[continued from previous message]   
      
   >> every morning -- along with my mother and siblings.  I loved my garden   
   >> and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.  I was also allowed to play with   
   >> the local kids who would drop by on an almost daily basis.   
   >   
   > That sounds like a little flowerbed.   
      
   Not at all.  We had a little flowerbed in the brick flowerbox that was   
   built as part of one of the outside walls.  We were surrounded in   
   flowers, but apart from the flowerbox (where we grew marigolds,   
   hyacinths, and pansies) most were perennials and didn't require any   
   care.  We had a bed of moonflowers, a bed of irises, morning glories   
   growing up the side of the house, tulips growing along the length of the   
   front wall, three daffodil beds, crocus beds at either end of our   
   driveway, rose bushes lining the side of our driveway at the edge of the   
   field, two forsythia bushes, a pussy willow bush, a wisteria bush that   
   covered a double-sided wooden bench with a roof, a magnolia tree, about   
   two dozen flowering shrubs of different colors (red, white, pink, and   
   purple, a golden chain tree, bleeding hearts, two mimosa trees, two   
   dogwood trees, a black cherry tree, three crabapple trees, along with   
   wildflowers (daisies, clover, ladyslippers, Queen Anne's lace,   
   black-eyed Susans, buttercups, etc.).   
      
   Our house was situated on my Grandmother's property.  Her lot was   
   approximately three acres wide x one mile deep.  Her house was on one   
   side of ours, and her one acre field was on the other side.  My   
   Grandfather had grown crops there, but had passed away several years   
   before my birth.  We used a section of the field, roughly 6x25 feet to   
   grow our garden.  My Sister, Brother and I each had our own patch   
   comprising 1/3 of that area.  We grew tomatoes, pumpkins, zucchini,   
   sunflowers, corn, radishes, carrots, watermelons, lettuces, string   
   beans, and peas.  And we harvested and ate what we grew.   
      
   We also had a cherry tree, two apple trees, three pear trees, a plum   
   tree, and a grape arbor (producing both green and red varieties; along   
   with wild strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and blueberry bushes.   
      
      
   > Suffice it to say, both my father's   
   > garden and my own were produce gardens, where we grew virtually all our   
   > own vegetables. So it was a much bigger task, which took me at least a   
   > couple of hours a day (and pretty much every day when school was out);   
   > and again, like you, I could not simply drop everything and go off to   
   > play during that time. There was plenty of times though that my friends   
   > were doing work and my sister and I were the ones playing; and even more   
   > when we all had free time and could play together.   
      
   I'm glad for you, but we are discussing "Little George," who "never   
   knew" what the "mysterious" games played by the other children were.   
   That doesn't strike me as a fictional embellishment, because it's hard   
   not to recognize a game of tag even if you're not one of the children   
   playing it.   
      
      
   >> Little George's next stanza opens with the line "That room's all   
   >> changed" implying either that the garden is a room, or that he is taking   
   >> the reader on a walking tour of his childhood house.  This appears to be   
   >> another problem caused by switching the kitchen and garden stanzas'   
   >> position in the narrative.   
   >   
   > The "problem" seems to be caused by your either: (1) not realizing the   
   > speaker could have been looking "outside" through a window; or (2) your   
   > constant attempts, in your guise as literary critic, to find errors in   
   > the poem. The garden stanza is deliberately s5 (the mid stanza of the   
   > poem), for reasons I'll have to explain.   
   >   
   > There are two stanzas where the D line is a rhymes perfectly with the   
   > A-B lines; s5 and s9. The reason that the failure of the others to   
   > rhyme, as I'm sure I've explained to you before, is to subliminally   
   > reinforce the idea that Bob is having trouble completing his thoughts.   
   > Whereas in s5 and s9 he does bring his thoughts to a conclusion; in s5   
   > he realizes that (IHO) he's been deprived as a child, and in s9 he   
   > realizes that he wants to be rid of those memories.   
      
   That's waaaaaaaaaaaay to technical a device for any reader (or critic)   
   to pick up on.  As I've said, you spend far too much thought on   
   structuring your poetry, and giver far too little rein to your emotions.   
      
      
   >> I'm assuming that it's the living room,   
   >> although Little George neither specifies nor gives us any other clue   
   >> than that it contains a chair on which he is forbidden to sit.   
   >   
   > Actually, the room contains one chair in which Bob is allowed to sit.   
   > But, yes, it's the living room. I don't know how things were in your   
   > home, but in mine and most of the one's I've encountered, the living   
   > room was where the family sat together. (In Britain it's actually called   
   > the "sitting room").   
      
   Our living room was for the family to sit together -- often watching   
   watching tv.  We also played board games on the floor, practiced piano   
   there, and read books and played records (as that our bookcases and   
   record shelves were).  I was allowed to sit on any chair I pleased, and   
   we often built fortresses out of the cushions and/or jumped up and down   
   on the sofa during the day.   
      
      
   >> IIRC,   
   >> George Dance stated that while he was also barred from using the living   
   >> room furniture, the parental description of boys as "filthy things" was   
   >> derived from the life of another boy that he knew.   
   >   
   > There was in fact only one place for the children to sit in my family's   
   > living room, though it was a couch (for all the children), not a   
   > separate chair.   
   >   
   >> Last stop on the tour is the bedroom.  Little George is sent there after   
   >> dinner every night where he feels as if he is trapped within a tomb --   
   >> alone and forced to pass the time quietly playing by himself.  "Each   
   >> night" at 9pm, Little George was forced to turn out the lights,   
   >   
   > Yes, I was, but "Each night" is a bit of an exaggeration; that was   
   > actually each night in which I had school (or something equally   
   > important) the next day. On weekends and in the summer, I could stay up   
   > later, and go outside after dinner until dark, and that was all free   
   > time. Once again, if I were relating an autobiography (which it looks   
   > like you've forced me to do) I'd have mentioned those exceptions, but as   
   > I was not recounting my memories but Bob's, I had him exaggerate.   
      
   I was allowed to stay up till midnight on school nights (I refused to   
   miss Johnny Carson's monologue) and as late as I could stay awake on the   
   weekends. Again, I grew up in a much less restrictive atmosphere than   
   you.   
      
      
   >> and lie   
   >> face down in bed with his pajama pants pulled down and his bare behind   
   >> awaiting his father's belt.  George Dance hasn't said that this bedtime   
   >> ritual occurred on a daily basis in real life, but has intimated that   
   >> the "spankings" (which he refused to call "whippings" even though the   
   >> blows were delivered with a belt) frequently took place.   
   >   
   > Well, being "whipped" (to use your preferred term though there was no   
   > whip involved) took place too often for my liking, but I certainly   
   > wouldn't call it a "bedtime ritual" (which does make it sound like it   
   > happened on some fixed schedule irrespective of how I behaved). And Bob   
   > clearly states that that happened only "some nights".   
      
   The use of a (presumably leather) belt is a form of whipping.  A   
   spanking is when one is smacked on the bottom with an open hand.  Since   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)