Iron Poet II

[PhoeKun]

Oh thanks! And did you see the secret picture jamroar sneaked into your avatar? Its really cool!

All of a sudden, I find myself wishing this was actually possible...

[Vaynor]

Ok people we're getting close, with only 4 entries.

ZRS, rubakhin, Ravyn, and Amootis; get your entries in!

[PhoeKun]

...Have you been paying attention at all in these competitions? The deadline is Sunday at midnight; look for submissions closing in on that point.

Also, "Amootis"?

[averagejoe]

Also, "Amootis"?

Hehe. Cows.

[Vaynor]

...Have you been paying attention at all in these competitions? The deadline is Sunday at midnight; look for submissions closing in on that point.

Also, "Amootis"?

I know I just wanted to make sure everyone was aware. I sent a PM to Ravyn, as she has not even posted yet since the contest started. I don't want any no-shows in the first round.

Amootis was intentional, it just seems to fit.

[Ravyn]

Sorry about that; I blame college. Anyway, telephones, have an entry:

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Demon's Bargain

I knew a girl, once.
She’d sold her soul to a demon with twelve eyes.
By day it slept in her pocket,
Waking only to cry for her attention.
By night it rested at her bedside,
Feeding from her wall,
Watching her dreams.
Her devotion to it was total.
If it called to her while reading,
The book was soon forgotten;
If it needed her while she was among friends,
Her friends would have to do without her.
Its summons could pull her from her cooking,
From meals, from cleaning, even from the shower.
Only for her professor would it be silent
(Are all professors demon-slayers?)—
And even then,
She looked to it constantly,
Apologetically,
Silently begging its forgiveness.
We worked at the same place, that summer;
I hoped the work would free her.
But its elder brother made its claim on her,
Chaining her to the desk with a spiral cord.
Its calls were even more insistent,
Its demands stronger.
Even its younger sibling was silenced.
She hated it even as she served it.

All around me are those demons,
Leering from people’s pockets,
Tucked safely in their purses;
Clinging with a deathgrip to their belts,
Or in a place of honor over their hearts.
One has made its lair in my home:
It perches on the wall, an ivory spider,
Flinging out its web during dinner.
One has taken over my sister’s room,
And I sit outside and wonder—
What unholy bargains is she making?
What temptations does it offer?

Now my parents have fallen,
And given me a little one of my own.
It curls up in a small, silver carapace;
It is small, but that makes it more dangerous.
They say it will watch over me,
Tell them when I’m in trouble…
What price will it exact?
My friends rejoice that I have joined the possessed;
They teach me to make its siren song more to my liking,
Show me the delights it offers to steal my minutes.
How the mighty have fallen.

But then, one day…
Lunch an eternity alone,
It purrs in my pocket,
Tells me my attention is needed.
Lets me speak to a friend, while away the time…
And I think that perhaps…
Perhaps a soul is not such a high price after all.

[Vaynor]

Hey, no worries, you're a day early. I just wanted to make sure you knew the contest had started.

[rubakhin]

Here's mine. It doesn't adhere to the prompt exceptionally well - in fact, the phone's more of a leitmotif than the actual topic - but it did give me a chance to vent, seeing as how my cell phone is currently the physical embodiment of my romantic/geographic problems.

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Ya-Brodyaga (I, Vagabond)

Childhood pastoral, a not uncommon scene:
I used to wander so far that I honestly believed
I had hit uncharted ground.
Every boulder was a mountain
To be named for me, a stream
Would lead to heathen villages
To make over in my image.

This small room, with white curtains
Wringing hands like impatient lovers
In wind meandering, Septemberish
Has its own monuments now.
"The sheets that Sashenka used to sleep on."
"Souvenirs I meant to give."

The cell phone that I used to send you
An ostentatious message full of pain.

River Sevachka was paved over,
Mount Rubakha is now gravel.
As for you and me, Sashenka
Love became impossible,
What with one thing or another.
"The daily grind," as Mayakovsky said.

