[Carl Copeland]

Thanks for commenting, Marshall!

Originally Posted by Marshall Begel

Maybe you mean "The squirrels are all muggers"?

I was trying to say that, if you think the tot on a trike is warning about muggers, the only muggers here are squirrels.

Originally Posted by Marshall Begel

Deleting "the" before nativity would help the meter.

You must be stressing “blend,” but for me the verb “to blend in” is stressed on “in,” as later “to glance up” is stressed on “up”—both anapests.

Originally Posted by Marshall Begel

Also for meter, try "LCD screens and the fairy lights blink".

You, like Andrew perhaps, seem to be stressing “LCD” differently. For me, it’s another anapest.

Originally Posted by Marshall Begel

It seems contradictory to paint a picture of a dysfunctional neighborhood, insert your happy younger self, then end with avoidance. Is there more to the story?

It isn’t necessarily me on the couch—that was more my dad’s territory—but it could be me. Avoidance is the kernel of the poem, and I honestly do avoid thinking too much about home, because, despite the ambivalence, it makes me feel lonely and vulnerable by comparison.

[W T Clark]

I miss your "child-killers". It felt there that a knife-tip which until then had been softened by velvet, was suddenly, savagely yanked fully bladed against the skin: as if the poem had, for a moment, given up the pretence of massaging as well as stabbing me. Maybe it could come back a little later: so that knife can be velveted for a longer while?
Hope this helps.

[Carl Copeland]

Thanks, Cameron. There weren’t any child killers on this street, only fears of them, and stark fear isn’t the main feeling I’m trying to get across, so I thought it made sense to tone that bit down. Bringing the child killers back later would be a different poem. I’ll give some thought to what that might be.

[Carl Copeland]

Jim, your perceptive comments on my edgy Christmas got into Alexandra’s thread. She’s very gracious, though, and won’t mind hosting me.

Originally Posted by Jim Moonan

I love the way nostalgia is suffocated by dysphoria.

Beautifully put. I just hope the nostalgia isn’t totally killed, because that’s still the main reason I don’t like going down that street in my mind. Despite the ambivalence and the anxiety, I felt snugger in that house than I ever have since.

Originally Posted by Jim Moonan

I am often torn by the thought of lengthening or shortening a poem to make it better. On the one hand, I feel it could use another couplet or two to prolong the anxiety and drive it home. But on the other hand, I think if you could come up with a way of truncating S3 and combining it with S4 you could eliminate all together any couplet being anything but uneasy.

At the moment, I can’t see shortening it, but I did wonder if it should be a couplet or two longer. I think my inspiration dried up before I got to them.

Originally Posted by Jim Moonan

I'm not all that sensitive when it comes to hearing nuances with the established meter; I am accepting for the most part of deviations from metrical continuity as long as it doesn't register as being incongruous/incompatible with the whole.

I still claim the poem reads most easily as regular anapestic tetrameter throughout, but of course there are alternative stressings, and the irregularities you and Marshall and Andrew seem to be getting make me wonder if the meter is well enough established.

[Alexandra Baez]

Hi, Carl. It’s so great seeing another poem of yours here, finally! (I do know that you’ve been busy as all get out on Translation, where I’ve silently admired your work.)

I’m afraid that I didn’t feel confident in my interpretation of the first two stanzas, that the “wrong part of town,” mugger, and kidnapper references spring from the child’s imagination alone.

Here he’s just an incongruous warning that a trip down that street, even in thought, may be painful.

That’s fascinating, but I didn’t really get it—my predominant impression was that “wrong part of town” was meant literally. While obviously, muggers can’t be squirrels, in theory, kidnappers could dress to blend in with nativity sets!

By the end of S2, I’m wondering why the n avoids going down the street if its only threats are imaginary—if they are in fact imaginary (two layers of confusion now). Of course, you’ve not yet introduced the real source of the anxiety. But for me, a strong confusion is set up at the beginning that can’t completely be resolved later. Similarly but less intensely, this confusion re-emerges in the working-class-yet-cheery details of S3 and the “plastic-clad sofa” of S5. I find myself wondering if in presenting these, you mean to be disparaging or affectionate or a bit of both. If the former, I wonder if this attitude is a reason for the n’s avoidance (which your comments suggest that it really isn’t). So based on your comments about this, I’d say it’s important to place a much clearer emphasis on the affection/nostalgia element to make sure this poem is experienced as intended.

Once I gather, in S5, that the real fear is of facing sweet memories that cannot be replicated, I’m in profound and painful sympathy. The last couplet is so poignant in its paradox. (Personally, I do return to my childhood neighborhood, once a week for work, and each time I do, especially around Christmas, I have such a hard time sorting past from present, memory from reality, loss from non-loss. How much of my experience is determined simply by my attitude and how it adjusts itself to each new circumstance?)

On a technical note . . .

Although I do see where you’re coming from in your own readings, in L4, I naturally read this as having a headless first foot, with “blend” and “in” both stressed. Likewise, I perceive the next line as opening with a headless first foot. Part of the reason here, I think, is that the location of stresses on the syllables of “LCD” is not so well defined. While many would accent the last syllable, a lot of other people, I think, give about equal stress to all syllables, since it’s an acronym. (I don’t have a problem with the last line’s meter.) I don’t think it’s a question of whether the meter has been sufficiently established before the above lines or not, but simply whether these lines naturally read as completely anapestic. After all, it’s common in anapestic verse to occasionally vary it up (allowing the readers to take a few breaths) by skipping a few anapests, and quite possibly my expectation of this also inclined me to my readings of Ls 4 and 5.

in the cookie-cut houses of Santa-red brick

I love the way you “Christmas-ize” this description.

