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Critical Analysis #1
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allan
Senior Member
since 2000-04-09
Posts 620
On the road

0 posted 2000-04-28 04:27 PM


hairy

hairy's an ape
who can't take shape
and it makes him scratch his head

it causes him pain
to use his brain
& sometimes he'd rather be dead

where he lives is rough
so he's supposed to be tough
but somehow he just can't do it
because he thinks 'why?'
and it makes him cry
he feels he can't get through it

if you live in a place
called the human race
and you're supposed to be awfully clever
it can be misplaced
to show your face
when what's behind is showing it's fever

it's not okay to be that way
naïve & simple & kind
they make him cry
and want to die
and lose his tortured mind

so he learns to lie
and hide himself
behind the usual faces
to fight for food
and beat the rest
& to hell with the usual graces

but his heart still feels
and his mind informs
& he knows it isn't right
that the love he feels deep inside
gets twisted out of sight

& it makes him sweat
to think with regret
of all he did for a 'future'
and he feels so lost
when he counts the cost
of 'success' against his nature

he hoped to be part
but parted himself
and now he's all alone

what once was one
is all undone

and in place of his mouth

is a gun




[This message has been edited by allan (edited 04-28-2000).]

© Copyright 2000 Allan Tierney - All Rights Reserved
Elyse
Member
since 2000-04-16
Posts 414
Apex (think raleigh) NC
1 posted 2000-04-28 06:03 PM


when i started this, i thought it was gonna be a cute kiddie poem about an ape. i love the fact that you used this sing-songy rhyme and meter with the twist you put on it (although, you used slant rhyme, which i hate with all my being, but that's a me problem.  and you only did it once, so ill deal   )  I  like the way you slowly turn it towards meaning and still get your punch at the end, but, since this IS CA,

I dont like the amperstands, especially since you spell out the word other places.  And i dont understand why it would "cause him pain/to use his brain"  it doesnt seem right with the rest of the poem, besides, later you say "and his mind informs" giving the impression of intellegence, which is the opposite of the first thing.  
I wouldnt say "& the hell with..." i would say to hell with.
luv Elyse

allan
Senior Member
since 2000-04-09
Posts 620
On the road
2 posted 2000-04-28 06:31 PM


Thank you for your comments Elyse.

At random:

My idea with "cause him pain/to use his brain" was that this was an animal/person and that his ideal state was one not based on thought (brain) but on pure clear honest instinct... I was looking at how human animals sometimes come to grief when they are not accepted as they are and so have to learn pretence, artifice, facade & style...

'Slant Rhyme' I didn't know I was using that. (In fact it's the first time I've heard of it!!) Where did I use it?!?    

'I dont like the amperstands'. Oh! I must have a bad habit there - I just looked back at the first paragraph of this reply and I've done it there too!!!

'I wouldnt say "& the hell with..." i would say to hell with'. Yes, you are right there - I had a "that's not quite right" feeling about that line too... I'll change that right now!

Thank you.



[This message has been edited by allan (edited 04-28-2000).]

bboog
Member
since 2000-02-29
Posts 303
Valencia, California
3 posted 2000-04-28 07:06 PM


A~
  This is one of those poems that I will probably get flack on for saying this, but hey, what's new. I wonder if there is a more positive way to end this one. It just seems a little cliche for Hairy to end himself this way, simply because he doesn't fit in.
I guess what I'm saying is that I wanted it to end more like:

he hoped to be part
but parted himself
and now he's all alone

what once was one
is all undone
until one day
he found
"Harrietta"

I realize the living happily ever after ending is also cliche, and perhaps it's just me, but didn't John Lennon sing, "All You Need is Love?"
best regards,
bboog

allan
Senior Member
since 2000-04-09
Posts 620
On the road
4 posted 2000-04-29 06:51 PM


bboog,

I understand what you say...

Though it is left ambiguous, my intention was that Hairy was going to start shooting others - NOT HIMSELF. For this poem I definitely was NOT interested in happy endings. (John Lennon didn't have a particularly happy one as I recall. My interest here was in what makes such a killer).

My concept was that he couldn't trust his own voice any longer, that he had lost himself in a maze of pretence, lies, facades and 'civilised' behaviour, that he had fallen silent and would now let the gun speak for him and communicate his hatred for 'them' and for the 'self' he had become...

On making it a 'happy ever after' ending - I see SO many sickly sweet happy poems posted that I get nauseous at the thought!

It clearly takes more than what I described to become a crazed killer but I certainly believe that persistently feeling that you are 'other' and not acceptable is a significant part of the process.




