam me, personally. It just makes you look like a weak-minded jackass who can't tolerate anything but praise.

If you knew anything about 20th century literary criticism you may have heard of something called the Intentional Fallacy, which was coined by W.K. Wimstatt in a famous essay, in which he argued that it is a fallacy in criticism to evoke the artist's intention as literature should be examined on its own terms and own devices. You can intend whatever you want, but just because you have intended it does not mean that's actually what you've communicated. Other people do not share your brain. They read from a different mind formed by living different lives and having different ideas and interests regarding poetry and criticism and all of that. But the majority of 20th century criticism and beyond has done away with only evoking intention. The best critics from Brooks, Empson, Vendler, Ricks, etc. prefer to simply analyze poetry on its own terms and its own devices and interpret it from that.

I don't know where you got the idea that enjambment is generally used in blank verse--that's absurd. Enjambment IS running the sense from one line into the next in ANY verse. Since all poetry works off binary contrasts, it's often good to build a poem on end-stops and then use enjambment at a climax, or vice-versa. Your piece is pretty much what's called (IIRC) weak end-stops since it stops at clauses that could end the sense, but then the next line develops a sub-clause (or, at least, it was like that to your latest edits for punctuation, which I think weakens the piece, actually, because you lose the effects of the double syntax). But in a piece like that it's usually best to use enjambment for the climax as it creates a dynamic against what's come before. Otherwise, it's just static and monotonous.

Anyway, with that out of the way, back to your actual poem. You say: "My poem seeks to stop and turn - to look at itself thus mirroring a poem about a mirror and about different selves which are the same." which is all very well in good, since mirroring is one of the oldest devices in all of the arts, but I don't see any real mirroring in the piece you have. Perhaps you can seek to explain how you attempted to achieve this "looking at itself thus mirroring a poem about a mirror" etc. because I'm not seeing it. Typically, mirroring invites enveloping structures like chiasmus, or echoes (motifs) which fan out like ripples from the center of the poem. I see none of that here, except perhaps the dress/raise hand/raise hand/greet, but that doesn't even really work since the participle doesn't really pair with the infinitive, and I see no relevant connection between dressing and greeting.

So stop yammering on about me ignoring your intent and seek to explain how you sought to achieve that intent within the poem itself. Go read some of the disagreements between Hawkman and I and learn how to disagree civilly with another poster over the choices made in a poem.

[vagantes]

Ahh the old death of the author nonsense. I have covered this elsewhere and at length on the thread called the Singer or the Song. Read it and try to be enlightened.

My point is that though readers can read how they please (whether they rely solely on the text or not), they should also respect the writer.

A reader does not have a licence to behave like some litter-picking lout roaming over a literary work as he or she wishes. There has to be a meeting of minds, based one would hope on an intelligence.

All your guff that follows on in your little squib is simply that - guff dressed up as technical criticism using terms purely to impress. Unfortunately as you completely misread the poem in the first instance then your remarks are somewhat devalued.

By the way it was Wimsatt and Beardsley who introduced the term in 1954.

[MorpheusSandman]

Death of the Author is poststructuralism and coined by Barthes and isn't necessarily a part of New Criticism and close reading. There's a difference in ignoring intention and ignoring that an author exists at all. EG, Vendler wrote a whole book analyzing Keats' odes in the context of his previous work and influences without resorting explicitly to intention. So there's is a difference between the intentional fallacy and death of the author. If you want to link me to the thread you're referring to I'll be glad to read it.

I don't think because someone dislikes what a writer has written they are being disrespectful. You cannot expect us to read your mind. That's unreasonable. It's funny that in the years that I've offered criticism on this forum I don't ever recall someone claiming I had been disrespectful, as I always try to temper my negative criticism with pointing out what I do like and explaining why what I don't like doesn't work (in my mind). And, again, if you think I've misread then I'm more than willing to change my opinion, but you have to do more than just accuse me of misreading, you have to actually argue why you made the poetic choices you did.

A reader has a license to do whatever they please, especially when a writer is posting their work on a free and open forum and looking for criticism. I wonder if someone praised your poem even though they had completely misread it if you'd be attacking them like you're doing to me now. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you wouldn't mind praise based on misreadings, but negative criticism based on what you perceive as being misreadings you just can't tolerate.

You can keep saying that I'm a bad reader, that I'm only out to impress, that I only care about myself, that what I write is guff, and on and on ad infinitim. But I've asked you to clarify what your intention was and how you attempted to achieve that in the poem. You avoided this, perhaps because you don't really know yourself. The irony is that I didn't even really give a READING for the poem in my first response; I just suggested to use enjambment for the penultimate line. Apparently, that's enough for you to know I completely "misread" the poem.

And you're right that I forgot to mention Beardsley. My mistake.

[miyako73]

I like when a poet can make something poignant out of the mundane. The beauty of a simple poetry lies in the complexity of its hidden meanings.

One minor suggestion: "silhouette" has more sense and finesse than "shadow," unless, of course, this is a poem about a ghost which I don't think so.

[Buh4Bee]

Miyako- You do sound like a real poet!

I liked the idea of a shadow or ghost, since it showed the woman fading away. It seems that she is in an unstable emotional state and sees herself not at all, but meerly (Sp??) as dressed up. But this is just my interpretation of the poem!

And sometimes, maturity is demonstrated by giving the OP the last word, even if you are correct.

[qimissung]

REMINDER


if you feel you are unable to show respect towards those who do not share your thoughts and beliefs.

Posts containing personal and/or inflammatory comments will be removed without further warning.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Vagantes, if you can't take criticism, don't post your horrible poems. It's as simple as that.