But could a soldier sleep atop a war memorial?!
Lowered down, spirit broken like a mortar shell
"The sheets that Sashenka used to sleep on."
Eyes unblinking to the grey pulp of dawn
I check my phone six times 'til sunrise

And every time you will not call.
Yes, every time I know you will not call.

I belong to the world of dusty alleys
Lit by sunlight and the burning eyes of poets
Of torn-knee jeans and iridescent things
That promise stiff drinks and open horizons

Wild-eyed poems stalk the streets inside
My mind; like gangsters walk the roads of
Old Odessa; rubbing grubby fingers together
Mumbling, with the tenseness of a thug
Before a hit -
"Sashenka, Sashenka, Sashenka!"
No ship bearing sleep leers down on
The clandestine docks
Of my soul.
My soul, cluttered by the syphilitic footsteps
Of eight thousand syllable/sailors!

Phone beeps, heart leaps
Although I know it's just the alarm
I answer "Sasha, sey minuta!" although I know it's just the alarm.

Startled, suddenly, out of my reverie
With this pen I'll burn the docks
If I can't go out to sea!
Am I - I, vagabond! - am I a man?!
Or a lovestruck poet?! A lovestruck poet
No more! My pen will tear my notebook paper
Till it falls like fetters in a liberated prison!

There should be a revolution of the heart!
Full of torchfirelit faces and sweat-soaked arms!
Women with dresses torn to the navels
Boys with bald heads and hungry blood!
There should be an escape of the heart!
Border cross to Berlin, or Amsterdam instead
To musky dungeons! Forbidden Americas!
Where the old red sorrow of love can't chase!
And yet - and yet! - and yet!

And yet I, vagabond
Distilled to a scoundrel pacing back and forth
Before the cell phone lying like a relic on his pillow.

This notebook should have been a bundle
Tied to a cartoon stick.
These blackened train tracks should have stretched
From Petushki to the tundra.
I should have been a hunchbacked dot
Crossing the white empty Sibir dream.

Who knows if we can speak again?
We keep on passing one another in the night
A waltz for two to the tune of train whistles.
I'll leave. Right now I'll leave.
I can't carry in these threadbare pockets
Memories carved out of granite and gold.
Just my cell phone, in case you want to call.

I give up: it's love, Sashenka, love that
Can't be stomped out by snow-caked boots.
Nor my stiff drink, my open horizon:
A toast to your bare skin, my darling,
Whether I see it again or not.
You know the number. I won't wait for it,
But here's one thing I've got no choice to do:

I'll name all the roads after you.

- Sevastian Rubakhin 2007

[Brickwall]

Amotis, I prefer a bad competition to none at all, so if you have anything at all, get it done in less than 6 hours.

I do not need any more aggravations today.

[PhoeKun]

... You know, I understand the frustrations involved in not having a competitor. But complaining about it before it even happens? That's not necessary. At all.

[Brickwall]

That isn't a complaint. That's a warning. I imagine if I were complaining, I would have been more "".

Cookie for the very subtle reference.

[ZombieRockStar]

Subject: Butterfly/butterflies

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I locked a butterfly inside a box.
It was just like a stained-glass hexagram
With black and crescent sunbursts for its legs.
The box… it shuddered as the thing tried to
Escape… I dreamt of screaming from within,
But nothing more than a soft, quiet hiss.
I then took gentle pity on the thing.
I opened up the lock and set it free.
And there it flew to where the thing belonged,
Not in a box—at the top of a tree.
And like a star, it perched up there for good.
It was exactly like a Christmas star.

I’d locked a Christmas star inside a box.
It was just like a silver butterfly
And no one knew more of it’s suffering
Than I.

[Amotis]

Subject: Paper

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This is a poem; written.

