.

A Hero in My Head

Though never even in the war he loomed
A hero there.  At least in my blond head,
Our father braved it out where Jap planes zoomed

And zapped his buddies.  All but him were doomed
To bit part deaths bespattered with blood red.
Though never even in the war he loomed,

Commander of the troops where Jap bombs boomed
And Tojo’s fighters threatened GIs that he led.
Our father braved it out where Jap planes zoomed

Or where flame throwers shot out fire that bloomed
Death, Death! from his squad.  Beside each boy’s bed,
Though never even in the war, he loomed

As if in ancient general’s helmet, plumed
With nothing more than vivid words he said.
Our father braved it out where Jap planes zoomed           ,

Or when his sub-machine gun spat and fumed
Its bullets as bed-time foes flopped and bled.
Though never even in the war he loomed—
Our father braved it out where Jap planes zoomed.

.

.

Phillip Whidden is an American living in England who has been published in America, England, Scotland (and elsewhere) in book form, online, and in journals. 


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31 Responses

  1. Roy E. Peterson

    The dreams of a young boy of his father being a hero in the Great War must have been the reflections of millions of young lads whose fathers were engaged in a war in some capacity, even if shuffling papers.

    Reply
    • Phillip Whidden

      Roy E. Peterson, I’m ashamed. I would have replied if I had known you had commented. The notification didn’t come through to me. The title I gave the villanelle was “Beeswax Champion.”

      Reply
  2. Margaret Coats

    Phillip, your imaginative view of a father’s heroism really shows how big a boy’s head can become. You make good use of the two contrasting villanelle refrains, with one telling that the father was “never even in the war” and the other how “he braved it out.” A machine-gunner, sole survivor of his unit, commander and general, every aspect of a war hero a little boy could want: these fill the non-repeating lines. Good plan for an action villanelle.

    Reply
  3. Phillip Whidden

    Margaret, you read it thoroughly. Of course you are right in your reading. Most of the irony of the actual situation of my father during the war has to be revealed by that one phrase, “never even in the war.” The poem omits to explain why he was a non-combatant and stayed stateside. The villanelle does imply he was a great story-teller. Two of his sons are great story-tellers. I e-mailed you directly a few days ago about other matters.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thanks for letting me know, Phillip. I don’t have any e-mail from you, and I have checked Spam and Trash as well as my Inbox. Please check whether you used the correct address you received, and try sending again. I look forward to hearing from you.

      Reply
  4. Phillip Whidden

    Margaret, Of course I cannot put into my answer the e-mail address I used because if it is the right one, that I would be making it public. I sent it to the address that the editor sent to me. The e-mail did not come back as undeliverable. I will try the same address again.

    Reply
  5. David Whippman

    Thanks for this cleverly written villanelle. It’s a reminder that most of life is in fact humdrum. Not everyone can be a hero, but maybe the guy in the poem still did his job.

    Reply
  6. Phillip Whidden

    Hello, David Whippman, Yes, you are right. The man in the poem was my father. His brother and my father’s brother-in-law were in the military during the war but my father was not allowed to join the military. The government needed the beeswax from his beekeeping business instead. I was told this was for use in artillery. The title that I gave the villanelle was “Beeswax Champion.” The Society wanted it changed to the title you saw at the top of it. Two of my father’s sons turned out to be very gifted story-tellers like him. He also declaimed poetry to his sons over the years. One of his sons became a poet. Maybe some people might say that THOSE FACTS are what his “job” was.

    Reply
    • David Whippman

      Your dad sounds like a good guy, and he played his part even if not in uniform.

      Reply
      • Phillip Whidden

        David Whippman, Thank you. I know of no enemy of my father throughout his adult life. In fact although he reported much about his life to my brothers and me, he never mentioned any enemies in his childhood or youth either. Unless I am accidentally mistaken I am not far off the mark when I claim that he was universally liked or loved. He had an easy, natural charm.

  7. Tom Wehtje

    Yes! Nice! Now THAT’S a villanelle. Reads well–your expected use of enjambment is admirable and helps to vary it, so that the repetition hits one also as with something new (a new angle or perspective). And the whole imaginary aspect of the topic somehow works very well poetically.