[This message has been edited by allan (edited 04-29-2000).]

Effigy
Member
since 2000-04-11
Posts 486
disbelief
5 posted 2000-04-29 07:11 PM


I liked this alot. The ending didn't bother me at all. I just find it sad that society does treat people this way.  Some times we just can't aford to be human. < !signature-->

 understanding is misunderstood
  


[This message has been edited by Effigy (edited 04-29-2000).]

allan
Senior Member
since 2000-04-09
Posts 620
On the road
6 posted 2000-04-29 07:18 PM


Thanks Effigy, that's exactly what I was trying to say with this...  
jenni
Member
since 1999-09-11
Posts 478
Washington D.C.
7 posted 2000-04-30 03:01 AM


allan--

i think you did a decent job here as far as technique goes, although your meter is a little uneven and forced at times (especially in line 8 ('so he's supposed to be tough'); and line 18 ('when what's behind is showing it's fever')).  your rhyme scheme, which is generally a/a/b, c/c/b, comes apart in the stanza with lie/himself/faces, food/rest/graces, but that doesn't bother me very much.  (the "slant rhyme" that elyse is talking about is the rhyming of words like "clever" and "fever", btw.)  

as far as content goes, though, i was pretty disappointed by this piece.  (i enjoyed your other piece out here, btw.)  where to begin:

let me get this straight.  "hairy" is a nice person, simple, naive, and loving, but because he has to go out there in the cold, cruel world and work for a living, and hide his feelings, and act on something other than his pure, clean, honest instinct, poor dear "hairy" becomes a crazed killer???  why doesn't this happen to every person who grows up and enters the maze of pretence, lies, facades and 'civilised' behavior that is the adult world?  certainly there are a lot of people who learn "pretence, artifice, facade & style" who don't become killers, and there are a lot of people who DON'T learn these things (or, rather, don't practice them very much), people who are unpretentious, artless, open and honest.  why is your "hairy" different?

you do not really present "hairy" here as an actual person; is he supposed to represent some sort of "everyman" character we can all see within ourselves?  i hope not; you do not even remotely describe anyone i actually know.  "hairy", you say, "thinks 'why?' / ...it makes him cry / he feels he can't get through it".... but why does he feel this way?  "somehow", you say, he just can't.  i think maybe you can come up with some more satisfactory answer?    

i sympathize, of course, with the loss of innocence theme here; it IS hard to learn things the hard way, and lose one's naiveite, and yes, the world can be a crual place sometimes.  but you posit this absoutely pure, wonderful, honest and sincere child-like person in order to set up the "turn" or "fall" in the poem, without considering, i don't think, that everything is much, much more complex that all that.  even children can be skilled liars, and i can't think of too many people who have been so openly cruel to me as a certain boy in second grade.  (jeffy rosetti, if you're reading this, no, i haven't forgotten, lol.)  and i don't think this is anything unusual about my experience; everyone, i think, can remember mean, hateful, cruel things done and said to them when they were little, by other supposedly naive, innocent children.  (we only seem to forget the things we said ourselves, lol.)  my point is, that artifice, pretence, facades and dishonesty are not entirely bad, but are in some measure essential to the functioning of a society, to people simply getting along with other people.  (when i ask my boyfriend, for example, "how do i look in this dress?" i do NOT always want a completely honest answer, lol.  this is, of course, a rather flippant example, but there are many, many others if you think about it.)  

you say "if you live in a place / called the human race...it's not ok...to be simple and kind."  i think you are overstating things way too much here.  in certain situations, yes, you are right.  but in a legion of other situations that happen every single day of everyone's life, kindness is valued and rewarded.  i'm sure serial killers and the like believe that it is "not ok", as you put it, and perhaps this is how you intended your seeming truism.  but how did "hairy" learn this lesson?  your poem does not say.

through most of the poem, "hairy" is portrayed as a kind of victim, someone who just wants to share love and kindness with others but is rebuffed and beaten down by tough, cruel people around him.  but how exactly does the change occur in him?  you say the love he feels "gets twisted out of sight," and he regrets "all he did for a 'future'."  but what happened to hairy to "twist his love"?  leaving this critical point very general and nonspecific lost me here because, like i said, to a certain extent this happens to ALL of us.  what was it unique to "hairy" that makes him end up as a killer?  the same with his regrets on all he did to be a "success".  i know tons of people who feel this way, who feel alone and "lost when they count the cost of 'success' against their natures."  none of them (to my knowledge, anyway, lol) has killed anyone.  what is different about "hairy"?  

