If they don't get the allusion, that's their loss.

That's true. Personally, I prefer the subtle allusion. The off-the-cuff, glancing, slight, illuminating, interesting, tricky allusion. Not so big on the "I've rewritten Les Miserables as a Law and Order episode" way.

Yay! Validation. Yeah, subtle allusions are much better.

Second on the validation. They're not so much fairy tales as cultural touchstones, anyway. If they don't understand the basic metaphors of Western civilizaton, you alone aren't going to fix it.

I'll validate you, Ali, too. I think they're wrong.

I think they are *deeply* stupid, and probably still need to be reminded to wash their hands. But don't lead with that, unless you hate them.

Well, I don't greatly respect their opinions, but I don't hate them. And despite the quote up in the right hand corner, I'm accepting all validation. Thanks, guys.

More validation- I vastly prefer the subtle allusion. The one even people who recognise it have to take a second to think about before they're sure they've got it. Of course, if you do it too often- like me- you tend to sound insufferably clever or trying to sound overly educated, like Thomas Hardy, but that isn't as bad as making it to obvious.

Thank you, Am-Chau! And hi! Nice to meet you!

I agree with Am-Chau (nice to meet you, by the by!). When the allusions are just subtle enough that you have to think about them for a second, it's a thrill when you recognize (or think you recognize) one. It gives you the sort of feeling you get with an in-joke or a shout out, or it can give you the joy of a "Eureka!" sort of moment.

When things are spelled out too clearly, I sometimes feel as if the author is being patronizing.

New poem.

MOVIE POEM III (sapphics) 


for alanna 





Waiting for you like the women in airports. 
Shut down. Gate slow. Even the press of sand a- 
gainst my eyelids. Snap dragon. Full screen. I'm not 
done with you yet. 


Wrap me, girl, around your long fingers. Beginning to open 
at your seams. Scarf fluttering across your face, 
band ridge my division. You can't remem- 
ber your own flick fuck cover. 


Pictures streak these walls, as though we had asked them. 
Flicker you, steam. Shut that door. It's easier, 
your face, your mouth, twinning mine, to gate your breath. 
Mantilla folds me: goodbye; love. 

These are, obviously, sapphic stanzas.

It's been a really long time since I've thought very deliberately about stresses, and it's been great-- although head-banging-against-the-wall hard-- to be conscious of meter again.

& occasionally I broke the pattern-- "for" is not a stressed syllable, for example, in "waiting for you". I considered replacing it with various other words, but eventually decided to go with the unstressed one-- I wanted it to move slightly more quickly there than the stressed would have made it.

Later, I went through one more time and smoothed out the things that were correctly in meter but still bothering me: "open at your seams" became "beginning to open at your seams". "Mantilla folds love" burgeoned until it became the current last line.

Alanna, by the way, is not a real person, but a new project of mine. I'm collaborating with someone who's writing a novel-- Alanna is a character in it, and Alanna writes avant-garde poetry; I was asked to come up with that poetry.