Poem of the Week

The houses are haunted
By white night-gowns.

I had read these lines rather differently than ktd. I thought rather than creating a divorce from people and reality, that they emphasized the tangible and corporeal world. The word "haunted" builds expectations of ghosts and spirits--the fanciful, intangible and incorporeal world. Rather than the image of a spectoral ghost, however, the reader is presented with the fairly quotidian objects of nightgowns. It's like revealing that the mysterious white figures flitting about in the fog of a halloween night are really just the neighbor kids wearing white sheets. It takes all the potential mystery and imagination out of the haunting. There's nothing there more interesting than rather plain, ordinary white night-gowns.

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Originally Posted by ktd222

So the color white seems to symbolize truthful reality in that there is no humans, no human form(in the way we believe it to be), no human emotion—just houses haunted by white-night gowns.

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Yes I buy into this reading.

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Does anyone else think that there may be a connection between the words ‘haunted’ and ‘dream?’ ‘Dream’ seems like a word used to describe how we’d envisioned(imagine) something—that something, we have control of. ‘Haunted’ gets more at that something(reality) that’s uncontrollable by us—and that something reappears because of its own habitual nature.

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I agree. What makes me think you're correct is the drunk asleep further down in the poem.

Compare his famous "Snowman" where the mind of the inanimate snowman is empty of imagery and filled with the "nothing that is".

Hi im new to this forum and even newer to poetry but im going to give this one a shot.


The houses are haunted
By white night-gowns.

When I read this i thought that the author is trying to say that people living in the houses of organized society will experience, even in an event that is supposed to be supernatural, nothing more than a plain white night-gown. Also that their minds cant even dream up some of the excitement that the sailor has lived through in his life.


P.S. I really want to get into poetry but its proving difficult, could anyone reccomend any books on how to read poetry and get the most out of it?

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Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love

The houses are haunted
By white night-gowns.

I had read these lines rather differently than ktd. I thought rather than creating a divorce from people and reality, that they emphasized the tangible and corporeal world. The word "haunted" builds expectations of ghosts and spirits--the fanciful, intangible and incorporeal world. Rather than the image of a spectoral ghost, however, the reader is presented with the fairly quotidian objects of nightgowns. It's like revealing that the mysterious white figures flitting about in the fog of a halloween night are really just the neighbor kids wearing white sheets. It takes all the potential mystery and imagination out of the haunting. There's nothing there more interesting than rather plain, ordinary white night-gowns.

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These lines are a description of the truthful reality--without the imagination. I think the whole poem moves in this fashion from reality to imagination(not in this order). I think to witness reality, there has to be a divorce between imagination and reality. The title of the poem alludes to this, as I mentioned in a previous post, and the poem itself is filled with discernments, by the speaker, whether 'something' is because of our imagination or because it's reality. The word 'haunted' is exactly what keeps white night-gowns apart from our reality(Imagination), because 'haunted' does refer to the supernatural(Reality), intangable. What is so 'haunting' about the white night-gowns is its image described in the absence of humans, human forms, or human emotions.

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Originally Posted by ktd222

These lines are a description of the truthful reality--without the imagination. I think the whole poem moves in this fashion from reality to imagination(not in this order). I think to witness reality, there has to be a divorce between imagination and reality. The title of the poem alludes to this, as I mentioned in a previous post, and the poem itself is filled with discernments, by the speaker, whether 'something' is because of our imagination or because it's reality. The word 'haunted' is exactly what keeps white night-gowns apart from our reality(Imagination), because 'haunted' does refer to the supernatural(Reality), intangable. What is so 'haunting' about the white night-gowns is its image described in the absence of humans, human forms, or human emotions.

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ktd--I don't think I'm entirely disagreeing with your reading of the poem. I'm with you that there's a dichotomy in this poem between reality and imagination, and that Stevens is playing with the lines between the two. I like what you've brought out about the use of "disillusion" in the title. I also think you're right about it being important that the nightgowns are "described in the absence of humans." I wasn't trying to differ with you on this point so much as add a different reading into the mix.