I never really liked your poems,
but you wrote them for me.
And it's like that really.
You never tell your lover
'I don't understand.'
   You just don't.

And that's kinda like a metaphor,
right?   Like for our entire lives.
And approaching something
like the light that hits your
  endless clothing.

There's certainly a difference
between not understanding
   and not believing.
And that's what you tell me,
with that little look upon your face
     that says 'please'.
Reasons why you won't take
those pills I wanted you to.
You call them 'suicide pills.'
'They're only for safety,'
   I say.
And you say you don't believe it.

God, you're pretty, you know that?
I could spend hours sitting with you.
Making everyone jealous.
Like that one time on the park bench.
The discarded newspapers,
like blankets for the homeless,
telling them how to lie,
and how their lives have just kinda
boiled down into useless sexual steam.
You sighed at the correlation.
I smiled and tried to hold your hand.

     Or that other time. 
Sitting on the park bench.
And a pair of sparrows just flew past.
Us watching their jagged flight
to the one of those urban bushes
with cigarette butts and rain stains.
     They darted inside,
and I mean at that speed,
those little things are fast,
surely they must of know where to go.
      Planned it before hand
or knew each other's moves so well.
Wind blew the hobo's newspaper
      out of view.
And you moved my hand on mine.
      And I was confused.

But you're kind to me, of course,
patient when I try too hard,
but I can't help to think
sometimes you like a little
     pain.
'Cause you give me a dry look,
    that says "hope.'
And I don't know what to say.

But you keep on writing,
that's what you do, you say.
  I don't really get it.
  But I don't tell you.

And you're always telling me about
the finer points of virginity.
And how the bitter water
   that we all drink,
swing pass swing swing f***,
really doesn't make it better.
  Bulls***, I say.
I don't believe it.

I still remember that night,
where it was filled with things
that made you cry.
And filled with things
that confused me.
'I can't stop now,'
     you said.
'You've gone too deep.
My paper flower's gone
and all that's left 
is to bleed.'

'Well, f***',
I said,
and you agreed.

So we filled this poem,
with with pills 
and stuff that makes you me.

And we smoked it,
drunk and f***ed,
and then you sleep.  

Paper epitaphs are the worst you said,
     just before the end.
Just a oxymoron too the core,
and how we ought to spend
all our lives just wishing for
something that doesn't burn.
But in the end, you said, 
we live in a paper world.

I never got that.
But hey, I got you.
And so that's what I told you.

[Amotis]

Sorry for the delay and the double post, I don't want to edit if I don't have too.

But I'm gonna run a little test here to see if formating can acutally work.

this          is
      a            

te

         st

edito - okay...done -_-;;

My apologizes Brickwall, I know I cut it short but I had work tonight and this was really the only time I could make. I even turned down free concert tickets! But enough excuses, now for waiting.

[PhoeKun]

Apologies for what? You made the deadline.

There are no dropouts this round. I am, most assuredly, "".

edit: this is a lie. I am, in fact, severely depressed. But this is a baseball thing, not a poem thing. Carry on, my wayward sons. There'll be peace when you are... never mind.

[Vaynor]

Hurrah! No dropouts!

This pleases me.

Judges, now it's your turn.

[Canti]

I'm not sure how to judge, I'll wait for a proper judgment to observe...

[Brickwall]

I'm not sure how to judge, I'll wait for a proper judgment to observe...

NO! BAD! *squirts Canti with a water bottle*

You can't look at other judge's judgements! Just say what you think about the poem and who won! It's easy!

*squirts again for good measure*

[Mr_Saturn]

I'm not sure how to judge, I'll wait for a proper judgment to observe...

Say things you liked about the poem; say things you didn't like about the poem. Say suggestions or extra random thoughts about the poem. Say which one you liked better and why.

Place all judgements in spoilers, preferable separate spoilers for each one.

[Canti]

Thank you.