in sum, i don't think your character here works well as an "everyman" kind of character, nor as an individual.  more of a charicature, i guess, than a character.  

i see your comment above that "It clearly takes more than what I described to become a crazed killer but I certainly believe that persistently feeling that you are 'other' and not acceptable is a significant part of the process."  well, yes.  but is someone like "hairy" -- kind, pure, loving, and simple, with a questioning intelligence and evident sensitivity -- really one likely to be thought of as "other"?  isn't there something more to the story here?  (your only foray down that road, it seems to me, is the line "where he lives is tough," but surely you're trying to say more in this piece than "good kids from bad neighborhoods can become killers."  right?)

anyway, lol, sorry, i'll shut up now.  thanks for an interesting and thought-provoking read.

jenni

[This message has been edited by jenni (edited 04-30-2000).]

allan
Senior Member
since 2000-04-09
Posts 620
On the road
8 posted 2000-04-30 06:15 AM


Hello Jenni,

Thank you for your very in-depth comments. I do agree with most of them. But I hope you'll understand when I say that when the poem occurred to me it all happened quite fast (as it usually does) and the amount of editing and analysis I did of the content, was minimal.

It seems to be part of the enigma of certain people who come to kill others that it is often IMPOSSIBLE to trace the sources of the terrible anger that could cause such a thing. I have noticed that very often the people who knew the person say after 'He was such a quiet man", "He kept himself to himself" or some such phrase.

In the back of my mind was not Everyman so much as those that come into this world particularly thin-skinned and seem particularly unsuited to the rough and tumble of life. (I am one - so it is inevitably personal too). Killers of this type quite clearly arrive at a point where their skin (protecting them and us) is totally ruptured. What I mean is that most of us have tolerance to a depth where we would (almost) NEVER kill anyone. Somehow, in some cases, this skin is totally broken & the resultant madness may go 'inward' where they become clinically mad - or 'outward' - where they ferociously attack the perceived cause of their unbearable unhappiness.

You are quite right that I didn't explain and flesh out the reasons why someone so nice would become so twisted inside. The fact that the majority of people can go through these pressures without this reaction is obviously true.

I can only say in my defence that my poems come in a way fairly divorced from analytical thought - in fact I try as much as possible to hold a state of non-analysis and brain-inactivity (!) during that time... For better or worse I apply as little technique and anylysis as possible. Likewise with the meter - I am VERY loathe to change VERY much after the initial poem appears. (In this case the first 6 lines came first - then the next day the rest was completed within about 20 minutes - then perhaps I spent half an hour tinkering trying to make the words read better. The lines you pointed out as not quite fitting were ones I DID labour over - but was sadly unable to come up with something better!)  

It came out the way it did and I must just hold my hands up and admit to all its failings which (especially in such an emotive and complicated issue) it will inevitably have. A poem is clearly unable to cover all the angles in an issue such as this.

As you say some people do manage to stay unpretentious and artless. They are SO lucky. My focus was on one who didn't have the good fortune to be in such an environment. I was thinking very much about the pressure within work that (perhaps especially here in Europe) seem to mount inexorably. Also contributing to the pressure is the decay of the old supportive systems for those without money. More and more money is required to maintain even a basic lifestyle here.

A passing thought not directly to the point: People more and more simply HAVE to enter the dog-eat-dog jungle of work - there is no longer any way round this - governments here are in financial crises and those who may have previously survived outside the system are more and more forced to take whatever work is available. Ethics can be an early victim when you are compelled to engage in the struggle for survival. (Work & having (rather than being) is my own hobby-horse so just ignore this last tirade!!)  

I'm flying to and from your comments here and trying to answer them as best I can - sorry if I'm getting the order a bit jumbled!

You are quite right to say the poem doesn't work as an Everyman portrayal - inevitably it shows more about ME and how I feel about things than about the world at large.

I should also say that the poem is part fantasy - the image of this person emerged in my mind as something BETWEEN human and animal. In fact at first this was totally blurred and at one time he was an ape and at another a big, rough, hairy, but very gentle man. (Is the phrase "Big ape" still used to describe men who look like this?)

There are concepts in the background such as the Golden Age, of Shangri-La, Eldorado & Atlantis - myths of a time when Man lived a completely natural life in a beautiful utopia. Of course there never was such a time but the subconsciuous longing that there should seems to spring eternal.

Also at the back of my mind was how humans have traditionally treated animals. His losing his voice could be seen as his return to an animal-like state. Also, perhaps he doesn't become 'crazy' but reverts to a creature who strikes out instinctually (without intermediate thought process) when angry, alarmed or mistreated. (A la Frankenstein's monster perhaps? - Now that I look at it Hairy is perhaps somewhere between King Kong & Frankenstein's nameless monster??)  

