According to a repetition familiar to Marie Ponscot, the problem with fiction is the same problem as the problem with The Problem With Fiction.

Here’s a poem that suggests, amongst other problems, one particular problem with fiction is that it requires too many words to get what is needed: People in novels have to need something/ she thinks, that it takes about/ two hundred pages to get. Ponscot uses too many words to get what the reader needs and it likewise becomes the primary problem with this poem.

I suspect it was the poet’s intent to demonstrate this problem; she meant for The Problem With Fiction to be a case in point. Given that, the poem is a success because her intent is executed successfully. But some intentions are misguided. When the outcome precisely demonstrates a misguided intent, the outcome is a misguided success. Or a successful misguidance.

Furthermore, when Ponscot finally lands in the heart of the thing: the embarrassed, disappointed mother; biting the neighbor boy, she switches from too many words to poetic cryptic-ism. She writes in code: but she would if he did if he dared which, to this reader, rings false. This goes beyond poetic surprise and is instead manufactured mystery.

Too much to trip over in this one.