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Mr. Saturn vs. ZRS
Saturn

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Saturn
Saturn certainly made a neat poem although there were several awkward phrasings because of the need to rhyme. I feel you could have done much better without the need to rhyme. That "to ruin and eat" line struck me as almost ironically funny, but there was a problem with the words making sense, I believe wroth was misused and "unlike and inexact" is sort of correct, the traits of them both are ambiguously stated but you assume them to be defined since they are capable of being unlike. Perhaps it's just my opinion of paradoxes. In the future, straining yourself on a rhyme scheme can make things awkward, so avoid it or just break it, if you're bored.

Zombie

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Okay, it was fantastic. What got me as odd were the elipses, because, you see, they slowed down the reading too much. The boooooox... it would read, in your mind, but the slow grating insanity drawl is incompatible with something elegant and graceful, like a trapped butterfly.

Other than that? You did amazingly.

Verdict

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Zombie wins.

Rubakhin vs Ravyn

Ravyn

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Hilarious. It's an all right poem, but it gets most points for humor. The comparison of phones to demons is great, because it fleshes with my concept of evilness of phones posessing people. The last line was fantastic. As a piece of satire, it's not bad. As a poem, it's so-so.

Rubakhin

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I'm a sucker of lovey stuff, and that is a fantastic lovey thing. There's definitely a feeling like it's Rimbaud, and I like the passion in there, there's the stammering, and the length, it picks up in the end. I really can feel what's going on, and I like it. I like it a lot. Good poem, and tying it to the phone, making it an emblem of your love, it's a good poem.

Verdict

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Rubakhin. This was closer than before, but I'm a romantic sap, and that last line was great, sealed the deal.

Average Joe vs. Methodical Meat
Meat

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Really, it was odd, the whole thing about it that got me was the disjointedness of it. How the old woman and the man who sounds like God are related are beyond me. I don't know about it. I didn't like it that much.

Joe

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I liked it, but this suffered from a lack of focus. Granted, it was a carnival, but since it was in third person it started to move about and shift almost randomly, focusing on one thing then the things within when as a whole, it could have been focused on much more easily and with greater effect. I didn't like it as much as some of the others, but I did enjoy it.

Verdict
Most certainly Joe, since that's the one I ended up enjoying.

Amotis vs. Brickwall
Amotis

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This was awesome, and I am a sap for anything that's messed up and romantic, so yeah. Easily my favorite one of the bunch, the confused romance, and the petulant girl, I loved it.

Brickwall

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I loved this one, as much ast he last, it was quick, there was paralellism, and I liked the way it felt throughout, it was orderly and composed, like an origami fold.

Verdict

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It goes to Amotis.

Sorry it took so long, life got in the way.

[MethodicalMeat]

@Canti

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Sorry you didn't enjoy it. Just a note: the old woman and the man (who was not, in fact, God, just part of a metaphor for rain) were not connected in the slightest.

[Brickwall]

Hello?

Judges?

Hello-oooooo...

[PhoeKun]

I managed to lose my judgments partway through writing them. This has somewhat (read: absurdly) slowed down the judging process. Hopefully, I'll still be able to get them up tonight.

[Brickwall]

No rush, just need to know you've not abandoned us.

[PhoeKun]

All right, let's try this again.

Mr. Saturn vs ZRS:

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Mr. Saturn

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This is a difficult poem to talk about without bringing up the concept of experience. The underlying concept here is solid (I might go so far as to say good), but the execution is a bit hit or miss... mostly miss.

To clarify: The comparison between the butterfly and the moth makes for great subject matter, and speaking of the two as opposite sides of the same coin sets you up for some really excellent poetry. The problem is that, while you stuck to your rhyme and rhythm well, it looks like you let them control your word choice, instead of the other way around.

It's difficult to produce a large number of rhyming lines without a poem sound sing-songy and childish. The trick is to take the focus away from the rhymes, by doing things like using less exact rhyming matches, and continuing a sentence past a line break (there doesn't need to be a pause at the end of every line, in other words). If you can do that, things will read less forced, and the core of your poem will shine through, rather than your meter.

