File spoon-archives/phillitcrit.archive/phillitcrit_2000/phillitcrit.0008, message 307


Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 13:18:58 -0500
From: "George Y. Trail" <gtrail-AT-UH.EDU>
Subject: Re: PLC: Literary Saints




Barron wrote:
> 
> On 8/21/00 7:50 PM George Y Trail wrote:
> 
> >> His mother clothed
> >> Him in dresses,
> > Historically this was not uncommon. Infants were only recently sexed.
> > (pink and blue and the like).
> 
> This was true of course. Usually for practical reasons, such as changing
> diapers. 

I have not done a great deal of research on this, and this is certainly
set at the end of the time I am familiar with, and my impression was
that it included all baby clothing, and that no gender differences were
observed until the child, I think it was, walked.  My father was born in
1911, and I have seen pictures of him as a baby dressed, not as a girl,
but what we would take as such, but as a baby.   

However, this practical fact doesn't preclude a mother treating her
> male child as a girl. 

This is problematic in the poem because we have no idea of the source of
the point of twins remark. 


Furthermore it certainly doesn't make it improbable
> that an old man looking back at a photograph of himself in a dress doesn't
> see it as feminizing, which by today's standards, which he is currently
> living with, it would be. It is also probable that Grandpa is aware of all
> of this and is simply having fun with his grand kids.
> 
> > Were there "strollers" at the turn of the century? This is before the
> > picture. It violates the logic of the poem. A stroller in a tintype?
> 
> There were perambulators, many similar to strollers in form. Grandpa might
> certainly describe his 'pram' as a stroller or his granchildren might have
> no other term for it. Certainly they wouldn't know what a 'pram' was. So the
> use of 'stroller' is either imprecise or ingenious. Which is it? 

I have never seen a pram which resembled a contemporary stroller. 
> 
> >> A baby in drag
> >> At the turn of the century.
> > No. That is just wrong. It was not then drag.
> 
> Not necessarily. Again, the moment that all this is happening is
> contemporary. To the grandchild it might 'look' like a baby in drag. For the
> grandfather this might be an amusing spin on what he recognizes as normal
> behavior a hundred years ago. Might this not go to the heart of the poem;
> how things might be percieved differently with time?

Drag is something pretty specific. It involves more than just
crossdressing. And the poem doesn't let me know whose consciousness this
exists in. I don't think the writer was paying attention to this. And
the resulting ambiguity is confusing rather than useful. 
> 
> > Logic again violated. Are we just learning this?  How does the picture
> > "appear"?
> 
> I see Grandpa pulling it out of his wallet with a grin. Is this a stretch?

What happens in your mind and what the poem directs are here it seems to
me at odds. Yes. I find it a stretch. If a tintype is meant, those are
not carried in wallets.  

> It came immediately to mind for me. I may be wrong but I see Grandpa having
> fun with the kids. Showing how things change. How what was normal has become
> absurd. What I don't see is a bitter Grandpa indicting his mother for trying
> to make him into a girl. I may be wrong. From a structure and precision
> standpoint I am not qualified to criticize this poem but I think some of
> this critique might have two sides. Troy?
> 
> I think it took guts to put this poem before this group. 

You know many "poets"? Huge egos. Love audiences. Love to be talked
about. This is not a defect. It is an essential quality.    

The non-sense poem
> I felt was just silly. So, if this group is going to critique someones poem
> I think it should be fair and honest but not knee-jerk negative just so that
> we seem oh so wise. The quality of the critique should be as well
> scrutinized as the quality of the art.

If this is directed to me, I would reply that the well built poem never
leaves the reader twisting unless it is deliberate. I have little
problem with most of your "coulds," but one should not have to resort to
them.  
 
> Barron
> 
>


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