A Term of Madness

[Delta40]

Ha ha ha!
Trapped in the confines
of countless corridors,
cruising in and out
of structured cells,
Affective Fallacy
has broken the bookshelf
and flat on his face he's fell.
Kasplat!
Now don't misread the writers
intention.
(But I'm sure I can take the rejection)
Please nurse, I ain't like them.
They're off their reading rockers!
He twitches, trembles, itches.
Critically mapping light room switches
along the pissed on graffitti walls.
Someone attempts to fill in the gaps.
Hey man, a dish could be anything from
Fish in Lemon Sauce
to the flogging of a pitiful horse.
Ha ha ha!
Well that subjective view
definitely won't see him through!
Mr Fallacy, we're all under observation here.
When his attributes are shackled
in the analysis room, he shrieks,
Speak up my creator, Speak!
And the glazed,
the dazed
just snigger like
prisoners of emotive response.
Hey Affect, you're better off in there.
I'm lyrical yet limited by threadbare.
Everyone is free to leave
the framework any time
but now they feel something inside,
when the readers van finally arrives.
Ha ha ha!

[ShadowsCool]

Delta,
I'm not smart enough to know what this is all about. But I read it and I think it's cool.

[Hawkman]

Very, very witty and extremely funny. Well done, Delta! (er, you might want to change fell to fallen in L8 though.)

Live and be well - H

[Twota]

Delta,
I'm not smart enough to know what this is all about. But I read it and I think it's cool.

Same goes for me. :D

[Bar22do]

oh yeah! unbridled wit and what a candid look at contradictions in affection... ah.

[paradoxical]

Very cool indeed!

[Jerrybaldy]

i am not smart either but it reads to me like a poem about writing and the madness that ensues the more you do it. for some reaon I love this:

Hey man, a dish could be anything from
Fish in Lemon Sauce to
Braised Steak and Onions.


You pluck the ordinary into the sublime, which aint as easy as you make it seem.

[Delta40]

Damn. I just edited that line Jerry!!!!!!

[miyako73]

If ever I'll conduct a creative writing workshop (hopefully in my country), this will be one of the first readings. It seems reading is also an art like writing. As there are bad writers, there are also bad readers.

As an aside, I hope one day I can teach some street children how to write and read poetry. Maybe there is a lost Rimbaud among them.

[Buh4Bee]

This was a trip, Delta! Is this what happens when the mind splits in two? Really well done and I think you do a nice job exploring what madness can be like.

[Delta40]

Thanks Miyako. I'm in a manic phase right now.

[miyako73]

I like it. It shows the internal arguments in a poet's mind maybe caused by the uncertainty the readers' van brings. The lesson: listen to yourself not to readers. I might just do that. Most of them want me dead anyway.

[Delta40]

It's primarily about the limited concept of Affective Fallacy (objective) vs the response-reader criticism (subjective) which I am definitely in favour of. The readers van is a good thing in the context of this poem.

[MorpheusSandman]

A rather hilarious transposition of literary criticism into the realm of mental disorders! My favorite part:

He twitches, trembles, itches.
Critically mapping light room switches

As for the subject itself, as much as I like the New Critics, The Affective Fallacy is one I never bought into either. But reader-response theory isn't wholly subjective, as Fish's extensive reading of Paradise Lost tried to show. Really, I think the only difference between New Criticism and Reader-Response is that of spatial VS temporal reading.

[Delta40]

Thanks Morpheus, Bar, Miyako and Hawk. I'm glad you found some entertainment value in the poem. You will of course excuse my ignorance in the world of literary terminology and support my endeavours to understand it?

[MorpheusSandman]

I'd support anyone's endeavors to understand anything, so certainly. :) Just know I basically agree with you about the "limitations of the Affective fallacy," but merely that I don't see Reader-Response necessarily being its opposite.