You've clearly got creativity. I think with a few more poems/competitions under your belt, you'll find yourself producing some truly wonderful pieces.

ZRS

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All right... where does one begin? Well, let's begin by calling you clever. You used an almost muted iambic pentameter, which didn't call attention to itself (except for one line), and this put a lot of weight on your last line, allowing for a nice, big, showy finish. It was good work. Toss in a dash of vivid imagery (in particular the sunbursts/legs bit), and you've got yourself what I consider to be your best work within the confines of Iron Poet.

There's a few things I want to point out, though, that kind of bugged me. The first is your use of ellipses. It's almost never a good thing when those little buggers show up (I don't know about you, but my professors beat me with sticks when I write things with ellipses), because they call all sorts of attention to themselves, slow the reader down, and generally don't perform any task that a comma or semicolon would be able to do. In this case especially, with them in the middle of the line, I think it hurt the flow of the poem.

Secondly, let's talk a bit more about rhythm. I called it muted iambic pentameter before because even though your poem follows that rhythm (at least, as far as I can tell), it doesn't have the usual 'feel' that sort of thing tends to carry. So much so, that I probably wouldn't have noticed it. Except for the line mentioning 'gentle pity'. I'm not entirely sure how many other kinds of pity exist, so this seems a tad redundant, but more importantly it called to my attention your rhythm by seeming to be a word choice made specifically to fit the rhythm, and for no other reason. Once I became conscious of the rhythm, the ending didn't have quite the same kick to it on later readthroughs. In fact, I started to question if the ending worked at all. I think, perhaps, it might have been better if the speaker had come to the realization of the suffering of the Christmas star at the same time as the reader (in the ending), instead of his lording over that knowledge the way he seems to now. I haven't yet been able to come up with an alternative line just yet, but I think as it's written the ending is the major weak point of the poem.

Verdict

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ZRS. His poem was simply the more cohesive and evocative piece.

Ravyn vs Rubakhin:

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Ravyn

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If I had to describe this poem in a single word, it would be "witty". If forced to describe the type of wit, I'd likely call it rapier, but that may be neither here nor there. Or maybe both. I'm a bit punch drunk right at the moment.

Anyway, the poem. To those who know me, it's no secret that I hate phones, so an extended metaphor of them as soul-sucking and possessive demons amuses me to no end. As far as the execution of the poem itself is concerned, you've done well almost everywhere. There's a strong use of line breaks throughout, controlling the pace and keeping things sounding almost dramatic even when the reader is bound to have figured out the poem is about phones (at which point things would take on a humorous tone and somewhat ruin the metaphor).

The second-to-last stanza gets a bit weak, though. In particular, I don't like the use of the phrase 'steal my minutes'. It's difficult to describe, but it feels awkward, and not up to the level of charm the rest of the poem possesses. The other, bigger, problem is that towards the end, you started going overboard on the ellipses. Fully 3/7 of the last stanza end in ellipses, making it read slower when it doesn't need to (and I'm not even sure it wants to).

But even considering that, well done.

Rubakhin

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First off, I want to say that there's absolutely no problem in these competitions in using the prompts however you damn well please. Phones did not need to be the subject of your poem, and as it turns out you used the concept of the cell phone to tie the poem together with a great deal of skill. I've certainly seen worse, so there's no need for you to worry on that account.

This piece has a very meandering, almost disheveled, sort of feel to it that I find absolutely charming. My biggest regret is that you mentioned when you signed up as a contestant that you were worried about how your style would read in English. It's incredibly difficult to think about the poem as it's written instead of wondering what it would look and sound like the way it's "supposed" to be. I'm trying to judge based on what I've got (and what I would be able to read, anyway ), but... bah, I hate contamination.