(These are only speculative off-subject brain-storm thoughts though!...don't take them as justifications or anything of that ilk, okay!)

Ultimately I do agree that the final line is nowhere near justified and was too easy a way to give the poem a dramatic end. I ought to have shown more reason for this line if I was to put it in. If I had ended with a line consistent with the rest of the poem though the end would be rather bland however. Such people (as you say) do suffer quietly and perhaps even for their whole life long without finding their 'place in the sun'. It would be a more honest poem with a rather mundane if sad ending - however I went for this dramatic effect and liked that effect and left it. It is artifice, not reality, after all (or am I only justifying madly struggling to keep the drama?!?)

'Hope this all makes some kind of sense! Thanks again for your comments Jenni.  



[This message has been edited by allan (edited 04-30-2000).]

allan
Senior Member
since 2000-04-09
Posts 620
On the road
9 posted 2000-04-30 04:11 PM


hairy - take II (for jenni)

hairy's an ape
who can't take shape
and it makes him scratch his head

it causes him pain
to use his brain
& sometimes he'd rather be dead

where he lives is rough
so he needs to be tough
but somehow he just can't do it
he wonders 'why?'
and it makes him cry
knowing he won't get through it

if you live in a place
called the human race
and supposed to be awfully clever
it can be misplaced
to show your face
when your soul is full of fever

it's not okay to be that way
naïve & simple & kind
they make him cry
and want to die
and lose his tortured mind

so he learns to lie
and hide himself
behind the usual faces
to fight for food
and beat the rest
& to hell with usual graces

but his heart still feels
and his mind informs
& he knows it isn't right
that the love he feels deep inside
gets twisted out of sight

he tried to do right
but was told to do wrong
“those people must be evicted”
it hurt his soul
but he had no choice
he had been elected

he came at dawn
to create surprise
and broke the door in two
the boy was so young
and ran so fast
there was nothing he could do

he jumped without looking
dead within seconds
on the distant pavement
unmoving

& it makes him sweat
to think with regret
of all he did for a 'future'
and he feels so lost
when he counts the cost
of 'success' against his nature

he hoped to be part
but parted himself
and now he's all alone

what once was one
is all undone

and in place of his mouth

is a gun

  
It still doesn't really work! But at least in this scenario he only shoots his boss!!

I don't think I could ever really come up with a truly justifiable reason for someone killing another (unless it was to actively save an innocent or oneself).

I think the true source of the random kind of killings will almost always be an unknown susceptibility within the killer - impermeable to analysis or even to the consciousness of the killer.

Only universal compassion embraces it I feel. Under the veneers of everyday demonising and sympathising, under that thin skin, both victims and guilty alike have a chance to find peace through acceptance...





[This message has been edited by allan (edited 05-02-2000).]

amazon_lover
Member
since 2000-04-09
Posts 491
Dublin,Ireland
10 posted 2000-04-30 05:35 PM


Hi Allan,
To summarise your portrayal, a man killed his reasons and instincts before killing others and himself.
Jenni, you were really interesting. I agree with Jenni,though to some extent, on her comments. A man who is not clever and cunning gets twisted in love and life. The point is, is that due to someone having deceived him miserably or some devious conclusions he had to arrive at due to surrounding people as its not very clear in your portrayal of hairy. A person, who can pretend to be tough, who can act civilsed, may be clever enough to lie,competent and still he cannot use his brain and think to find his love. Maybe something is terribly wrong with the one he loves..just some conclusion I tend to draw from you being, may be,inconlusive.
Hairy pretends to be tough. Do you think it as some sorta crime or a misdemeneour. I'd rather appreciate it, for I believe 'you think what you're and what you want to be'. If you look around, world can be so harsh to so called weakminded souls. A snake without venom is dead as a rope and can be twisted by evil minds only to loose its own identity. Don't ask me what identity does a rope has !!!!
If you wish to inspire people to achieve greater you need to be strong and may be tough, why not. On first hand, you need to desire,to think, to reason. After all, every human must satisfy himself before he caters to the need of others. I don't give a damn if society calls it 'selfishness'. I'm sorry for I'm deviating a bit. As I decipher, your portrait 'hairy' is leading an unsatisfactory life which is a lead to his miseries.
I didn't agree with your 'content', please don't mind, for I believe, a man can construct a life to his liking. Why and who the hell he should care for, when he has reached a stage where every individual only tries to deceive him, as I see from your hairy's portrayal.
At this juncture I feel that 'hairy' should have a friend ,who can show him the right path and make him realize that the self in him is so pure and that he is a good person, like the one I have.
"Twisted mouths necessarily do not have twisted minds. But twisted minds always have a twisted mouth, may be its concealed". It was just a crude representation of psyche and not meant for anyone.
  
