Re: Only the Lonely / George J. Dance

> George J. Dance wrote:
> 
>> Will Dockery wrote:
>> 
>>> George J. Dance wrote:
>>> Only the Lonely
>>> 
>>> The man in shades
>>> strides to the mic
>>> and declares,
>>> "Only the lonely
>>> know the way I feel tonight ..."
>>> " and ten thousand screaming,
>>> chanting fans wedged up against
>>> each other in the hall all together
>>> suddenly feel so
>>> lonely.
>>> 
>>> --
>>> George J. Dance, 2010
>>> from Doggerel, and other doggerel, 2015.
>>> 
>>> [All rights reserved by the author - Used with permission]
>>> 
>>> https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2010/03/orbison-man-in-shades-strides-to-mic.html
>>> 
>>> Commentary: This poem was posted on aapc in the Sunday Sampler
>>> 10 years ago. It appears on the original, 'rough' thread, but was left
>>> out of the Official Sampler thread for the week. The editor of that week's
>>> Official thread, Michael Pendragon, said that the omission was an mistake,
>>> but if so it was never corrected.
>> 
>> 
>> Nice Roy Orbison tribute.
> 
> 
> Thanks, Will. I hope you realize that, while Orbison is the subject, it's not a poem about him or one of his concerts. In fact I don't even mention his name. Using his picture may make it look like the poem's about him, and I hesitated to use it; but I had to use something as an illustration, so that Harry or Nancy wouldn't put some of their AI art on as the illustration instead.



True, I think many readers will take it like I did, as a poem in tribute to Roy Orbison.

I'm not sure how you can "fix" that but it might be something you'll encounter a lot from the general audience.

Just my opinion.[/quote]

If readers enjoy it as a tribute to Orbison, I have no trouble with that. What a poem means to a reader is always going to be unique to that poem and that reader, and it's not my place to tell reders they're wrong. The only people I'd take issue with are critics who try to tell me this is what one of my poems means, period, or this is what I meant when I wrote it.

Orbison, as you, Creepy Mike, and (I'd bet) everyone else who's read it has figured out, is the subject of the poem. And it was originally written as an OB poem to one by Jim Senetto (called "Orbison" IIRC), which I think was simply a tribute to him and nothing more. So in that sense it's about him.

But what a poem's really about is its theme; and the theme of this poem is the power of music, to affect how people feel and to bring them together. In the poem, Orbison sings those lines, and 10,000 people instantly have the same feeling. And what they feel is loneliness. They certainly are not lonely; loneliness is the sadness of being alone, and if they're in a room with 10,000 people of like mind, they certainly are not alone. But when he sang those words, he got everyone, alone or not, to feel that sadness. That is a tribute to him as an artist, but it's only one example of the theme.[/quote]

I'll look for the Jim Senetto poem you mentioned, I've always known Roy Orbison as a tragic figure I'm not sure any poem has fully captured yet.[/quote]

No need; I'll post it in here. Since I found it reposted by Corey down in one of his threads, I won't give a link, just paste it:

Orbison

Angel voice
sings with sons
lost in fire.
the pretty woman
sits front row
smiling.

by BLACKPOOLJIMMY

"Sons" may be a typo for "songs" or not.[/quote]

Good find, GJD.

😏 


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