As I read it, at the beginning of the poem he's setting up the description of houses where imagination is lacking, in contrast to the final description of the old sailor as the exception to the rule. By suggesting a word like "haunted" Stevens is conjuring up expectations of the strange and supernatural, and I think that following that up with everyday "white nightgowns" is intentionally a bit of a let down to those expectations. Any romance and imagination one attempts to see in these houses is revealed to have a logical, realistic, and identifiable source. The thought of material objects like nightgowns doing the haunting drains away some of the mystery conjured up in the word "haunted." In another context the line could even be humorous. At the same time I think there's also something deeper at play in what you're bringing out about the disembodied quality of the nightgowns. Representing the people by the nightgowns they wear, emphasizes their lack of imagination and presence as thinking beings. They are not minds or hearts. They are objects. Just as the nightgowns are drained of color, they are also drained of the people they contain and thus drained of human thought and emotion (just as you say). Tangible objects take the place of spirits, both supernatural and human.

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The word 'haunted' is exactly what keeps white night-gowns apart from our reality(Imagination), because 'haunted' does refer to the supernatural(Reality), intangable.

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I've just quoted this line from your response, because I was a bit confused by your use of the words in parentheses. Are you suggesting by the antonyms in the parentheses after "reality" and "supernatural" that Stevens is using these concepts in a antithetical and/or paradoxical manner (that the supernatural is somehow more real to us than reality and that reality is in some way unreal)? I thought perhaps that was what you were getting at, but I wasn't sure. :confused:

Yes, imagination is absent in these lines. Stevens seems to be trying to distinguish between what’s part of Reality and what's part of Imagination, so I don’t get it when you say he’s trying to ‘emphasize the tangible and corporeal world.’

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I've just quoted this line from your response, because I was a bit confused by your use of the words in parentheses. Are you suggesting by the antonyms in the parentheses after "reality" and "supernatural" that Stevens is using these concepts in a antithetical and/or paradoxical manner (that the supernatural is somehow more real to us than reality and that reality is in some way unreal)? I thought perhaps that was what you were getting at, but I wasn't sure.

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Sort of…doesn’t the title allude to this setting aside anything that’s imagined in order to witness reality? That maybe what we consider the supernatural(the night gowns) is what’s real. That even we are part of the illusion! As mentioned by the image, in the absence of imagination, of the houses haunted by white night-gowns where there is no mention of any humanly form. Even the speaker is absent from this image. The word ‘haunted’ used in this way to represent the supernatural, impalpable, is in a statement representing truthful reality without imagination. So in a way isn’t Stevens representing the supernatural as the real.

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Originally Posted by ktd222

Yes, imagination is absent in these lines. Stevens seems to be trying to distinguish between what’s part of Reality and what's part of Imagination, so I don’t get it when you say he’s trying to ‘emphasize the tangible and corporeal world.’

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Wouldn't emphasizing the tangible and corporeal world make sense if you are conveying the sense of dis-illusionment, of seperation from imagination? All I was saying is that nightgowns are things you can touch, and things associated with the body, and the physical. In that sense they are real rather than illusions.

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Originally Posted by ktd222

That maybe what we consider the supernatural(the night gowns) is what’s real.

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I don't consider the night-gowns "supernatural" in this poem, as much as they are what takes the place of the supernatural.

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Originally Posted by ktd222

The word ‘haunted’ used in this way to represent the supernatural, impalpable, is in a statement representing truthful reality without imagination. So in a way isn’t Stevens representing the supernatural as the real.

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I think what you're getting at here is similar to what I'm saying about the word "haunted" building expectations of the supernatural, which the night-gowns disappoint. You say Stevens represents "the supernatural as the real." I initially read it as him undermining, in fact almost discounting or laughing at, the supernatural with the real. I think it's a clever enough poem that it works both ways.

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Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love

I think what you're getting at here is similar to what I'm saying about the word "haunted" building expectations of the supernatural, which the night-gowns disappoint. You say Stevens represents "the supernatural as the real." I initially read it as him undermining, in fact almost discounting or laughing at, the supernatural with the real. I think it's a clever enough poem that it works both ways.

