Poem: "Where Have All the Heroes Gone?/Different Gifts"

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It had not occurred to me, but that would be a bizarre explanation for such a shift, if somebody bent the soul-siphon that puts spirits into bodies.

I'm glad you're so pleased with this.

>> Hopefully you won't mind my wandering over and giving my thoughts on the whole of both of them? <<

Feedback is welcome.

>> First off, I gather that the "fishbowl" aspect means that these are written quickly under limited circumstances, so I'll up-front acknowledge that and say that I totally get how that restrains and means that things come out without huge amounts of thought to meet the restrictions of the form, and with that in mind the poetry itself is excellent, and I do understand that the constraints of poetry on word-choice are great. <<

During a Poetry Fishbowl, I devote most of a day to writing poetry. The actual writing goes only a little faster than usual for me. But as soon as I finish one poem, I move on to the next. There's less of my extra attention for each individual poem, so the polishing process can get truncated -- especially when several ideas gang up on me at once and I'm trying to get them all out, one after another. That means that the structure is still solid, but the subtle aspects like word choice sometimes have flaws. Usually in a fishbowl, I'll re-read a poem once right after I finish it; and once more before I print it out. Sometimes I make changes then. Sometimes I see where I've painted myself into a corner and can't think of a way to fix it. I actually published one pantoum where I had to redo several verses, so people could see that process.

>> To begin with, the characters in both poems seem very disdainful of anyone who wants differently - it's not just a lament that their needs are not being fulfilled, but is phrased as there being something wrong with the world that all these people are pursuing different roles. It's not "that way doesn't give me what I want" but rather "that way isn't right". <<

There is some truth in that. These two were reaching adulthood shortly after the big shift in fairy tales; they could see a past that would have appealed to them more, and that did make them feel like something was wrong with the world. So they do what most people do when pushed: they push back. That can be pesky. After decades of reading "can-too" fantasy by pushy feminists, I wanted to explore the other side. Some parts of that were deliberate, others less so.

>> In the terms of "Different Gifts" particularly . . . eh. I've already expressed my distaste for the part where in any list of feminine positive attributes "beauty" always seems to top the list. <<

Your point about order has really stuck in my mind; that's likely to be useful in the long term. It's another subtlety that I can play with, so thank you for that.

If I'd been handling this issue in a novel, or even a short story, I would've had more room and flexibility to lay out the "job description" as a well-rounded paragraph or two. In a poem, everything has to be condensed to its core essence -- and the classic expectation of a princess is that she will be beautiful and elegant. It might be interesting to list out a bunch of qualities, some time, and mix them up to experiment with different ordering.

Out of curiosity, what order would you use for classic (or modern) features of desire?

I have explored the "princesses are beautiful" premise elsewhere. Some years ago, I wrote a poem called "The Horse-Faced Princess," in which the main character was plain and smart, and her test for suitors involved quizzing them. The stick-jock knights failed so bad! But then a more scholarly fellow showed up and recited pi to her, so that worked out.

>> I'm also very ambivalent about the character's emphasis on "not fight me for my place", stuck as it is in such a prominent line at the end of a stanza in the very first list of qualities desireable in a woman. To me, that first stanza makes him look, rather than heroic and "manly", rather shallow, controlling and insecure - definitely not traits I want in my hero. And he in particular is really unpleasant to any other mode of being - "something's wrong with girls these days", "let men be men and maids be maids" "knaves can have", and in such a context even his acknowledgement of her role as mother comes off . . . skeevy. <<

The problem that he's running into is that his role requires a particular style of partner: he can't be himself without it. He feels crowded out of his own life, because so many of the girls are running around doing the same things he's doing -- so being with them is like trying to push two north magnets together.

Hmm ... that may be the real flaw, where the poem doesn't do a thorough enough job of "selling" the narrators' viewpoints. They are trying to get somebody else to fill a certain role, be a certain way, because that's the only way they can be true to their own identity. It's not a solitary self. They're trying to fill that gap, because until they do, a part of their life is missing. And of course that doesn't work very well, because other people aren't easy to reshape, so that leaves them frustrated and really hunting for someone more compatible. They may not realize that not everybody's identity works that way.

Those aspects are in the poem, but the more I think about it, the more I think this is kind of like a bug-spot problem. There are different concepts mixed together and layered in ways that don't always direct attention as precisely and consistently as possible. If I had distinguished and clarified the various threads better, this poem might have worked for a wider audience. Since it did work for its intended audience, I'm still inclined to account it a success -- in fact, it's spawned the biggest discussion yet, and the most donors for a single poem.

>>Hopefully that's of some use.<<

Oh yes! Digging into things can be interesting, and it usually comes down to "Why does this character feel this way, talk this way, do these things?" Audience feedback can give me an idea where to dig. So now I understand the characters better.

Could I improve this poem? Maybe, maybe not. It's really hard to revise rhymed, metered poetry and this one is even harder because of the horizontal parallels between the two halves. Plus the fact that I hit the need-food-now wall near the end of writing it. But I may revisit this issue in future poetry or fiction, and now I've got more to work with ... more questions, more insights.

The feedback process can be fun, interesting, frustrating, enlightening, confusing, inspiring, mysterious ... but it's usually worthwhile. So thanks again.