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RE: "Smile" (poem/article) >>> Almost-Announcing "Marg's Homework Poetry Contest"
Well.. since you asked for a critique, I think marge's poem makes me want to smile more, and seems more expressive of a genuinely happy soul.
Yours seems more like smiling through gritted teeth due to you choice of words.
(predator/prey; stab they in the back; hearts grow cold; i need no one; to man beguile)
I think that you are discussing false faces and nongenuine smiles, and valuing laughter. But it reads like someone with a lot of resentment deciding to talk about smiling.
@corpsvalues,
The first part of you comment is self-evidently true. Marg's poem is a celebration of smiling and an admonition against self-censoring its expression.
I'm not sure I get this part: "... It reads like someone with a lot of resentment deciding to talk about smiling."
My poem observes that relationships between humans create "vulnerability" (one can only be betrayed by someone who is trusted) and, over time, (the Mind) rebels against "accepting the risks to get the rewards." Smiling (the Heart), and the expression of laughter, uses emotion to melt the ice and forge bonds of friendship in spite of the Mind's intellectual objection. It forces us to re-engage despite pains of the past. This strikes me as being a hopeful celebration of the power of smiling ... not a resentment of it or life in general.
If anyone else has any thoughts on either this comment or reply, please jump in. It's fascinating, and telling, how different people can look at the same thing and come to such different conclusions. But, of course, that is the whole point of this exercise, isn't it?
Compare and Contrast ... not just words and the mechanics of their expression, but the ideas, ideals and insights they convey.
Quill
He said:
I discussed why I am not ultimately sold on this view in my comment above, but I will say that it involves me giving you the benefit of the doubt. However, like you said:
which echos the gist of what I got out of it. Much of this hinges on me holding on until the end to make an assessment, but even then, there is still some ammunition for @corpsvalues interpretation.
My two biggest hangups:
The rest of the stanza put this in context and tells me that you are talking about other people on line 1, and the reader on lines 2-4. But even with the context it is not a far leap to see all four lines directed at the reader. Then it becomes a choice between using the power of the smile for good, or to perpetuate the evil from the first half of the poem. If you accept this alternate interpretation, then you open the door to the fact that the author acknowledges and is even implicitly OK with either option that the reader chooses, as long as they are aware of the gravity of their actions and the consequences. This is rather dark, and it's not what I got out of it, but re-reading I can see how you could take this away from it.
The second hangup:
Fool has a negative connotation to it, although I rather quickly gathered that you were referring to the mirth of a court jester kind of fool. However, it would not be a far leap to think you were belittling the concept of friendship and doubling down on the warning from the first half. Especially if you consider the alternate interpretation in my previous paragraph, then this almost reads like a balancing of the scales in favor of using smiles selfishly and presenting the reader with the choice once again: do I risk becoming the fool with honest smiles, or should I instead allow the mind to usurp the power of the smile and use it to manipulate others?
Again, this is not where I came from on my own initial read (or even subsequent reads), but just me intentionally looking at it from the opposite angle.
Okay I guess I can see what you are saying. But word connotation holds a lot of significance for me especially in poetry so I still feel like it is hard to break away from the first half. It was also really hard for me to read it in that jpeg format.