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I guess anything is possible if he is actually indicating that type of ambiguity. I took 'ambiguity' to mean 'confusion', then I am not on acid. I am really not sure about this macho man stuff. Another interpretation, he is a cheat (ambiguous lust), and he is calling her a cheat too (comparing with her). There is an interplay of sort going on here, love was in the past, but they are talking in the present.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xamonas Chegwe
As I see it, the implication is that he promised love to get her in the sack but was never really offering it. As I say, stereotyping. Men are human, hence sensitive even if they don't want to be and even if they deny it. Often more so when they deny it.
Come, my laid lady, whom I wooed with words,
And called my Star--
Since you proved that you loved me, I
Know what you are?
Men 'woo', and call their girl, 'my Star'. It is stereotyping to suggest only men do this, women do it too. Then he admits, 'she proved her love', but he still does not know what she is, and he is asking her. Well, she is a woman, what else could she be???
I'm from a different generation, and I think Xam is close to me in age. I remember real hardcore feminists of the late seventies and eighties considered/put out/argued (I'm not sure what the right characterizaton is) that all sex between men and women was a form of rape. I know that it was not the majority of feminists, let alone women, but it was out there. Also if you weren't one of these weeny men, then you were a pig. So that sort of reading is in the realm of possibility. I wonder when the poem was written. I couldn't find it on the internet.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xamonas Chegwe
However, Katherine Ann Porter is not someone I would have associated with those feminists. She was of a way older generation. She died in 1980 at 90 years old.
Those are double entendres. A double entendre is a word that ostensibly says one thing but also puns with a sexual connotation. "Come" ostensiby means here listen up; "laid" ostensibly refers to laying in bed (although I grant you on this one my arguement is weak), "rod" ostensibly refers to a measuring stick; and "easying in you my ambiguous lusts" ostensibly refers to the wooing with words that was done for the seduction. And we all know what the sexual pun of each refers to. :brow: (I must say, I'm really having fun with this poem. ;) )
The shock that everyone has gotten from the poem is from the incredibly loutish behavior of the "he" speaking. I can't help but feel that there should be a complementary poem or section that starts with "She Speaks" where we get her point of view. If there was such a complementary poem and that poem presented a Wife-of-Bath type of argument, our whole perception might be quite different.
Also this poem is narrated by a woman through the voice of the man. Is this what she thinks he would say? What if what happened the night before was this: a man and a woman go to their local meat-market bar, he with the intent of picking up some woman, she with the intent of getting picked up. He says: "If you mistake what I gave you for love, you are/More beast than I". Who says she's mistakened anything? In fact his whole speech is rather outrageous. Who would actually say such a thing, even if that's what he felt? And the last line, "I was a god!", well men might think that, but to actually tell a woman that the next morning borders on delusional. Can she be so naive and he so delusional? I can't help but feel that the poem is her interpretation of what she thinks he feels. Is it more likely that she feels like dirt or that he would call her dirt? I think the former is more likely. Is it more likely that she might feel like a dupe or that he would tell her she's a dupe? Again, the former is more likely.
PS, There some good poetry in here too which I'll get to later in the week if no one brings it up. This post is already too long.
The whole lot could derive some double entendre, if we want, and not necessarily sexual. Our sub-conscious takes us where we really want to go, eh. 'my laid lady' is the lady I won (laid) through wooing, and so on. Its standard equipment in courting ritual. I don't know what generation people are, and what culturals are here, but in any relationship (and this one is more than a one nighter) the language changes from 'you are naughty, my teddybear' in a cutting up with a chainsaw context to 'now shut up and give me a smack on the lips, O sewing machine of Satan' with a looking deep into her happy eyes context. You know, its an adult poem, afterall, displaying as real as possible, some part of some kind of relationship. Whether we can conclude anything is nigh impossible, unless there is some fact in the lines that establish. Its such a subjective issue, and it surprises me that any of us can leave a pile of words with any definition at all. But, people do for some reason, when maybe they should remember they are looking at it through a window, and when they turn their head away, put the question mark back on the cover. Here again, as Virgil pointed out, if there was a round two, she could be mouthing off at him (in his voice). You know, another thing about poetry (words), we cannot gauge the volume, even with a '!'. Ever see Richard Burton go at Liz Taylor, in that quiet voice, Cat on a Hot tin Roof, Marlon Brando. Words can cut at any volume, and double entendre is often a toy for wordy people. I am interested to see how the meat in this poem is analysed, because so far we haven't got past the sex shock (and assuming everyone here is over 18). :banana:
:brow: Meat, did you say? Is that a double entendre? :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by jackyyyy
Yes, its an unashamedly, triply entendred, oft obsfucatingly and maligned seed of destruction, poked into that sentence to deliberately provoke gutterings of wild and sexual steamings! :goof:
I see, as someone put forward, the heat is out of you or the poem doesn't have enough 'meat' for long discussions.
