05-02-2015, 03:52 AM
Hi Todd,
This is quite a complicated poem and I don't know if I am up to its worth, but I will offer suggestions as my simple mind allows. I read version 5 and didn't understand it until I read through 3 and 4.
The tone and style of this poem remind me of a Norman Dubie piece about the Pennecese Leper Colony. You might get some ideas from that poem as to how to best take this poem in and out of first person if you choose to use first person at all.
First person could work for this piece if you direct it in the title.
I have taken bits and pieces of your poem and rearranged them to give you an idea of how the poem makes sense to me. It's a tough piece to work on with its complexities. Of course there are umpteen ways to approach this as we see from your drafts. How best to give it meaning seems key to me.
Alice, Lunacy Act, 1845
Near a costermonger's (eel) cart, (was eel common back then - it does start this off with a creepy feeling)
I was found wandering,
a bundle of rags and weeping sores,
and brought by the constable (I'm fiddling here - what would the chief be called back then?)
to The Asylum.
Although I never did, others found it strange (if you set up a comparison here it might work nicely)
that I spoke often of rabbits
and couldn't control the urge (and some language about obsession)
to mark the passage of time
with small cuts upon my arm,
a human sun dial. (not sure this image works)
It is this dyslexic language (here's the contrast)
that seems insane to me, crazy words
scurrying and slinking about in my brain,
rearranging themselves
before I can speak.
So childish of me, to fear the dark,
night's plunge into anonymity. (nice metaphor, although I'm not sure someone would actually think like that, but then I took it out of your original context)
You could switch and say something like -
When night plunges into anonymity,
I feel so childish fearing the dark inside
these walls. It is the eyes of others
that (cause me terror, yet oddly-----------)
this place has removed all my vanity.
I no longer brush my hair;
the mirror has become a window.
And I cannot eat
without the ache (of what - all her lost beauty?) within my bones.
The glass isn't cold as you suspect (or might think),
the fire leaks like a warm breath,
I feel a grin float over my shoulder
the last of my dignity (I saw the grin as the person's last ounce of personality and dignity being fading away)
fading away.
Or you could switch this all around and have the intake doctor doing all the speaking about Alice.
I don't know that you have to go into the phrenology lumps. Maybe choose a theme and focus the poem in on that. Overall I enjoy the writing, I think I "get it" and want to see more of this. Anyhow, this is how I read meaning into the piece but maybe your intent is totally different.
Hope something here is useful to you.
Anne
This is quite a complicated poem and I don't know if I am up to its worth, but I will offer suggestions as my simple mind allows. I read version 5 and didn't understand it until I read through 3 and 4.
The tone and style of this poem remind me of a Norman Dubie piece about the Pennecese Leper Colony. You might get some ideas from that poem as to how to best take this poem in and out of first person if you choose to use first person at all.
First person could work for this piece if you direct it in the title.
I have taken bits and pieces of your poem and rearranged them to give you an idea of how the poem makes sense to me. It's a tough piece to work on with its complexities. Of course there are umpteen ways to approach this as we see from your drafts. How best to give it meaning seems key to me.
Alice, Lunacy Act, 1845
Near a costermonger's (eel) cart, (was eel common back then - it does start this off with a creepy feeling)
I was found wandering,
a bundle of rags and weeping sores,
and brought by the constable (I'm fiddling here - what would the chief be called back then?)
to The Asylum.
Although I never did, others found it strange (if you set up a comparison here it might work nicely)
that I spoke often of rabbits
and couldn't control the urge (and some language about obsession)
to mark the passage of time
with small cuts upon my arm,
a human sun dial. (not sure this image works)
It is this dyslexic language (here's the contrast)
that seems insane to me, crazy words
scurrying and slinking about in my brain,
rearranging themselves
before I can speak.
So childish of me, to fear the dark,
night's plunge into anonymity. (nice metaphor, although I'm not sure someone would actually think like that, but then I took it out of your original context)
You could switch and say something like -
When night plunges into anonymity,
I feel so childish fearing the dark inside
these walls. It is the eyes of others
that (cause me terror, yet oddly-----------)
this place has removed all my vanity.
I no longer brush my hair;
the mirror has become a window.
And I cannot eat
without the ache (of what - all her lost beauty?) within my bones.
The glass isn't cold as you suspect (or might think),
the fire leaks like a warm breath,
I feel a grin float over my shoulder
the last of my dignity (I saw the grin as the person's last ounce of personality and dignity being fading away)
fading away.
Or you could switch this all around and have the intake doctor doing all the speaking about Alice.
I don't know that you have to go into the phrenology lumps. Maybe choose a theme and focus the poem in on that. Overall I enjoy the writing, I think I "get it" and want to see more of this. Anyhow, this is how I read meaning into the piece but maybe your intent is totally different.
Hope something here is useful to you.
Anne