but why delete the comments? just cuz you and i don't agree on a reading of the poem?

subtexts. i think i'm sensitive to that word, and the reason i say bugaboos is i think that we can examine only our own subtexts. when we try to try to parse out motives for the narrator or even the author, we stand on shakey ground. i mean it's difficult enough, as you point out, to truly eye our own influences.

you're defensive b/c you see the dancer as putting down 'your' profession. the dancer could be being offensive cuz she assumes the exact same thing. but you don't know that, not from the poem-you don't know that she thinks the wives put down her profession. what i get from it is that she thinks the wives put up with this kind of treatment, willingly.
and yes, believe the men's lies which she sees thru. so her disdain for both the men and their wives is evident.


that she wants to escape by detachment, calling it holy, well, that does to speak to some sort of delusion. but i think she's well aware of it. she knows what she's doing, and she knows why. as my brilliant niece once pointed out to me, pretending is good, delusion is better.


what is true about this profession is the dominant view is exactly what you project. and for good reason. we know from reading jenni's poems that most of the women are exploited either by the owners or the johns or both. this is a fact of the sex trade. i maintain that the fact this dancer rejects the lies of these lotharios with, they assume, purchase power
speaks to awareness, not delusion. she simply wants to escape them, if not their money. and she understands that to accept lifestyle over cash would require more delusion for her than she is willing to accept. does she think the women of these men are deluded? well, yes, that's obvious in the statement "lukewarm paranoia".

as a worker b in another industry, i can totally relate to the desire for fantasy to take me away from the source of my income. but i also know i can't get too far from it. that doesn't mean i have to buy into it. i just have to perform. and yes, i have disdain for the people who do buy into it. but that's my projections. they could perfectly happy. they probly are. the dancer never says the women are unhappy. she never says she's unhappy. that's the leap we fill with our own subtexts...

a mark of good poem, imo.

but yeah, on the men thing. i really didn't see an indictment of men as a whole. just a certain type of male.

i'm likin this discussion, why you wanna delete???????