    Reply
  8. Phillip Whidden

    How could I possibly NOT fall in love with your brain, Tom Wehtje? You begin with three totally positive generalizations about the villanelle…and then move on to “close reading” positive comments. I think the Society of Classical Poets should start a contest to give prizes to the brains that send in the bestestest comments on poetry at this website. For what it’s worth, my four favorite things about a villanelle are 1. it’s SHOUTING DEPLOYMENT OF TRADITIONAL TRICKS IN POETY, such as exaggerated repetitions (rhyme, rhythm, line length, whole lines being repeated and repeated); 2. a villanelle’s absolute rejection of Modernism in poetry; 3. its absolute rejection of so-called “freedom” in so-called “free verse”; and (in this particular villanelle and in others of the same calibre) the way that enjambment causes the refrain lines to become something they were not in their earlier iterations. My father (it seems to me) had much more imagination than I have–and assuming you are right about his imaginative abilities, then, yes, they dovetail with the freshly created language in the poem. YOU are a WONDER. A tangent caused by your raising the topic of imagination (in its usual sense) is a thought about my limited ability of brain. Although in a lot of my poems I am forced to come up with fresh language–especially imagery–I am myself not very imaginative. By this claim I mean that when I create unexpected imagery in my poetry that imagery would never have come out of me if the strict rules governing the form of the poem did not FORCE me to come up with images to be expressed in ways that fit the mold of the strictness. I rather suspect that otherwise my imagery might be, at best, ho hum. Thanks be to the Old Testamentey strict God of traditional poetry.

    Reply
    • Tom Wehtje

      Yes, sure enough, such restrictions (such formal rules) can prompt creativity as we struggle to abide by them. But surely {rules/dicta} can also instigate creativity as transgression–yes?

      For example, one potentially productive (or potentially futile?) response to reading your proscription against the possibility of a modernist villanelle would be to sit down and try to write one (or just . . . find one: nominations, anybody? But, oh dear, now we will have to define modernism . . . )

      Reply
  9. Phillip Whidden

    Why, Tom Wehtje, transgress the rules of the villanelle (if that is what you mean)? Why not use the villanelle rules to transgress against everything else except the rules of the villanelle? Why make chocolate ice cream pretending it is vanilla ice cream? In logic that is called a contradiction in terms. That is wildly foolish and will be called out as foolishnesss. There will be no other option. False logic is false logic. It will be false logic. Everyone (Moderrnists or anyone else) out there is fully allowed to write a villanelle that transgressses the rules of the villanelle as long as no one pretends it is a villanelle. It will not be a villanelle. Leave the villanelle rules alone–or leave the villanelle pasture for pastures ever confused.

    Reply
    • Tom Wehtje

      So then write (or find) one that is modernist AND a villanelle. Poets otherwise considered modernists, I think, or at least writing under that influence, wrote villanelles, so . . . how about Sylvia Plath’s famous villanelle “Mad Girl’s Love Song.” Is that not “modernist”? (What then, PRE-modernist?? POST-modernist??) Is the modernist poet who uses the villanelle form “cured” of her modernism? Is modernism (or anti-modernism) that . . . thin?

      Well, are you sure your own fine villanelle doesn’t exhibit characteristics of modernism (or post-modernism)?

      Reply
      • Phillip Whidden

        Thanks, Tom Wehtje. I feel no twitching or swelling in any organ of my body, brain or otherwise, to waste my time considering Modernism (or Pre-modernism or Post-modernism, or whatever). If Plath’s villanelle strictly follows the rules of a villanelle, then it is a villanelle. If not, not. Let’s stick to the point. Feel free to examine the villanelle being discussed in this string of responses. If it is villanelle, then it is a villanelle. If not, it is hoisted on its own petard. Think Haman in the Book of Esther.

    • Joseph S. Salemi

      Phillip, I have no desire to start a fight with Tom Wehtje. I don’t know him, and he has made some sensible comments in his first post about your villanelle. But this is how the trouble starts.

      Somebody suggests “How about if you tried THIS?” And all of a sudden we have people coming up with new ways to screw up a villanelle (or whatever other fixed form they want to tinker with).