I'll be brief (ha!). There is one thing in this poem that has me absolutely fawning over it, and one thing that turns me away from it. The thing I love, and I can tell you it comes off to greater effect than perhaps anything else in this entire round, is your use of repetition in your 'mini' stanzas ('I know you will not call', and 'I know it's just the alarm'). These just fill me with a sense of idle hope in the face of hopelessness, and... well, it's powerful stuff.

What I did not like were the parts containing the line 'I, Vagabond'. The parts like 'My pen will tear the notebook paper till it falls like fetters in a liberated prison' and 'distilled to a scoundrel' look to me to be cases of the language running away from the writer. Combined with a few spattered words such as ostentatious and iridescent, they come across as haughty and pretentious when they don't mean to be; you're waxing fantastically poetic when the real charm and emotion in the poem comes from the earthy tone of the rest of it. It feels... conflicted, in ways that don't seem intentional.

And yet... and yet... wow.

Verdict

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...Ravyn. These are two completely different, and very well done poems. There are not words to describe how difficult a decision this is. All I can say is that Ravyn's felt like it had slightly more solid execution than Rubakhin's. But I want to put you both through.

Average Joe vs MethodicalMeat:

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Average Joe

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Did... did you just write a series of haiku? You're nuts. Questionable sanity aside, your chosen format lends itself well to your subject matter, producing a steady, hypnotic pattern to move along with the hypnotist's wheel inside the tent. I had initially gotten the slightest sense of a merry-go-round somewhere in there, but looking at it now, I'm not entirely sure where that came from. The imagery is certainly rather vague. Or is it sparse? I'm not sure which word I'm looking for, here.

There isn't a lot to say about this one. It's a heck of a lot creepier than I was inclined to think about the circus, but I guess there's always that one odd fellow that's afraid of clowns, and this particularly aesthetic suited the poem well besides, so that's clearly not an issue. What I wonder about is... well... what is this poem actually about? On the surface, you have the hypnotist and his creepy face and spinning wheel. But underneath the hypnotic patterns and lulling rhythm, what's the message? The ending tries to stand out by breaking the format of the rest of the poem, but it's not really saying much of anything that I can figure out. I can't pull a message out of this, only a feeling. A vague and empty feeling.

And, in a way, that's sort of appropriate for what I'm reading, but... well, I'm not sure about this one.

MethodicalMeat

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I told Rubakhin that prompts are held to very loose standards in this competition, but in this case, the carnival seems to have next to nothing to do with the poem. After several readthroughs, I managed to find a couple of slight connections here and there, but on the whole, it seems the carnival's only there because you'd be disqualified if it wasn't. It would have been nice if it had been more integrally joined into the poem somehow.

What struck me the most when reading this was how many extra words there seemed to be, choking off the rhythm and preventing a sense of melody from really taking hold. I'm not usually one to encourage 'sing songy' poetry, but let's face it; you've invoked fey imagery. The chant motif would work well here. Just as an example, look at what happens when pieces are shaved off of one of your stanzas:

Cornered and frightened,
Senses all heightened,
Fay-boy weeps:
Up his spine fear creeps.

Do you see what happened there? With a tighter control, the whole thing has a much stronger kick to it; it carries a bit more weight. There are some bits here and there that could use re-wording more so than shaving, but on the whole, what I see here is a wonderful little poem that never quite got control of itself. Am I right in guessing you didn't quite shake off your writer's block?

Verdict

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Average Joe. His effort was tighter and more controlled, and in the end impressed me more.

Brickwall vs Amotis:

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Brickwall

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Hmm... there's something strange going on here. Your opening lines are very structured, as are the repetitions throughout, but the rest of it is left to wander where it will. There's no rule in poetry that says you need measured rhythm or rhymes, but when it looks like you're starting out with both, the sudden absence of each is felt much more strongly. Add in the comma-created pauses at the end of every line, and the whole thing sounds flat when I read it.

