THE PROBLEM OF FICTION by Marie Ponsot

She always writes poems. This summer
she’s starting a novel. It’s in trouble already.
The characters are easy — a girl
and her friend who is a girl
and the boy down the block with his first car,
an older boy, sixteen, who sometimes
these warm evenings leaves his house to go dancing
in dressy clothes though it’s still light out.
The girl has a brother who has lots of friends,
is good in math, and just plain good which
doesn’t help the story. The story
should have rescues & escapes in it
which means who’s the bad guy; he couldn’t be
the brother or the grandpa or the father either,
or even the boy down the block with his first car.
People in novels have to need something,
she thinks, that it takes about
two hundred pages to get.
She can’t imagine that. Nothing
she needs can be got; if it could
she’d go get it: the answer to nightmares;
a mother who’d be proud of her; doing things
a mother could be proud of; having hips
& knowing how to squeal at the beach laughing
when the boy down the block picked her up & carried her
& threw her in the water. If she’d laughed
squealing he might still take her swimming
& his mother wouldn’t say she’s crazy, she would
not have got her teeth into his shoulder till
well yes she bit him, and the marks
lasted & lasted, his mother said so,
but that couldn’t be in a novel.

She’ll never squeal laughing, she’d never
not bite him, she hates cute girls, she hates
boys who like them. Biting is embarrassing
and wrong & she has no intention of doing it again
but she would if he did if he dared,
and there’s no story if there’s no hope of change.

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.

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.

I honestly don't understand what you mean. Is there any way you could clarify that?

To me, this is a beguiling narrative about a teenaged girl whose life up to now has been a brief poem. Like all teenagers, both male and female, she wants her life to be instead a novel, filled with lots of characters, conflict, "rescues and escapes," but especially changes.

The problem with fiction is that the main character has to need something "that takes about two hundred pages to get." But the girl trying to write that novel can't imagine that because "Nothing / she needs can be got; if it could / she’d go get it: the answer to nightmares; /
a mother who’d be proud of her; doing things /
a mother could be proud of; having hips /
& knowing how to squeal at the beach laughing /
when the boy down the block picked her up & carried her / & threw her in the water."

To me, that description is eminently sad but also realistic of many teens I knew/know.

Unfortunately, the girl trying to write (and live) a novel bit the boy's shoulder instead of laughing and squealing, "but that couldn’t be in a novel."

The final short stanza provides the kicker -- the girl would change, would "squeal laughing" if the boy dared her to, but she doubts he'll ever ask her to and "there’s no story if there’s no hope of change."

I think the poem has a charmingly bittersweet tone. Yes, the girl's "story" is at a dead end now. But then, that's true for most teens. At least she knows what she wants. Let's hope that someday she gets it and gets to write about it.

I love teenagers and empathize with them because I know they are going through a rough patch of life.

As for waltz's criticism of the poem's syntax, I think it's a pretty good facsimile of the way a literate teen writes and thinks.

(PV, would you consider this poem for your 11th grade class?)

MA

Mary Ann;

Let me take the opportunity to thank you for your long and worthy tenure here on PFray.

This poem. Reminds me of a comment that I once heard about the novels of Henry James - that they border on hardly being about anything. Have only read one or two things by him, so I can't yea or nay the comment. This poem has so many compounds in the wagon, and a horse made of a lot of talk to pull it: poetry - a very heavy realm even to use as a doorstay; the prospect of a test tube novel that amnios early-on as being a premmie or, as it seems, still born; (poem reminds me of that joke about the mosquito in a nudist colony - it knows what to do, but is going nuts about where to start) - then there is the poem's nearly rudderless wallowing inside itself. Perhaps that's the point, a changeful poem about a quandry comprised of disparate things.

Actually, the novel shouldn't be in trouble. From "...Nothing she needs can be got;/if it could she'd go get it:", the following litany of concerns seems certainly to offer enough material to tell several sub-plots as well as plots that leave a great deal of lattitude in how to tell the tale, all of which would serve to drive the style, content, and absolutely enhance the selection of all the technical and artistic demands needed to do the job. The mother-daughter thing - timeless; the friend/boy friend thing, old but ever-changing territory, the idea of self-image: how can the novel be in trouble?

The only thing that I have difficulty connecting with in this poem is the age group suggested by way of the poem's 'she' looking back from her present self to herself within that age group - past on present standing on the mutual cliff of self; the distal of memory treacheries between sweet and horror, roses strung on barbed-wire, the past is a hard place to visit with all the truths in place and of proper proportion.

Not a bad poem. Just wooley.

Best to you, good friend.

Carpe verve.

The only thing that I have difficulty connecting with in this poem is the age group suggested by way of the poem's 'she' looking back from her present self to herself within that age group - past on present standing on the mutual cliff of self; the distal of memory treacheries between sweet and horror, roses strung on barbed-wire, the past is a hard place to visit with all the truths in place and of proper proportion.

hi Bratsche,

To me, the poem's author solves this by having the narrator be the teenaged girl herself, not the adult woman looking back. And I guess that's why I think the "roses strung on barbed-wire" suggest a bittersweet tone, rather than a tragic one.