      Certainly the sonnet has developed many variant forms since it was invented back in medieval times. And there is nothing wrong with that. But what Wehtje is suggesting is change for the pure sake of change, and just for the hell of it. This is a typical modernist way of sending formal poets off in the wrong direction.

      Am I inflexibly against experimentation? No, not at all. But your spirited defense of how and why a traditional villanelle works, with the three important points that you listed, was the correct approach to fixed-form models if we really are loyal to classical English verse. I don’t see why the hell we should have to sit and write a “modernist villanelle,” as Wehtje seems perfectly happy to suggest.

      My mentor Alfred Dorn once ran a tutorial in fixed-form poetry, and at one session he showed the class how to write a haiku, with the usual 5-7-5 syllable lines. The class did it, but then somebody asked Dorn “Why does it have to be lines of 5-7-5 syllables? Why not something else?” Dorn answered “That’s the way haiku are composed. It is the Japanese traditional form.”

      But the damage was done. Others in the class started demanding why they couldn’t wrote haiku with a different syllable count in the lines. And finally one student said “How about a haiku with a syllable count of 9-1-1? That’s the police emergency number!” Dorn was appalled at this idiocy, but said “OK , go ahead. But what you write will not be haiku.”

      And the class began to write godawful fake “haiku” with a 9-1-1 syllable structure, and congratulated themselves on their creative brilliance. This is how modernism screws us.

      Reply
      • Phillip Whidden

        Joseph S. Salemi, I have no desire to fight with Tom. I think he does not want to fight with me. We disagree, he and I. IF he is suggesting change just for the sake of change (perhaps from his point of view, change for the sake of fun), then that is wrong. It is wrong. It is WRONG. If fun experimentation is needed, do it somewhere else, not in the villanelle patch. That is my stance. I love and loathe the 9-1-1 anecdote. It pretty much “says it all.” Maybe you saw my anecdote about a senior-year art student at the university where I took my second degree who presented as his senior painting exhibtion “paintings” that were gesso slobbered on untreated canvas. Need I say more about the sin of Modernism?

      • Joseph S. Salemi

        Yes, I remember your account of the art student and his gessoed canvases. The entire modernist mentality is encapsulated in that anecdote.

        I recall what a Supreme Court Justice once remarked about pornography, and if it could be defined. He said “I can’t give you a definition of pornography. But I sure as hell know it when I see it.”

        Maybe we should treat modernism the same way.

      • Phillip Whidden

        Joseph S. Salemi, the crucial point for those who feel that they should be creative with the form of the villanelle, as those idiotic students seemed to have thought they should be with the form of haiku, is that they can go be creative everywhere else EXCEPT in the form of the villanelle, the haiku and other formal forms of poetry. They can go off into a corn field and write VILE-anelles from here to infinity for all I care. In that corn field they can write shortened bastardizations of the villanelle (one or two lines shorter than the required number–though to what purpose? I DON’T CARE) so long as they call them villanettes, not villanelles. These corn-field poets can break other rules of the villanelle, out in their corn field. For instance, they could change where the refrain lines are placed in their vile-anelles and villanettes. (VILLAINelles?) But do, please, all you grumpy would-be freedom fighters, cause your little explosions out in your corn fields, just so long as they don’t become thornography in the world of real, classical poetry. Have a fire engine in place to put out the would-be wildfires that might arise from the production of thornography. Otherwise, they might appear in (where else?) California. One difficulty with these “creative” insurgents (sinsurgents) is that they seem to presume that their new creations are equative with the formal forms they a mucking around with. These creations are not equative. In fact they are deliberately non-equative. BAH. Instead of being a form of acceptable creativity, they are a form of declivity…desended directly from the Mortal Sin of Modernism.

      • Drilon Bajrami

        I think Joe is quite correct in what he says in his comment. I actually like having a bit of flexibility in my own poetry: a headless line here, a feminine ending there, maybe even an extra unstressed syllable in a line once per poem (can’t be getting too wild now) but all of these are done because they improve the flow and messaging of the poem. Even with small transgressions like that, the rhythm is kept consistent and the rhymes along with it, always elevates the poetry above the modernist dross you commonly see being celebrated on “popular” and “mainstream” poetry journals.