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I just have to say this right now--that their is no 'laughing at' anything in this poem at all. One variation of the word disillusionment is disillusion which means the condition of being disenchanted or representing a sort of sadness, so I can't imagine there is any laughing or joking in the poem at all.

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Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love

Wouldn't emphasizing the tangible and corporeal world make sense if you are conveying the sense of dis-illusionment, of seperation from imagination? All I was saying is that nightgowns are things you can touch, and things associated with the body, and the physical. In that sense they are real rather than illusions.

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Then your not taking into account the word 'haunted' which keeps the white night-gowns out of the realm of human control and human palpability.

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Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love

I don't consider the night-gowns "supernatural" in this poem

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Neither do I.

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Originally Posted by ktd222

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Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love
I don't consider the night-gowns "supernatural" in this poem

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Neither do I.

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I thought when you said this,

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Originally Posted by ktd222

That maybe what we consider the supernatural(the night gowns) is what’s real.

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you were saying that as readers what we consider supernatural are the nightgowns. The parantheses make it look like you're glossing the supernatural as being equated with the night-gowns. I guess I got confused? :confused:

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Originally Posted by ktd222

Then your not taking into account the word 'haunted' which keeps the white night-gowns out of the realm of human control and human palpability.

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I am taking into account the word "haunted." I'm saying that "haunted" does not necessarily take the night-gowns out of the realm of palpability. My point was based on the idea that he is using the word "haunted" to suggest the potential for the supernatural. The expectation is that such a word will be followed by the suggestion of something intangible, like a ghost. Instead he presents us with tangible objects: the night-gowns.

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Originally Posted by ktd222

I just have to say this right now--that their is no 'laughing at' anything in this poem at all. One variation of the word disillusionment is disillusion which means the condition of being disenchanted or representing a sort of sadness, so I can't imagine there is any laughing or joking in the poem at all.

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I didn't mean to imply there was broad humor or "ha ha" type of laughter. I think it's possible to find a tad of the absurdly or ironically humorous. The poem certainly seems to be commenting on those people who live dreamlessly in houses haunted by white night-gowns. I sense some disdain for these illusionless types (possibly bourgeouis types--at least that's how I imagine them), and perhaps even a wry bit of, not too kind, laughter at their expense. I don't think it's an essential part of the poem though, and I think what I'm identifying as a type of uncomfortable humor could also come off as a sort of bitterness or disapproval with a twist of the absurd.

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you were saying that as readers what we consider supernatural are the nightgowns. The parantheses make it look like you're glossing the supernatural as being equated with the night-gowns. I guess I got confused?

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I guess I left in the we when I should have said the speaker.

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I am taking into account the word "haunted." I'm saying that "haunted" does not necessarily take the night-gowns out of the realm of palpability. My point was based on the idea that he is using the word "haunted" to suggest the potential for the supernatural. The expectation is that such a word will be followed by the suggestion of something intangible, like a ghost. Instead he presents us with tangible objects: the night-gowns.

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I don't get this but maybe there is another definition of 'haunted' I haven't seen. To whom are the gowns palpable to if we are not part of the image?


It seems we are just going in circles right now so we can just leave it at this.

Petrarch, ktd,

I enjoyed your back and forth above! ;)

If I may introduce a biographical note on Stevens, he, I have read, did have a happy marriage. Except for his very early poems, you tend to find these "unhappy home" allusions scattered throughout his work. The poems themselves aren't usually biographical or should I say confessional, but he does use elements of his biography as working material.

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Originally Posted by ktd222

It seems we are just going in circles right now so we can just leave it at this.

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OK. I suppose we don't want to make ourselves too dizzy (at least we managed to entertain Virgil). :)

I don't consider myself a Bukowski fan as such but I liked this one and wondered what you guys would think of it.

so you want to be a writer?

if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.


if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

- Charles Bukowski

Good advice. :D