I’m pleased the poem made you laugh out loud. That’s why it was written. And I love the idea of loneliness being ‘a naked issue.’ If I wrote serious poetry I think I’d be stealing that concept.

Ashley

Thank you. I haven’t come across the word ‘screwball’ in ages. I think I might have to include that in the next poem.

Best,

Ashley

That is so articulate and insightful and sad and enlightening all at once.

It’s been a wonderful experience visiting here. Between writing erotica and performing whimsical poems it’s rare that I get a chance to talk seriously about creative writing.

Thank you all here at F-Stop for making me feel so welcome and I look forward to returning regularly in the future to see what else is being discussed.

Best wishes,

Ashley

PS – Please put me on the mailing list when Isabel opens the writers’ retreat.

Well, if I’m allowed to try for humorous rhyming verse like Ashley’s poem here, I might consider a little poetry retreat in the Tuscan hills! A fantasy vacation indeed!

Emerald your point about the loneliness of not being understood, oh, my, I really understand that. (It also ties into Neve’s mention of feeling lonelier when coupled up with the wrong person than being on your own). I think one of the many strengths of our writer’s community is that we have found people who understand the parts of us many others do not. If that makes sense.

Wow, Ashley, what a wonderful discussion your poem has sparked!

Thank you. Loneliness in all its forms is a debilitating condition. The idea of people not understanding an individual is, as you say, one of the condition’s most pernicious forms.

I recently studied language acquisition in children and the case studies on ferral children – those children isolated from communities and brought up without language – are heartbreaking. And that’s just one aspect of communication that can lead to the individual not being understood. On the more prosaic level of talking the same language but just not geting the pragmatic meaning across, it’s equally devastating.

Which is why I try and work with humour when I can. Most people will argue that something is either funny or not but, when it works: it can be a leveller of barriers to understanding and a key factor in increasing successful communications.

Best,

Ashley

I’ve always suggested that we need to organize a writer’s retreat here, right Donna and Craig? Donna might not even mind if it included some poetry writing ; ) .

Right Isabel!

I’m ready and raring to do my part and give you a break from all that tree-talking. I have my quill packed and ready…

It’s funny, I was just pondering yesterday or so how the feeling that one is not understood seems to me one of the strongest forms of loneliness. To be here, and to perhaps be even in someone else’s (or many others’) physical presence, and to feel you are not understood, not really known—is there a greater feeling of loneliness? And it seems to me an odd, profound, disorienting feeling in that if in other(s)’ physical presence, we still feel that way, where may we seek connection?

Such has struck me at least (though I don’t know that I articulated it very well). When I read this,

“In the same fashion, we all experience our responses to sex on our own. And the worry as to whether or not our responses are the correct ones is what invariably reinforces each individual’s loneliness”

it reminded me of that musing. Beautiful lines.

I appreciate also your commentary, both overt and implicit, on society’s perceived constructs and their frequent arbitrary nature. The understanding of this on a general level seems deeply significant to me.

And lastly (but not leastly), the skill to juxtapose humor and serious insight strikes me as brilliant. It is in fact one of the things that has struck me as brilliant before about your work. Not to entirely plagiarize Jeremy, but I found his comment pretty much an exquisite articulation of my perception on the subject that I had not managed to articulate nearly so well. (Thanks Jeremy!)

Thank you, Ashley, for sharing what you do. And thank you for this offering here on F-Stop!

And you would be right to do so. There’s a lot I miss out on. This is a spectacularly beautiful place and I love it, it inspires a lot of poetry, but in the words a couple of my other favorite early performance poets,
I talk to the trees…

I’ve always suggested that we need to organize a writer’s retreat here, right Donna and Craig? Donna might not even mind if it included some poetry writing ; ) .

ciao