        And I must say, that is quite the anecote, Joe, and all I have to say is, if I was the lecturer of that class and my students insisted on writing that bullshit for a FIXED-FORM poetry class then they’re getting failed for it. How can they expect to get a passing grade when they aren’t writing fixed-form poetry for the class? It would be like writing a history essay for geography class, even if it’s good quality, it’s not the required work.

        On a seperate but related note, I’m not sure if the haiku form works as well in English as it does in Japanese because Japanese doesn’t actually use syllabes (I assume you already know this, Joe, but maybe others reading this comment won’t) but morae, which are timed units. This means that while a sound could be 1 syllable in English, it can be 1 or 2 morae in Japanese. Of course, this doesn’t mean one cannot write an excellent English haiku but since the form was developed for Japanese, it makes sense that it would work best for that language. My understanding is limited as I’m not a trained linguist but I’m sure I have most of that correct. I much prefer reading traditional forms of English poetry.

      • Joseph S. Salemi

        Dear Drilon —

        You’re right about the haiku. The 5-7-5 structure is a convenience that is used in English poems; in Japanese I believe each haiku is printed as a single line, and does not have countable syllables in our sense. But the person to comment on this is Margaret Coats, who speaks Japanese and knows the culture quite well.

        About the incident with Alfred Dorn and the 9-1-1 haiku business, I should mention that this occurred in a non-academic setting. Dorn gave private lessons to small groups of aspiring poets, charging each of them a nominal fee. The gatherings took place at his home in Flushing. So there was no grading or testing or assignments as you might expect in a classroom. Dorn just talked about formal poetics and meter, read exemplary pieces from the English canon and discussed them, explained important things about rhetoric, tropes and figures, and made points about variations in style. He also handed out xeroxed copies of certain poems and essays that he thought were important.

        He asked students to submit any formal poems that they liked, or that they wished the group to discuss. Naturally the students brought samples of their own work for critique. The sessions would last for about three hours, and Dorn’s wife Anita provided coffee and tea and baked goods as refreshments. The atmosphere was very free and easy.

  10. Phillip Whidden

    Thanks, Joseph S. Salemi. Thanks for even remembering that anecdote. From my point of view (and perhaps only mine) that Justice’s comment is just a personal point of view. As I understand it, there are various gradations (is that the right word? maybe degradations is what I mean) of pornography: soft porn, pornography and hard core porn. Maybe some expert somewhere subdivides the phenomena further. On a slightly related topic, I draw attention to this website’s policy (pronounced to me years ago) that certain words are not allowed in poems if they are to be published here. Since I don’t know what the exact and full list of these forbidden words is, I feel hamstrung. Do you know which ones they are? If so, please tell me. Thanks.

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      No, Phillip — I don’t know any list of forbidden words, and even if it exists I wouldn’t pay any goddamned, swiving attention to it when writing a poem. The SCP isn’t supposed to be a Church.

      Reply
      • Phillip Whidden

        Joseph S. Salemi, Evan Mantyk has just now denied that there are any forbidden words at the Society, words that poets may not use in poems submitted. He ways there have never been a policy there forbidding certain words. It seems I got the wrong impression. If so, I am very sorry.

    • The Society

      Phillip, there is no such policy and never has been. I’m not sure what you are referring to.

      -Evan Mantyk
      SCP Editor & President

      Reply
      • Phillip Whidden

        Evan Mantyk, I posted a reply to your message. I don’t see it yet. My original message about the words included “shit,” “fuck,” and “cunt.” I don’t see that message that I posted.

        Has it been rejected and/or deleted by someone at the Society?

  11. Phillip Whidden

    Evan Mantyk, Dirty words. Shit, fuck, cunt, etc. Please confirm that such words are not forbidden. Thank you.

    I will assure Joseph S. Salemi that you flatly deny that those words, and all others, are not forbidden. Great.

    Phillip

    Reply
    • The Society

      Phillip, there are some filters on the comments section to keep out the riffraff, so to speak, and keep the conversation relatively civil. I thought you were referring to the poetry and essays in the posts. There are no words banned in the content of posts.

      -Evan

      Reply

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