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it made me think... this 'yes sir'/'no sir' issue.

it might be what left me with radicaly different oppinion of this poem than the rest. that and DOLM which i read more or less at the same time. too much irony in DOLM (and much of his new poems) not to consider this one as ironic.

psychologists say that words' meanings predetermine how we'll understand the sentence. they advise parents never to say: 'don't do this - do that', but rather: 'do that', because - if a sentence starts with a 'no', in child's mind it already gains negative feeling. the child expects something bad. if leonard said: 'no, sir, i ain't lying', this implies that the guy who he is telling it doesn't want to agree. if you told someone something good and nice, he'll accept it gladely. on the other hand, if you tell him: 'your life will be nothing much', he'll refuse to belive. THEN you'll probably say (in negative context this word 'no' will come rather than 'yes'): 'no sir!'.

in context of leonard's work from before, i don't think we have the right to think that he's telling us: 'life is good, enjoy it'. remember closing time?
'and I lift my glass to the Awful Truth
which you can't reveal to the Ears of Youth
except to say it isn't worth a dime'
i find the poem works as a longer version of this line.

the method we used at the begining was interesting, but another work i've read lately (work of a comparative literature student which Tom gave me to read) made me realise that the method might even be counterproductive... the paper is about text and context. how context changes the meaning of text. he gave an example of J.L.Borges' story about a guy who rewrites Don Quijote by Cervantes exactly as it was before. word by word. but now it has another meaning just because it was written in another time by another writer. text only gains meaning in our reading - and our reading can't be taken out of context. when t.s.eliot uses quotations of dante, the words that are the same, gain another dimension, even new meaning in new context.

therefore, if we start analysing a poem from it's structure, giving no regard to context, we might lose it's true nature.

...and no sir, i aint lying.

Jurica~
Beautifully stated; I completely agree!

~Makera

Dear Jurica, Thank you for your very thoughtful post. I agree with this sentiment absolutely. I like to start looking at a poem or other piece of writing from a very basic level but that's only a starting place. I never feel the authorial intent is what makes a poem meaningful or interesting. After releasing the poem into the world, from that point on the writer is another reader (of his/her own work). It I may make a mundane example, the minute you drive a new car off the lot, it's another animal-- a used car. I think writers write, at least a lot of the time, to know what they are thinking, to know their own reality. It is in the act of creating that they have a certain truth for themselves and moments of self discovery. Even during the writing, the writer becomes a different person, every instant. We won't even begin to think about what happens during revision. How many authors are present in one at that time?

Your Borges example makes me think of another one about a poet who had the same poem printed twice in a manuscript. He said it was a different poem because he had added it to the manuscript at different times! Perhaps he was just making a point but it's a good story.

I also like very much your insight about how one receives a thought depending on whether or not the first reaction tends to be positive or negative. I have children and when they were small, no matter what they asked, I would say, "Yes..." and then modify their desire to what I thought was appropriate.

In addition, your thought about regarding a piece of work in the context of the writer's whole artistic life is interesting but for the very reasons we have been discussing above, I think we have to be very careful about interpreting later work in the context of earlier work.

Thank you again for this post. Very interesting things to think about.

“To Sift Through The Sunglasses
At A Lost And Found
In Las Vegas
Just A Few Hours
Across The Desert.
Your Hair Is White
You Have Breasts
And A Gut
Over Your Belt”

Knowing how he likes to look into spiritual and religious habitsof all sorts wherever he goes, I wonder if he used the symbolism of two images, here.

1) The hombre con pechos, the man with breasts, said for a man (with or without real breasts) who others recognized as a grand father, a brother, a friend, a man who is nurturing, who could be like the mother one never had or not enough.

2) The desert as a journey of initiation.

Excuse me if I tiptoed in and out (after all I’m a cat people too). Still enjoying it very much however.