Glad to see you back.
Mary Ann

it's unfair that i should post negative comments without dedicating the proper time to flesh them out, but i can only do what i can only do.

here is the best part of the poem:
Nothing / she needs can be got; if it could / she’d go get it: the answer to nightmares; /
a mother who’d be proud of her; doing things /
a mother could be proud of; having hips /
& knowing how to squeal at the beach laughing /
when the boy down the block picked her up & carried her / & threw her in the water."

there are simply too many un-best parts.

on a side note about loving teens and teaching teens: me too, but sometimes it costs unexpected and significant emotional tolls. last week my catechism class (8th and 9th grade, plus a smattering of sophomores) derailed our discussion(agreeable to me because of the immediacy of the tangent) to the topic of "feeling less safe." they're listening to their mothers' and fathers' fears over the economy and the election and the war and the world. the consensus was they feel less safe than when they were, say 10 or 12. they're certain it's not because they're more mature or because ten year old ignorance was bliss. they insist they feel less safe because they are less safe.

except for one girl who said, "i felt pretty unsafe when i was ten, but that was a pretty bad year."

damn.

Let's see. I think you meant that the poem uses too many words to make its point. I think that otherwise, the poem wouldn't work, or I don't see how. I think the point is that an artist can be much too close to her material, because, really, there's all kind of novels here. So the repetition illustrates how she hasn't broken these things out. I think it works.

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.

i.e., if you write a poem using too many words in order to demonstrate the effect of too many words, you may be successful in demonstrating the effect, but yours is still a poem with too many words.

i.e., not all object lessons are good ideas.

we cross-posted, and yes. that's what i mean.

for me, it doesn't work, it detracts.

MA - I am not too thrilled with this poem. It reminds me of Dickenson-type 'girly' themes and I just have trouble getting interested. (OK bring it on all you Dickenson fans) I have 3 sons, I was raised as 1 of 3 boys, and the poem reminds of the teenage girls that come and go through the house with my sons. For the most part they all seem fairly unengaged yet consumately self absorbed and I think that's what this poem reflects. If that was the authors intent then it's perfect. Having admitted to being terminally patriarchal by nature and upbringing, and by way of maybe redeeming myself to the women here in the Fray, I offer something I wrote for my mother who even though she was the only 'girl' in the house did have a most lasting influence on me.

(sorry for the large font - I copied and pasted and don't know how to correct it here)

Letters to my Mother

I. I remember when we sat in church,

always in the first pew, heat from

the fire and brimstone of Pastor Senior’s

sermon on our face’s – in our eye’s.

And you singing the hymns.

So loud, I thought

with childish embarrassment,

yet for you as easy

as closing your eye’s in prayer.

II. I always thought it was so cool

when Gran’pa and his friends would

get together, sing barbershop songs

and drink beer. I could feel how

thrilled you’d be when

they let you join in.

It would be many years before

I realized the importance of

that harmony in my life -

and many more before I knew why.

III. I don’t understand people who

can’t be moved to tears by

the sublime sound of human voices

singing in harmony.

They are not to be trusted.

Of all the constructs of man

and the wonders of nature

nothing completes my being

like voices raised in harmony.

Once a part of you, it cannot be removed.

I could just as soon live without air.

IV. This is your gift to me.

It can’t be held or possessed.

It must be passed along

with delight and humility,

surrendered before all wonder.

©Bruce S. Niederer

11/04

the poem is a success because her intent is executed successfully.

That's close to my definition of art. I don't think the poem would draw blood if she didn't bite the guy.

MA - I am not too thrilled with this poem. It reminds me of Dickinson-type 'girly' themes and I just have trouble getting interested

Schizoidman_21, I’m going to find you by Googling your real name and then beat you with a stick. Dickinson wrote scores of poems questioning God, the idea of an afterlife, and other accepted 19th century “wisdom.” She was one tough bird.

…the poem reminds of the teenage girls that come and go through the house with my sons. For the most part they all seem fairly unengaged yet consummately self-absorbed and I think that's what this poem reflects.

Teens of both sexes are by nature self-absorbed as they try to figure out who they are. The third most common cause of teen death is suicide (after accidents and homicides). Male teens are more “successful” with their suicide attempts than girls are. And the leading cause of boys committing suicide is breaking up with a girl.

If you can write a fine poem of gratitude toward your mother, I’ll bet you can work up a bit of empathy for lonely, self-conscious, teenaged girls – and boys.

But it’s OK if you don’t like the poem.

MA

they're listening to their mothers' and fathers' fears over the economy and the election and the war and the world. the consensus was they feel less safe than when they were, say 10 or 12. they're certain it's not because they're more mature or because ten year old ignorance was bliss. they insist they feel less safe because they are less safe.

These kids are going up fast, waltz. The task for their teacher, then, is to suggest to them ways to feel safer in these crazy unsafe times. (and I don't just mean diversifying their portfolios)

MA

Hi, MaryAnn, You probably remember that I have posted some poems by Ponsot. I am rather enamored by her use of forms such as the villanelle and tritina, but I can't detect much form to this piece.

I think waltz makes a good point when she says it's too wordy. There's nothing wrong with a long poem, but the words here fall a little flat.

But you also make a good point when you say Ponsot has captured how a teen might talk. In fact, the one little phrase, "having hips" (as in, if I only had hips) is so great. It's just like a young girl to want to look better, mature faster, focus on other girls' looks and brood waaaay too much on what she sees as her own fatal physical flaws.

In fact, without knowing a date on the poem, I would still place it firmly in the 20th century. Nowadays girls would be "obsessing" on their YouTube videos and text messaging BFFs. The whole day at the beach seems achingly innocent.