Re: My Father's House / George J. Dance

George J. Dance wrote:
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On 2024-1-26 4:02 p.m., Zod wrote:

george...@yahoo.ca wrote:

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My Father's House
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This is my father's house, although
The man died thirteen years ago.
They said it would be quite all right
To take a drive to see it now.
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Dad laid those grey foundation blocks
And built the whole thing (from a box),
Toiling after each full day's work.
I helped, though I was only six.
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Look, here's the back door I would use
And here's where I'd remove my shoes
To enter; there I'd leave my things
And, when allowed, climb up these stairs.
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In this room I'd wash many a dish,
Gaze out this window, and I'd wish
To be so many other places.
(Wishy-washy? Oh, I guess!)
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Outside, the garden that he grew
Where I would work the summers through,
While watching my friends run and play
Mysterious games I never knew.
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That room's all changed; oh, where is it,
The one chair I was let to sit?
(For boys can be such filthy things.)
Which, the corner where boys were put?
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Oh ... down that hall there is a room
Where I'd be shut (as in a tomb)
After the meal, to make no noise,
To read or play alone, and then
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Lights out: in bed by nine each night,
Some nights wanting to pee with fright,
Face and pyjama bottoms down
As for my father's belt I'd wait.
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Oh, if I were a millionaire
I'd buy my father's house, and there
I'd build a bonfire, oh so high
Its flames would light up all the air.
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~~
George J. Dance
from Logos and other logoi, 2021

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Read twice, outstanding work of poetry....!

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Thanks, Zod. It's a poem I'm proud of. I wrote the first draft quickly,
but I spent several years tweaking it before it went into a book.

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The big revision here is the rewrite to L2. In the original discussion,
one of the people trying to cut it to shreds was a poet, and amongst her
complaints she had a criticism I thought valid: it's not clear that the
speaker is the child of the poem now grown up. And I think realizing tht
is essential to appreciating the thing. Having the father been dead for
over a decade makes that much clearer.

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As well, it makes certain things more ambiguous, and I think that's a
plus as well. By taking out the old L2, it's no longer clear whether the
house this guy is walking around in is abandoned, or still lived in.
It's also unclear who "they" are; my hidden idea was that the speaker
was under psychiatric care, ant "they" were the ones looking after him,
but I wanted to keep that hidden.

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Yo... kool...