What it must be like to not be gay [retitled]

[Pleiades]

I have taken this down as it looks like it has been accepted somewhere. Many thanks for all the comments on this one.

[camus]

Interesting stuff.

The title suggests a blindness of one sort or another, I was expecting a post-post modern approach, which I guess I got, but I would have appreciated a consistent metaphor.

For me some of the images are too far side of surreal, that basically serve no purpose other than to be surreal.

But I did enjoy the playfulness.

cheers
Kris

[k-j]

A fun read. Sort of candy-flossy with nothing to really get your teeth into, but a sweet confection all the same. I have to admit I laughed - or lol'ed, as they say these days - at the last line.

[Pleiades]

Thanks! The images are a 'bit' leftfield but they have a serious purpose, for once! I nearly called it: What it must be like to be gay, but that risks a somewhat more hostile misreading?

[Arian]

Yes, I enjoyed it, particularly the passage...

I would have to revolt against cigars,
my Cuban mind.
Tough like a goat's eye,

just the green side of yellow.
This is how death might look at me
with the same stink of Chèvre.

though the punctuation is a bit odd (comma after mind, maybe?)

The yawns/hitler image made no sense to me, though. And I had to read the title 3 times to make sense of it - a bit clumsy, perhaps.

still, an interesting piece.

cheers
peter

[ray miller]

Weirdly entertaining. Some of the surreal images work great e.g. the 2nd and 3rd lines, but the Cuban cigars and Hitlers do nowt for me.
Breasts are two of those things?
Liked this bit

The discotheque has that smell
but we are too drunk to query
the noise, or the splash

of vomit on Jennifer's eyelid.
She's just so dopily kind.

and the last couple of verses.

[Arian]

Sorry, the title is just as bad for me. Sets the piece off to a really bad start.
Cheers
peter

[Pleiades]

That's a shame. I am really fond of this one, problems with the title aside . I am anxious not to imply homophobia; but may be I should delete the not.

Thanks for the comments.

R

[Suzanne]

What it must be like to not be Christian

What it must be like to not be white

What it must be like to not be a man

What it must be like to not be a genius

What it must be like to not be educated


The sentence structure of the title can send a reader into a defensive stance if they are not part of the referred to group.
If that is the desired intent then ok but if there is a message in it, chances are the reader is stuck on the title and what the poem is implying.

Just my opinion,
Suzanne

[Pleiades]

I sense but cannot see the problem here. To any decent person there would be nothing wrong with not being any of the things you mention Suzanne (which is your point, too). My intention is to consider how we comprehend the 'other' but cannot; and to do so sympathetically (hence most of the end is meant empathetically). Course, if I have to explain it, then I must have failed...

Thanks again for the comments. I really do appreciate it.

And p.s. updated this because it was originally done from my phone, so failed to spot the errors!

[David]

This is interesting. (Dreadful word, but it's true.) The voice is very strong, as are the individual lines, but I can't make anything coherent out of the whole - perhaps that's not necessary - and I can't see how it relates to the title. (And, as a thing in itself, I like the title a lot.)

So I'm baffled, but benignly baffled. I enjoyed it.

Cheers

David

[Arian]

The sentence structure of the title can send a reader into a defensive stance if they are not part of the referred to group.

No, sorry Suzanne, but - just to clarify - this has nothing to do with it in my view. I didn't adopt a "defensive stance". And if I did, so what? Any poem that produces defensiveness is probably doing a good job, in one way or another. A poem's "message" doesn't have to be acceptable to the reader for the (poetically mature) reader to like it. One could argue (and many have) that a poem should actively SEEK to be disagreed with; to produce a defensive reaction. But, another topic.

My dislike of the title is based not on political issues, but poetic ones. I find this title, and it's entire genre, to be ugly in both a literal sense (it's long, clunky and unpleasant to the eye) and a figurative sense (it attempts to pre-figure the piece; spell it out; summarise the "point" in a highly literalistic way. It's hitting the reader over the head with an iron bar, and shouting "THIS IS WHAT I AM SAYING!!!"

It's an approach that works for some, and David is among their ranks, quite clearly. I'm merely saying, that's fine, but it doesn't work for me. I look for subtlety in titles, as well as poems themsleves.

As I said, I quite like the poem, though.

cheers
peter

[Suzanne]

Lol. I was not making a comment on the politics of the title, of course not.. No. It's poetry.

but rather the boldness of it over the poem. It is a big stick statement but it is not a big stick poem. Nice, quirky, pleasantly odd but not weighty enough to wear the title as it is, without hanging the reader up on what it is saying. And waiting for an argument or facts or... Something.


My lack of eloquence hangs me ... Sorry.

I do not disagree with what you have said, I agree and admire your fluency.
But my comments were not about the politics of the title, but I can see how they could be understood as such.

Just my opinion and should be taken oh so lightly.

Suzanne

[Pleiades]

Thank you both!

[brianedwards]

Late to this Richard, but just wanted to add my applause. Splendid writing.

B.