I'll give you my version. I chose the poem 'vite fait' in a hurry, KAP fell into my hands like that. Nevertheless, I think it is a nice poem even if not knowing KAP.
She led a quite difficult life (her mother died she was two), grew up in Texas and from then on lived in many different countries and towns, including Europe. She was very educated, at fifteen she knew Shakespeare's sonnets by heart, had read most major authors. She married early and thereon very often, but most often didn't go that far. All her loves were unhappy and there were many. We speak here of the nineteentwenties and -thirties. She probably wasn't of the aggressiveness and sturdiness of a Rebecca West or Dorothy Parker (two years in a sanatorium for tubercolosis), so she suffered easily. Early on she experimented, not unlike Ezra Pound, with different forms of poetry, the "Morning Song" was from 1929. She had a vivid sense of satire and caricature in which category I would place this poem, clothed in a mock Elizabethean style (no?) or old English anyhow. It is a mirror poem, where she looks through the eyes of the disappointing lover at herself, and gives herself a sort of self-laceration at the same time.
At the end, she decided she wasn't a good poet and wrote mostly fiction. She is one of the few women writers I read with pleasure.
To finish, I will quote a poem that she translated from the Spanish written by a nun in 1641, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Has to do with recenty discussed topics.
To a Portrait of the Poet
This which you see is merely a painted shadow
Wrought by the boastful pride of art,
With falsely reasoned arguments of colours,
A wary, sweet deception of the senses.
This picture, where flattery has endeavored
To mitigate the terrors of the years,
To defeat the rigorous assaults of Time,
And triumph over oblivion and decay --
Is only a subtle careful artifice,
A fragile flower of the wind,
A useless shield against my destiny.
It is an anxious diligence to preserve
A perishable thing: and clearly seen
It is a corpse, a whirl of dust, a shadow, --
-- nothing
(For who speaks Spanish, I've the original version)
The heat maybe out of some, Melanie, or they are simply busy. I like very much this type of poem, 'Morning Song', and if it is a 'vite fait', you must have a wide choice to mistake from. It has meat for an eternity of discussions and it does seem odd to see a 'real life' poem amongst classics and others. I want more. I read up on KAP after you posted it, and found her life 'full of life'. I hope we are not leaving it as is... ;)
I noticed the triumpf,, Spanish is triunfo. I would love to see the Spanish version, can I get it on-line somewhere, or can you post it here?
Hi Jackyyy, here is the original nun's voice (surprising)
Procura desmentir los elogios que a un retrato de la poetisa inscribió la verdad, que llama pasión
Este, que ves, engaño colorido
que del arte ostentando los primores,
con falsos silogismos de colores
es cauteloso engaño del sentido;
este, en quien la lisonja ha pretendido
excusar de los años los horrores,
y venciendo del tiempo los rigores
triunfar de la vejez y del olvido,
es un vano artificio del cuidado,
es una flor al viento delicada,
es un resguardo inútil para el hado:
es una necia deligencia errada,
es un afán caduco y, bien mirado,
es cadáver. es polvo, es sombra, es nada.
Why not try your hand and translate it again. I just have a few notions of Spanish and everytime I read a poem in this language it seems so much simpler than the one translated into. Is it the words have more flavor?
