[continued from previous message]   
      
   > He'd have to own a clean pair of clothes and bathe regularly.   
   >   
   >   
   >>>>> And, you have yet to identify who this person being addressed is.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> Probably the principal, after Mr. Dockery got kicked out of school.   
   >>>   
   >>> I've been thinking about Will's poem, and I've come to a similar   
   >>> conclusion.   
   >> We think that the principal also killed himself.   
   >   
   >   
   > Massacre at Carver High.   
   >   
   >   
   >>>   
   >>> The speaker is lying "shattered" on the floor, with his life having   
   >>> passed him by, because he'd just received notice that he would have to   
   >>> be repeating his senior year again.   
   >> And he heard the voice of "GED" in the sky, telling him that he was   
   >> special, that he "don't need no education."   
   >   
   >   
   > It's tattooed on his chest.   
   >   
   >>>>> This is another earmark of a Will Donkey poem -- addressing various   
   >>>>> pronouns (you, he, she, it, they) without identifying them to the   
   >>>>> reader.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> It was all a dream, and he had forgotten their names, although they had   
   >>>> told him twice.  "Hole in one"   
   >>>   
   >>> In this particular poem, it turns out that he has simply lost his   
   >>> marbles.   
   >> Such a lack of awareness in a 22-year-old llth grader.   
   >   
   > I beg to differ.  He was actually showing some perceptiveness.  He was   
   > aware that he'd lost his marbles at a relatively early age.   
   >   
   >   
   >>>>>>>>>>  if I see things denied   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> It's impossible to tell if this line relates to that preceding or   
   >>>>> following it.  It doesn't make sense either way.   
   >>>> Not surprising.   
   >>>   
   >>> That's one of the problems with Fragmentist poetry -- the individual   
   >>> thought fragments aren't required to correspond to any of the other   
   >>> thought fragments.   
   >>   
   >> Therefore, any thought fragment can be pulled out of the can of thought   
   >> fragments and be used at random without affecting the logic or flow of   
   >> the poem?   
   >   
   > Detractors of the Fragmentist school have argued along those lines.   
   > However, the Fragments' goal is to capture their thought fragments *as   
   > they arise* in their conscious mind.  Therefore, a successful   
   > Fragmentist thought fragment should follow from, and lead to, the   
   > thought fragments that precede and follow it, respectively.   
   >   
   >   
   >>>   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> Is he seeing things he once defined denied?  What did he define?  For a   
   >>>>> person to "define" something would mean that he was the perfect symbol   
   >>>>> of that particularly quality or characteristic (Joe was the definition   
   >>>>> of courage).   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> Or is his waking contemplation of the possibility of returning to...   
   >>>>> some unidentified thing (a relationship?) being denied by the   
   >>>>> unidentified someone's actions?   
   >>>> All of those things.   
   >>>   
   >>> No... I'm convinced that he's lying on the floor (excuse me, at the   
   >>> floor) having gotten drunk and stoned out of his mind, upon learning   
   >>> that he'd been left back yet again.   
   >> Where was he getting the money to buy the drugs?  (or was Barfly   
   >> supplying them?)   
   >   
   > From working at the mill and the lumber yard, and from Kathy's   
   > waitressing jobs.   
   >   
   >   
   >>> It all makes perfect sense.   
   >>>   
   >>> Well, maybe not perfect sense.. and maybe not all of it... but at least   
   >>> it's got some semblance of a plot.   
   >> Not an interesting or publishable plot, though.   
   >   
   > Which is why in the 49 years since he wrote it, it's only been published   
   > in his high school newspaper.   
   >   
   >   
   >>>>> You need to learn how to convey information to your readers.  Language   
   >>>>> is about communication.  It is the means by which we pass on   
   >>>>> *information* to others.  When your poetry hints at vague relationships   
   >>>>> with unidentified pronouns, it is failing to express anything.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> That's a theme in Mr. Dockery's attempts at writing.   
   >> That's unexpressionism?   
   >   
   >   
   > That's an excellent term for it!   
   >   
   >>   
   >>>   
   >>> It's also indicative of his laziness.  Why bother to think up a word for   
   >>> something when you can just use a handy-dandy pronoun?   