Mrrrrooooowwwwww.......ppptttttrrrrr......wonderful to see you, Tchocolatl! Along with [kinda] what you say, I see sifting through the sunglasses, simultaneously a humble activity, as well as a spiritual one, as in "counting beads," the spiritual practice of meditation. I like the nurturing aspect of the man with breasts. The man without them, having evolved into the man with them, as he grew older, taking on the more feminine quality of nurturance. Very nice idea. The desert as an initiation also holds water [tee-hee....couldn't resist]. In fact, the desert does hold water.....just slice a cactus and you'll see .

~ Elizabeth

Dear Tchocolatl, This is very interesting. May I ask what country you are from? I asked a Mexican friend and he didn't recognize this idiom. I know different countries have totally different idioms, such as the difference between knocking someone up for Brits and Americans, and even different regions of countries have different usages, but I was just curious. It's a very interesting idiom. A psychiatrist friend of mine, however, said that it is also true that we become more confirmed in whatever we are as we grow older. I think you can go either way: the path of acquiring greater wisdom or of being confirmed in past behavior. Also, it's interesting to think how different the parallel idiom is: a woman with balls! How does that strike you?

Lizzie, I try to look for the same human qualities in both men and women. I don't see nurturing as more feminine or heroism, for example, as more masculine. Possibly we express these traits with the tools we work with more on a daily basis, which traditionally might be different for men and women. What do you think?

Yes, I agree with what you're saying regarding the androgyny of human qualities, Sohbet. My reference to the nurturing had to do with the literal nurturing through breasts with infants, and the more generalizing of that "nurturing" as a mother with child, though it needs to be more symbolic with reference to an older man, i.e. meeting the needs of another. I also hope for, and look for, both manner of qualities in both men and women.

~ Lizzie [you've taken up Paula's spelling ]

".....just slice a cactus and you'll see ."

Lizzy, you have to grab the cactus to do so. And you'll see

Tequila!!

Sohbet, I would be glad to answer most of your questions if I wasn't strongly feel that you should ask her instead of me. She is the woman who "talk to me" me about the hombre con pechos:

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/soundstruestore/estes.html

For the rest, yes, a woman with balls is a very same kind of image and the wisdom is, maybe, to be more and more yourself, whatever your age is, what can one could be than to be what one is anyway, - hum, is that clear? A little more Tequila, please.

Thank you for the reference to Clarissa Estes. A wise woman and a good writer, very creative. I have one of her books but I didn't realize she had written so many. I've made a note to get some more of her work.

Sorry, Lizzy! I've made a mental note about the spelling.

Oh, I like it either way, Sohbet .

Tchocolatl ~ I think a machete may be in order for the water test .

I have an alternative for that sentence dilemma. A friend of mine said it in 7th grade, "I am what I am, for I could be no other." It was memorable enough to have not forgotten it through the years.

~ Lizzie/Lizzy

Hi Everyone!

So are the "Errands" concluded? I have been on the road with my job and am reading as fast as I can everything that has happened in my absence. If we are finished analysing "Errands" let's start on another!

That's how I feel, too, Coco . I'm ready for another !

~ Elizabeth

Sohbet, it was the only link I found on the net. A lot of publicity, I know, that bothered me a little, but, Ay! all grown up persons here. Almost all the books presented there tempt me, too, I must admit, however. The reference to the hombre con pechos was in Women who run with the wolves and was not much more than what I wrote above.

For the rest, Lizzy, Coco, how could this subject would be ended? I can not figure it out. But I too would be willing to open another one even if i have not much time to be there as often of the habitués and therefore could be off beat, sometimes, not able to go with the flow.

Your input has always been great, Tchocolatl, no matter which beat you come in on

I am very interested in our analyzing "It Seemed The Better Way." I remain so convinced that this was about the Iraq war, that I would truly love to see what others have gotten out of it, and how, through this analysis process that Sohbet has brought here. I know we commented on it, but never quite thoroughly enough for what I wanted. Perhaps because we didn't come to my own conclusion ?

I'm waiting for him to initiate it, I guess out of the "teacher-student"-role perspective. Are there any others that you would be particularly interested in Tchocolatl? I don't really care which one we do, so much as that we do another one. Some may lend themselves better to this than others. Not sure if/why that would be, just may be so, for all I know .

~ Lizzy