And I like the internal sonances of “winks”/”peek”/”think,” and all the w’s of these lines; also the sonances of “clad,” “aghast,” and “ghost.”

In S5, I’m not sure who the “you” is supposed to be, although it’s gripping to think of the n, former resident of the house, cast as an intrusive ghost looking in on it! The psychological reality of this is intense.

The premise behind this poem fascinates me; with a few clumps sifted out, I think it will be marvelous through and through.

[Jim Moonan]

(Just for the record, here is my comment I erroneously placed on Alexandra's The "Keeper" thread and that you have already responded to above in #14. I'm having a vertigo moment )

.
Wow! I love the way nostalgia is suffocated by dysphoria. I like, too, the way the couplets continue to bore down on the unease until it finally breaks open in the final, disconcerting but beautifully phrased last couplet.

The dogged grip of the N on the childhood memory of Christmas is a double-edged sword. I laughed when I read your anecdote about turning down a ride from your grandparents for fear of the possibility that they were kidnappers wearing face masks of your grandparents — then cringed at the thought of it being an acute manifestation of anxiety. There is a kind of blood-letting taking place in the poem of the paranoia that is embedded in a memory that might otherwise be cheerful/nostalgic. One of the hardest things to achieve in poetry, I think, is that kind of tension. It ends on a perfect note that feels like an ellipsis.

I am often torn by the thought of lengthening or shortening a poem to make it better. On the one hand, I feel it could use another couplet or two to prolong the anxiety and drive it home. But on the other hand, I think if you could come up with a way of truncating S3 and combining it with S4 you could eliminate all together any couplet being anything but uneasy. Something that says this—

In a cookie-cut house of Santa-red brick winks a little white tree,
but I won’t peek inside: think of how it would be

—But reworded/worked into metrical regularity.


I'm not all that sensitive when it comes to hearing nuances with the established meter; I am accepting for the most part of deviations from metrical continuity as long as it doesn't register as being incongruous/incompatible with the whole.

Christmas with an edge. It’s refreshing, somehow.

.

[John Riley]

I like this, Carl. Others have pointed out why it works so well. I have no suggestions beyond the others. Actually, I would have fewer crits. I think it works well now. It's fine now.

[Carl Copeland]

Thanks for such detailed comments, Alexandra. They’re instructive as always.

Originally Posted by A. Baez

I do know that you’ve been busy as all get out on Translation, where I’ve silently admired your work.

You can be vocally critical as well as silently admiring, you know. Each of us can only do so much, but I just want to make sure you’re not one of those misguided Sphereans who think they have nothing to contribute if they don’t know the language being translated.

Originally Posted by A. Baez

I’m afraid that I didn’t feel confident in my interpretation of the first two stanzas, that the “wrong part of town,” mugger and kidnapper references spring from the child’s imagination alone … my predominant impression was that “wrong part of town” was meant literally.

I knew there was a risk that readers would think this was a dangerous inner-city street. To the extent that you and a few others got that impression, I agree that the poem is less than successful.

Originally Posted by A. Baez

While obviously, muggers can’t be squirrels, in theory, kidnappers could dress to blend in with nativity sets!

I actually thought it was a rather comical image of kidnappers dressed up as shepherds and Wise Men, but it could be read more realistically, I suppose.

Originally Posted by A. Baez

By the end of S2, I’m wondering why the n avoids going down the street if its only threats are imaginary—if they are in fact imaginary (two layers of confusion now). Of course, you’ve not yet introduced the real source of the anxiety. But for me, a strong confusion is set up at the beginning that can’t completely be resolved later. … Once I gather, in S5, that the real fear is of facing sweet memories that cannot be replicated, I’m in profound and painful sympathy.

I don’t mind some initial confusion as long as the real fear comes into focus by the end. The poem is as conflicted and ambivalent as my own feelings.

Originally Posted by A. Baez

Similarly but less intensely, this confusion re-emerges in the working-class-yet-cheery details of S3 and the “plastic-clad sofa” of S5. I find myself wondering if in presenting these, you mean to be disparaging or affectionate or a bit of both.

Definitely a bit of both.

Originally Posted by A. Baez

So based on your comments about this, I’d say it’s important to place a much clearer emphasis on the affection/nostalgia element to make sure this poem is experienced as intended.

A couple commenters suggested that the poem would benefit from being even darker! You’ve understood that “affection/nostalgia” is the real source of my avoidance anxiety, but apparently think others won’t get it. I agree that it’s the other big risk of this poem, and I’ll think on it.

Originally Posted by A. Baez

Although I do see where you’re coming from in your own readings, in L4, I naturally read this as having a headless first foot, with “blend” and “in” both stressed.

So you read “to blend in” as a sort of headless double iamb? That seems awfully complicated to me, but then I’m more of a chanter than a natural reader. When I pick up on a strong meter, I fall into the groove and take it as far as I can.

Originally Posted by A. Baez

Likewise, I perceive the next line as opening with a headless first foot. Part of the reason here, I think, is that the location of stresses on the syllables of “LCD” is not so well defined. While many would accent the last syllable, a lot of other people, I think, give about equal stress to all syllables, since it’s an acronym.

Others seem to be tripping over “LCD” too, so you must be right. I could reluctantly replace it with “The TV.”

Originally Posted by A. Baez

In S5, I’m not sure who the “you” is supposed to be

It’s a generic you: how would you (whoever you are) feel if you, like the unnamed sofa sitter (my dad or maybe me)—glanced up and saw a ghost looking in.

[Carl Copeland]

Thanks, John. I’m delighted that you like it.

[Jan Iwaszkiewicz]

Carl you have maintained a delightful touch on the irony and the conclusion is well done. Put a stamp and envelope aside for next December.