   >> Or use the same words over and over and over, like "tizzy," "troll," and   
   >> "obsessed?"   
   >   
   > Yes, but that's in his conversations and posts -- not in his poetry.   
   >   
   >   
   >>>   
   >>> "I told you it was good   
   >>> But you said it was bad   
   >>> What was it that we had?   
   >>> I've never understood."   
   >>>   
   >>> I've just written a Donkey style stanza in 3 seconds flat!   
   >> But it rhymes!  Dockery poems don't rhyme, or if they do, it is in   
   >> random lines.   
   >   
   > :(   
   >   
   >>>>> Vaguery can be used to a poem's advantage -- but the *entire poem*   
   >>>>> should never be incoherent.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> At least he is consistent.   
   >>>   
   >>> True.  Let's give him credit for that.   
   >> But no credit cards.  He couldn't even get a pre-paid one.   
   >>>   
   >>>>>>>>>>  I once defined   
   >>>>>>>>>>  a life just passed me by there   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> Where's "there"?  If the life "just" passed you by, it would have done   
   >>>>> so just a few seconds ago, so "there" should be "here."   
   >>>>   
   >>>> That was Sydne's wrong left turn with Stinky G.   
   >>>   
   >>> So Sydne turned here when she should have been there, and now only a   
   >>> broken Stinky G is left.   
   >> And where is Stinky G, since he's neither here nor there?   
   >   
   > The Donkey said (somewhere, but not here, and probably not there) that   
   > he was in Florida.   
   >   
   >>>>> But earlier in the poem, you'd said that someone else's life had just   
   >>>>> passed by.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> Sydne's ghost.   
   >>>   
   >>> No, it couldn't have been Sydne's ghost.  Will wrote the poem in 1976   
   >>> when he was a high school senior.  Perhaps the ghost was that of his   
   >>> future upon learning that he'd been left back another time?   
   >> Time travel is fluid.   
   >>>   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> Which life was it?  The speaker's life?  Or the unidentified "you" he is   
   >>>>> addressing?   
   >>>>   
   >>>> The ghost of Dan Barfly.   
   >>>   
   >>> Dan was still alive then, too.  I believe he'd been thrown out of school   
   >>> for sleeping with underage students, but he was still hanging around the   
   >>> local bars.   
   >> Because that's where the underage girls and boys were.   
   >   
   > Yes.  He and Will also took a drug-fueled road trip to Florida at that   
   > time (as incoherently recalled in one of Donkey's poems).   
   >   
   >>>>>>>>>>  slipped through my fingers   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> This is just another way of saying "passed me by."  If a line doesn't   
   >>>>> add anything to the poem, you should cut it.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> Perhaps the whole poem should be cut?  Not just perhaps.   
   >>>   
   >>> Perhaps the collected works of Will Donkey should be cut.  With the   
   >>> exception of "When the Mill Shut Down" (or whatever it was called).   
   >> So one poem is passable in 50 years of writing?   
   >   
   > No.  Will's written at least two poems that were passable, and one that   
   > is actually good (When the Mill Shut Down).  You're familiar with the   
   > saying about a broken clock.   
   >   
   >   
   >   
   >>>>>>>>>>  everything here now is real   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> WFT?   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> Was everything not real a moment ago?   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> More importantly, *what* has become real?   
   >>>>   
   >>>> "The Real Housewives of Atlanta?"   
   >>>   
   >>> The real housewives of Will Donkey's Atlanta don't really have houses.   
   >>> They squat in abandoned "mansions" and do their doody in the back yard.   
   >> More hole references.   
   >   
   > Well, "in a hole" is part of the refrain from "The Donkey Song."   
   >   
   >   
   >>>>>>>>>>  so wait.   
   >>>>>>>>>>  That portion of the finish   
   >>>>>>>>>>  never comes.   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> I'm guessing that you were stoned out of your senses when you wrote   
   >>>>> this, and that it all made perfect sense to you at the time?   
   >>>>   
   >>>> He did the best drugs he could score on the playgrounds.   
   >>>   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)