So Jenny & Allan and to the rest of you, as I'm an optimist I add an ending note to Allan's good work....

  ....Ape was hairy
  before he met the fairy
  who saw through him
  filled happiness to the brim

  the gun went into the holster
  the fairy became his polestar
  the world became a better place
  to the betterment of humanrace

  smeared was his heart's chism
  dawned an eternal optimism
  he brought smiles and cheers to hundreds
  they did the same to thousands

  all because a heart needs to communicate
  for all the hatred to dissipate
  vile can be an evil mind's art
  but it can be destroyed with a loving heart
  
bboog: hope you like it.

Allan: Your conclusion was good.
Sincerely
A_L


Forrest Cain
Member
since 2000-04-21
Posts 306
Chas.,W.V. USA
11 posted 2000-04-30 07:45 PM


This grew on me as well but must confess
I mistook the ending as being a gun in his
mouth. Perhaps " words "instead of mouth
but either way homicidal or suicidal it
didn`t take away for me.

forrest

allan
Senior Member
since 2000-04-09
Posts 620
On the road
12 posted 2000-05-02 01:51 PM


Amazon_lover hello!

Nice to meet someone else here from a roughly similar neck of the woods - you being from Ireland. I'm from Scotland.

Let me just say right off I totally loved your poem and its exuberant positivity (if that's a word!)    

I'd like to only correct your initial sentence slightly: "To summarise your portrayal, a man killed his reasons and instincts before killing others and himself."
That's pretty exactly on target except that I never saw him as killing himself.

It's interesting you talk about love because I never considered that side of him at all! Your poem is a joyous correction to that lack. Love COULD have saved him I'm sure.

Toughness: I think some people who "look" tough have a rough time - I imagine Hairy as being really BIG and hairy looking but instinctively gentle and bright in a naive and (too) sensitive way - bright, but not academic. People judge him by his looks and are in awe of his size and fear him. He can only get certain kinds of jobs like a night-club bouncer, bodyguard or, as in Take II, an Enforcer - evicting people and debt-collecting. He MUST earn a living in this money-oriented society and these kinds of jobs are all he can find. This was why the "toughness" aspect in the poem is negative. I agree strength can be VERY positive - nothing wrong with that AT ALL - but "toughness" is not usually "strength" - "toughness" has rigidity, "strength" can bend.

Yes, some and perhaps MOST men can create the life they want - but not ALL. I was interested in the ones that DON'T fit in, that feel like "A Square Peg in a Round Hole" (as one bank official said I was in 1967 when they sacked me from my first job as a bank clerk!) I know in this New Age we should all be happy and positive - but I'm sorry, I don't feel like that all the time - and very little like that right now (This is why I said that the poem probably says more about me than about people at large!)

You are SO right - if someone like Hairy finds love (that is real & lasts) it changes everything - they feel part, they have acceptance, warm community, communication, respect, so many positive things. In the poem though he doesn't, and again, I was interested in the ones who go through life with a certain misfortune, who somehow miss all the warming balms that many accept as a normal part of life. Killers I feel sure DO miss all such balms (they may be GIVEN but not perhaps received...) That's what I was interested in - how it would be if a sensitive soul failed to find the people or places that could lead to the warmth of acceptance...

To end on an up note your poem is the other side, the happy ending for Hairy and the one I would wish for all sensitive souls in this cold and calculating Business-Plan life that is being created around us...

You have given me a very warm image of Hairy - It is already up there alongside my dark vision in my mind... Thank You.    

If we can get back to BEING instead of the present spiral of HAVING then we have a chance, I think, to participate TOGETHER in the joyous celebration of life and love your poem breathes with every line...

The key word for me is TOGETHER.    



[This message has been edited by allan (edited 05-02-2000).]

allan
Senior Member
since 2000-04-09
Posts 620
On the road
13 posted 2000-05-02 02:05 PM


Forrest hello!

Thank you.

I'm very pleased that you read my poem. I'm glad you liked it in either ending.

I have only ever written one poem in this style and never written one with anything remotely like this content. So I'm unlikely ever to stir up THIS amount of controversy again!      



[This message has been edited by allan (edited 05-02-2000).]

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