Apropos, I learned about KAP from poems that were published quite a while ago in the New Yorker. And her poetry was assembled and edited by a women professor, Darlene Harbour Unrue, U. of South Carolina Press.
Thanks, Melanie! My Spanish is not as tried as my Portuguese, but this looks fine. I find it has more everything in the original language, and I don't think it presumptious of me to say translations 'never' capture it all. I read Shakespeare in Portuguese a while back, which must be one of the most translated poems. Word for word it worked, but nothing else (in my opinion). Thanks for the note about KAP too, I will check that out.
Yes, I was right!!Quote:
Originally Posted by MelanieD
Maybe I can restart a discussion on this week's poem by telling you what I see(poetic elements) that adds to what you all have been discussing.
There seems to only be one person speaking throughout the poem, the he or I , which points to this poem being about the 'He' and not the 'her'. And adding to this is that when you read the poem there seems to be an excessive use of the word 'I'. And when you read this poem out loud, the word 'I' is pronounced against the words 'you'(her); and that sound seems to carry from the beginning of the poem to the end of the poem. And look at the stressed words associated with describing the I:trod/lust/god/rod/.
I think this all adds to an overwhelming sense that the Morning Song seems to not concern the 'Her' through the speaker of the poem.
There are some other things I see, but does anyone else want to add their opinions first?
Great, let's get to this.Quote:
Originally Posted by ktd222
But ktd, the "he" is not the "I". The "I" is the woman, who orients us with "He speaks".Quote:
There seems to only be one person speaking throughout the poem, the he or I , which points to this poem being about the 'He' and not the 'her'.
Yes, I count nine "I's" and nine "you's" and that's a huge amount for such a short poem. In fact so much of the poem is framed "I am," and "you are."Quote:
And adding to this is that when you read the poem there seems to be an excessive use of the word 'I'. And when you read this poem out loud, the word 'I' is pronounced against the words 'you'(her); and that sound seems to carry from the beginning of the poem to the end of the poem.
One thing, I didn't pick up the rhyme, rod, trod, god. It makes the poem accelerate.Quote:
And look at the stressed words associated with describing the I:trod/lust/god/rod/.
Like the Larkin poem, this is an aubade, a greeting of the morning between lovers. There are allusions in it of renaissance poems, refering to the woman as his star (doesn't Dante do this with his Beatrice?) and the line "in that moment when I brought you down". This is a metaphor comparing the seduction to a hunt, very prevalent in Renaissance poetry. I'm always reminded of Sir Thomas Wyatt's "They flee from me that sometime did me seek" when I think of this metaphor; just google that first line and it'll come up. It's a pretty poem where he puns hart (deer) with heart.
But KAP's poem is not like your typical morning poem. She turns the tradition (of love) to crass lust, and of amorous banter to insulting ridicule. This is typical of the moderns, to turn tradition on it's head. Sort of like Joyce's Ulysses from Homer's Odyssey.
Another highlight of this poem to me was two interesting adjectives: "ambiguous lusts" and "wallow you." My first reaction was, what is so ambiguous about this lust? But it dawned on me that the ambiguity was on her part, not his. That's what led me to think that this was her imagining of his thoughts. She wasn't so naive; there was a part of her that was just as lustful.
What an interesting euphemism for sexual intercourse with "wallow you." Replace the "wallow" with "f**k" (excuse me, but this poem brings out the devil in me) and the line works perfect: "That you're a dupe who let me BLANK you."
And what's wrong with that? Women's lust passes over feelings like love, which is always ambiguous, as mostly you can't distinguish one from the other. And to wallow according to the American Heritage Dic is: to roll the body about indolently, to luxuriate, to revel.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
I'll tell you something. I'm not a good talker (please: no fishing) and I haven't ever LEARNED anything about poetry, I read poems intuitively. I do have lots of volumes bought at random but seldom READ poetry with attention. So, being here, reading what you have to say makes me happy, I feel like coming nearer the heart of the matter (of living?) I LEARN and therefore I wanted to thank you all.