Masturbation

[vagantes]

When,

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin died shortly
After giving birth to her daughter,

(Who,

Years later would fornicate on her mother's grave),

(Over which,

Thomas Hardy would urinate as he supervised
Some architectural work, that involved
The removal of bodies from a graveyard),

Her husband William Godwin, who kept a journal,
Could on 10 September 1797

Only

Produce a series of strokes from left to right across the page,
As though language itself had failed.

I now read that a Ukrainian feminist has said:
"Masturbation will give you neither poems nor children".

With which statement I would disagree.

[Buh4Bee]

XXXXx

[qimissung]

Interesting...a rather bland comment, I realise, but who would have thought you (the universal you) could put this rather intriguing observation together with such disparate elements?

[Bar22do]

wow, vagantes! this is sharp, pitiless, well done!

[Buh4Bee]

Well, this is one reason I found it so so funny. But I had to erase what I originally wrote out of fear of humiliating myself more than I usually do.

Vagantes- Whoever you are, I find your poetry to be engaging and at times quite funny. And at times misunderstood.

[Alexander III]

It is a vey strange and new poem, but I like it, it has a fresh charm and poignacy to it.

[vagantes]

I am glad the poem is of interest.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Did those things mentioned in the poem really happen?

As to the poem. It was okay. It felt like you wrote out a paragraph and through in some weird line breaks.

[qimissung]

"Years later would fornicate on her mother's grave),"

I haven't researched it, but I've heard she did do this.

[vagantes]

I am a devotee of the odd and bizarre.

William Godwin was decidely odd.

In his journal he placed a mark each time he copulated with Wollstonecraft. One result of this apart from prurience is that we know to the hour and minute the time of his daughter's conception. When his wife died he was so grief stricken that in his journals he could only draw four lines across the page on the date of her death. (These journals can now be read online).

He then wrote a memoir of his wife's life, which is an amazing and brilliant piece of writing. In it he provided intimate details of her previous sex life, which showed her to not only be the mother of an illegitimate daughter, but to have engaged in several love affairs one of which was with someone of her own gender. This was food and drink to those who disagreed with Wollstonecraft's political views and she was posthumously ripped to pieces in the gutter press.

When her daughter was 15 she seduced Percy Shelley on her mother's grave. This was, of course, Mary Shelley who wrote Frankenstein over a two year period when she was pregnant, having a miscarriage or giving birth

Years later Thomas Hardy (another very odd human being) wrote a poem about this churchyard describing how when the graves were disturbed to make way for a new railway(?) all the bodies were jumbled up together. He also wrote that this was a place where used to turn aside to urinate. He then transposed the churchyard to another location in typical Hardy fashion.

I have forgotten the Ukrainian feminist's name but she is real enough and she did make the remark attributed, which is also odd.

Poetry to me consists of yoking together the mundane and the ordinary with a viewpoint which is slightly skewed or twisted enough to provide an insight into what goes on around us.

Byron in Don Juan lifted whole sections of prose from contemporay newspapers in order to achieve the same result.

If I am not mistaken another writer on these pages is now reciognising the truth in doing much the same thing.

[Pensive]

Catchy title! :p

I agree with whoever said it's a very unique poem. Unique in a good sense.

[vagantes]

By chance , yesterday, I picked up Slaughterhouse Five by Vonnegut.

He is describing the aftermath of a terrible event - the saturation bombing of Dresden which killed thousands of innocent people.

There are a number of short paragraphs describing various horrors. Each one ends with refrain : "and so it goes".

One of them is as follows:

Somewhere in there the poor old high school teacher, Edgar Derby, was caught with a teapot he had taken from the catacombs. He was arrested for plundering. He was tried and shot. So it goes.

The prose is perfect. The mood is just right. This is the trauma of someone damaged by horror trying to recount his experience by means of an interior loop.

Years later this he what he said:

All of this happened more or less ... pretty much true. One guy I knew was really shot in Dresden for taking a teapot that wasn't his.

I submit the interplay between the two extracts is the kind of poem I was trying to write.

[hallaig]

Sounds portentous but ultimately meaningless. An interplay between an account of something that happened and then a second account by the same person saying it had happened just like that? Doesn't seem an interplay at all, and certainly not the one you often, occasionally effectively, employ between actual events and a parallel commentary. There's nothing new about creating effect through discord.

[vagantes]

Vonnegut was trying to write about horror - actual horror which he experienced first hand. He seems to have come to the conclusion that the only way to describe the events was to deflect them in a way which made them even more horrific. Somehow his prose (deliberate use of the word)does what it is trying to do. His later comment was written describing a visit to Dresden in 1967. It is an ironic attack on the notion that War is a good thing.

The mixture between the deflected description and the later irony creates a poem.

Nothing to do with creating effect through discord but an enriched exploration and discussion of some ideas about war and slaughter.

My poem is about sex and creation and tries to deal with those matters in a reasonably similar way.

The thoughts about Vonnegut etc,. have come after the writing of the poem. They simply illustrate an explanation not an inspiration.

[David Strugnell]

I can't get enough.

[vagantes]

It would be pleasant to believe this was an intelligent comment and not one driven by the title.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Disregard Strugnell. Jusdging from his posting history, he's just a troll.