Re: I Met A Girl / Will Dockery

On Thu, 6 Feb 2025 19:37:22 +0000, HarryLime wrote:

On Thu, 6 Feb 2025 17:02:38 +0000, W Will Dockery wrote:

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Harry Lime continues to lie and misrepresent about my poem, so here's
the original unedited version so the readers can decide for
themselves:
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***
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I Met A Girl
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I met a girl
she came from California.
It was in a dream
we knew each other instantly.
She was a little freckled girl
from out of
my high school past.
>
And she looked up at me
and talked real spacey.
I've forgotten her name
though she told it to me twice.
>
We talked
a really detached situation.
She said years ago
I was so shy
she thought I was gay.
At this point I kissed her
and put my finger to her hole.
>
And she looked up at me
and talked real spacey.
I have forgotten her name
though she told it to me twice.
>
I don't know why it was
that I would think of her.
I made a couple of puns
about her name that made me blush.
But her softness in tone
made me feel all right.
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All I want to do
is get in contact.
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-Will Dockery / May 8 1982

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***
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Again, this poem was written in 1982, during my time in the Atlanta
Georgia New Wave punk rock scene, while also influenced by the earlier
Beatnik poets
I was reading at the time, such as Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and
Charles Bukowski among others.
>
Both styles employed a sort of crude swagger in the tone and content
which I also used in many of my poems.
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Once again, all apologies to those offended.
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And so it goes.

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And again, the poem is your attempt to recast

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Not really.
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Read the George Dance critique, since he understands the poem so much
better than you apparently do, Harry:
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On Wed, 5 Feb 2025 21:55:28 +0000, George J. Dance wrote:
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Michael Monkey Peabrain aka "HarryLime" wrote:

Will Dockery wrote:

Michael Monkey Peabrain aka "HarryLime" wrote:

On Tue, 4 Feb 2025 17:42:27 +0000, Will Dockery wrote:

"HarryLime" wrote:
Will Dockery wrote:

Mummy chunk wrote:

>

Again, why do you lie and misrepresent so much, monkey boy Michael

Pendragon?
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Just curious.

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The problem with you is that you lie and misrepresent so much, Michael
Pendragon.

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That simply isn't true

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Of course I don't expect you to admit it, Pendragon.

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You know the rules,: PPSFU (Post Proof or Shut the Fuck Up).
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Any so-called "misrepresentation" you can find was based on one of
*your* posts.

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Oh, so HarryLiar wants proof? Let's look at his next paragraph:
>

I only know you from what you post here.  If you write a poem
based on a "romantic interlude" where you grope a woman you barely knew,

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I did know her and I didn't grope her. We kissed and made out a bit. All
completely consensual.

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That's fine, Donkey.  And I have nothing to say about that statement.
>
However, we are discussing your poem. And your poem casts it in a
completely different light.
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A critical reading of your poem makes the following things 100% clear:
you barely knew the girl, she told you she used to think you were gay,
you responded to that by forcing a kiss on her and "put[ting your]
finger to her hole."
>
You have since explained, and I accept your explanation, that the
"interlude" took place over a longer time period than the 5 minutes
which the narrative implies; and that you made out for a bit (which
included some genital touching).
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I'm completely fine with all of that, Donkey.
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But that is *NOT* what you wrote in your poem.
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You've probably heard this before, but it's worth repeating.  Pablo
Picasso was famous for his Cubist paintings wherein people were
presented with grotesquely misshapen bodies (both eyes on the same side
of their face, and such), which made his critics think that he didn't
understand the basics of artistic composition.  However, nothing could
be farther from the truth.  Before experimenting with breaking the rules
of traditional painting, Picasso first mastered them.
>
By the same token, you need to master the art of English composition
*before* you can set yourself upon breaking its rules (composing poetry
in Stream of Consciousness thought fragments, for example).
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When you don't understand even the basics of literary composition,
anything you write is going to turn out as unintelligible -- in the
worst possible way.  This almost invariably happens with your poetry,
and "I Met a Girl" is a prime example.  Because you stupidly (no other
word really applies) assume that your readers were not only present at
the "event" that took place on May 8, 1982, somewhere in Atlanta, GA,
but that they were privy to your conversations with the unnamed freckled
girl.
>
You know that you talked for 20 or 40 minutes (possibly even longer),
started kissing (as college age kids often do at parties), and as the
hormones started kicking in, the kissing extended to petting.  But your
readers have no means of knowing this.
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We only know the specific things your poem tells us:
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1) That you dreamt of meeting a girl who you recognized from high
school, but whose name you didn't know.
2) She was a *little* freckled girl who had stepped into your dream
directly from your high school past (which would make her 17 or younger
depending on whether she was in your class, or whether she was an
underclassman).
3) She told you that she had been living in California, and talked in a
"spacey" voice (which sounds as if she had been stoned out of her mind).
4) You talked together in "a really detached situation" -- which is so
grammatically incorrect as to have no intelligible meaning.  My best
guess (and it's only a guess) is that (partly because she was stoned,
and partly because you barely knew one another) you had little to talk
about, and weren't connecting with one another intellectually.
5) She said that because you were so quiet and shy in high school, that
she thought you had been gay.
6) "At this point," that is, as an immediate reaction to her words, you
"kissed her and put [your] finger to her hole."
7) You then repeat the stanza about here talking "spacey" and about
you're being unable to remember her name -- even though she had told it
to you twice.
8) You then tell the reader that you don't know what made you dream of
her.
9) You say that you'd made a couple of puns about her name (the one you
couldn't remember), and that the puns made *you* blush.
10) Now, having awoken from your dream, you just want to find her (i.e.,
stalk some girl you barely knew).
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That's a very disturbing poem.  And it becomes even more disturbing when
you say that it wasn't a dream, but that it really happened ("I was
there, I lived it.").
>
After numerous attempts to explain what actually took place, you've
finally reached a point where what actually happened is clear:
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1) You were partying with some college age punk rocker types.
2) You met a girl there who you used to see walking around the halls of
your high school (but to whom you were too shy to strike up a
conversation with).
3) You talked awhile, but the conversation was awkward and detached
(possibly because she was stoned).
4) Even though you didn't really connect, you started kissing, because
you were both drunk./stoned at a college party and that's what people do
there.
Eventually you worked your way up to some "heavy petting," but that's
all the farther that it got.
5) Now, 40-some years later, you can no longer remember her name.
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The two scenarios are telling *very* different stories.  If you knew how
to express yourself clearly, you could have written a poem that would
only have been offensive in its misogynistic tone and in your crudely
referring to her "hole."  That, from our discussions, was the poem's
*intended* effect.  But again, that is *not* how your poem comes across
-- because you failed to make the events comprising your narrative
clear.
>
Don't blame me because you don't know how to write.
>
Learn from the experience and enroll in a basic writing course.

Okay, there are senior citizen classes available at Columbus State
University so perhaps I'll sign up for some of those.

I am not suggest this to belittle you in any way.  Rather, it is the
best, and kindest, advice that anyone will ever give to you.

Okay, in that spirit, I thank you.

Harry Liar reposted an "edited" poem Will had written over 40 years ago
about a dream he'd had. You reposted part of the poem, snipping the line
about it being a dream, to falsely accuse him of sexual assault.
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Here's the thread, so readers can see for themselves:

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https://www.novabbs.com/arts/article-flat.php?id=15788&group=rec.arts.poems#15788
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Thanks again for reading and commenting, George.

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