I think something that could have worked marvelously is if you had written the first half of the poem in very precise and intricate meter, possibly holding together a rhyme scheme up until the point where the poem shifts to the speaker, at which point the verse could fly off all over the place and shown the reader just how unlike the two things are. This also would have freed you from having to sound quite so... whiny when comparing the speaker to the crane.

There's an interesting concept at work here, and there are some gem lines (a few folds away from a flower) that give this a lot of potential. It just needs to be reeled in a little bit. As a piece of advice, I think your writing style lends itself best to structured verse. Don't feel burned about what happened to your sonnet last time; you've got a knack for meter. Don't be afraid to use it.

Amotis

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This is, without a doubt, the most difficult poem to comment on. It's raw, completely unpolished, and in places seems to make no sense (endless clothing?).

The speaker seems unsure of himself, timid, and rambling in what I can only describe as stream of consciousness. I can't make heads or tails of your spacing, but the random jumbling of line breaks and formatting seems to mesh nicely with the random jumbling of images and thoughts, all of which makes it feel more... real, I guess.

One thing I noticed is that you have a tendency to use very unorthodox metaphors and similes that wind up feeling very uncontrolled and nonsensical (again, 'light hitting your endless clothing'), and there are sections where I'm uncertain if you made a mistake or not ('moved my hand onto mine'. 'And I was confused'. So was I.)

There's an intangible 'something' to this poem. I don't fully understand what's being said some of the time, but I keep going over it and finding new angles to ponder over. And that tends to be a sign of a good poem.

Verdict

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Amotis. Both poems felt uncontrolled, but the lack of control worked better (was less detrimental to?) Amotis' poem than Brick's.

[averagejoe]

@Phoekun:

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A few things.

1) Not as crazy as you might think. My poems almost always begin freeform, but they never seem to stay that way. Around the third-ish draft of this one I read it and realized, "Hey, this is almost a series of haiku. If I tweak it a bit then it will be a series of haiku." This sort of thing happens to me all the time when I write poetry. The right form just seems to come to the poem.

2) Whenever I write anything deeper than an action driven narrative I try not to force my personal philosophies onto the reader, and so I don't really intend for people to take anything in particular away. If it is, as so many people claim, the (or at least a) job of the writer to reveal "truth," I find that trying to make someone see a particular truth to be counterproductive. That is, truth tends to be a tricky thing in that it can't really be consistantly taught, only realized. I find that when I hear people talk about (for example) 1984, setting aside the people who do a more purely literary analysis, everyone mostly divides into two camps; the people who like the book because they agree with it, and those who dislike the book because they disagree with it. An oversimplification, perhaps, but with those sorts of stories I find that the tendancy is to see the book's message (I picked 1984 because it was the least obtuse book I could think of, by the way) and, already believing themselves to know the truth of the matter, leave it at that. I believe it to be more useful to simply use certain themes, certain types of imagery, etc. to try to put the reader into a thoughtful mood, so to speak. Of course, you do run the risk of having the reader simply "not get it," but I've also found that thinking about a thing, even if you don't come to any satisfactory conclusion, tends to be more constructive and rewarding than just being given an answer.

Wow, way more than I meant to say about that. I don't read many scholarly works on literature, so the only place where I've seen this point better articulated is Tolkien's preface to The Lord of the Rings, in which he discusses in short the difference between allegory and applicibility.

3) Nobody likes clowns.

[Brickwall]

Why does nobody want to judge my bracket?! TT.TT

[Vaynor]

Why does nobody want to judge my bracket?! TT.TT

Simple explanation, it's too good for words.

[Brickwall]

It's made of words! "Which of words is born shall become words again."

I'm sure that there was a phrase similar in structure to that out somewhere. If not, you may feel free to credit me with it, since I have no idea where it came from.

[PhoeKun]

First judge over the finish line, baby! Bow before my ability to have free time in which to ramble!