Confessions of a Bibliophile

[TranquillityBase]

As far back as I go is the Tar Baby story.
Third graders like me heard Miss Sanko read 
The Wheel on the School.  A switch was flipped
and I no longer knelt to change TV channels
but to run fingers along lettered spines.

Left to myself I joined a young Mongol warrior,
encountered scimitar, crewed with Vitus Bering  
to suffer haunted fogs in frozen northern seas,
lost innocence to a stash of Men’s Adventures 
met Mussolini in text framing incurious nudes.

Mad paperbacks taught me satire, Flying Saucers: 
Serious Business, a revelation of cigar-shaped angels
photographed Unknowns more fabulous than God.
Ian Fleming defined spies and torture gardens
amid magical perils of Smersh and cyanide guns.

Then came annunciation:  an Oxford philologist’s
Middle Earth more real than my nonfiction teens
whose unexpected inheritor soon leapt into view:
Dylan Thomas’ bardic chant of altar-wise song,
His Notebooks, his Letters, his Collected Poems.
 
A half-century later the written word is my Tar Baby:
my majestic escape from a lifetime of Brer Foxes,
foolish realities trying to trap a clever rabbit-man.
I cast myself ever again into language’s briar patch
always new as today but with roots deep as Grendel’s mire.

[Knot]

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Hi TqB,
like the idea, the execution, not so much.

As far back as I go is the Tar Baby story.
- I think this is a rather problematic line, Tar Baby opens up a world of sticky unpleasantness that I don't think this poem needs. Also, the analogy fails at the end. Tar Babies (as I understand it) are traps, not escapes (in the story the escape is the 'briar patches' combined with 'cleverness').
It isn't a very conversational or engaging opening. Close though

Third graders like me
Not interested in the 'like me'.
..................................heard Miss Sanko read
'heard' is very passive, and doesn't work well with the apparent revelation of the experience.
The Wheel on the School. A switch was flipped
OK, which is it? Tar Baby or The Wheel on the School? Feels like you're starting twice. Why?
Also you've got 'wheel' why then go for 'switch'?
I haven't read (nor heard until now) of this book, it would have been nice to know what the appeal was. This is all rather dry. A happened then B.
and I no longer knelt to change TV channels
a switch was flipped an so you stopped flipping switches?
but to run fingers along lettered spines.
feels (linguistically) like it's from a different poem. It's trying too hard.

S2.
L4 is a great line, the others are all rather dry. Nothing about how the stories affected you (and that's seems to be the case for the rest of the poem. It feels too much like a list, where's the 'phile' of the 'bibliophile'? And, out of absolutely nowhere, you end with Beowulf! (which, arguably is further back that where you began with the Tar Baby (at least in the West)).

Lastly, what are you confessing to? It isn't clear to me from the piece.

Just a thought.
Aesop is about as far back as I go.
But if you were to twist my arm
I say Miss Sanko reading aloud
from The Wheel on the School
one Tuesday in the third grade
is where it all started.

If you made the whole thing about this experience/moment, forget everything else, I think you'd likely achieve the same effect (the rest would follow naturally as implication).


Best, Knot

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[TranquillityBase]

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As far back as I go is the Tar Baby story.
- I think this is a rather problematic line, Tar Baby opens up a world of sticky unpleasantness that I don't think this poem needs. What is the unpleasantness?  Racial overtones?  

Also, the analogy fails at the end. Tar Babies (as I understand it) are traps, not escapes (in the story the escape is the 'briar patches' combined with 'cleverness').  Yeah, you've got me there.  It violates the logic of the original story. But it makes a sort of sense in that I'm compelled to grab onto the written word. 
It isn't a very conversational or engaging opening. Close though

Third graders like me
Not interested in the 'like me'.  OK
..................................heard Miss Sanko read
'heard' is very passive, and doesn't work well with the apparent revelation of the experience.  Check double check
The Wheel on the School. A switch was flipped
OK, which is it? Tar Baby or The Wheel on the School? Feels like you're starting twice. Why?  I did sense this and was thinking of making the Tar Baby line (first one) a separate stanza.  I had more about that, because it was being read to me by a relative, an ex-Aunt (ex in that my uncle divorced her, or she him)
Also you've got 'wheel' why then go for 'switch'?
I haven't read (nor heard until now) of this book,   It was an award winning children's book in the 1960s.  How soon the world forgets!
and I no longer knelt to change TV channels
a switch was flipped an so you stopped flipping switches?  OK, need to work on that, switch in my brain, channel changer on TV
but to run fingers along lettered spines.
feels (linguistically) like it's from a different poem. It's trying too hard.

S2.
 It feels too much like a list, Yep it is a list.  You really don't like lists, do you? 

where's the 'phile' of the 'bibliophile'?  I thought I was expressing that, but I guess not

And, out of absolutely nowhere, you end with Beowulf! Darn it!

Lastly, what are you confessing to?  I was trying to show the wandering way I moved from classic lit (for children) through pulp lit and finally on to real lit (my definition of it anyway)

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Thanks Knot.  Onward through the fog, as they used to say in the sixties.
TqB

[Knot]

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Hi TqB.

What is the unpleasantness? Racial overtones?

Yep. And given that the 'logic' of the ending doesn't work ,why stick (ahem) with it?

I had more about that, because it was being read to me by a relative, an ex-Aunt (ex in that my uncle divorced her, or she him)

See, that's where it gets interesting to the outsider. The experience, not the specific text (which will always be particular to you).

It was an award winning children's book in the 1960s. How soon the world forgets!

Not sure it has forgotten, but you'd have to have read it to forget it, and I don't think I did.

OK, need to work on that, switch in my brain, channel changer on TV

It's such a clichéd phrase, and surely this is a magical moment?

You really don't like lists, do you? Wink

Coincidentally I've just been working on one. Not a poem, an actual list.

The problem is that it presumes that your attitude towards a particular book is the same as the readers.

I was trying to show the wandering way I moved from classic lit (for children) through pulp lit and finally on to real lit (my definition of it anyway)

I think that may be part of the problem, literature being a bit eye of the beholder-ish.

I thought I was expressing that, but I guess not

Not getting much sense of passion from 'taught/heard/encountered/defined'

Keep going, the fog will clear.

Best, Knot

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