Has anyone read this new collection of poems by Annie Freud? (yes, she is a relative - er, not of me, but of Lucian and Sigmund)

Here is alink to the title poem:
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=8336

Apparently the man is question is Hitler which to be honest turns my stomach.

Firstly, is it Hitler? I suppose there are the references to the Party rings, the guns and poor food which suggest a war situation perhaps. It is clearly a high ranking official, someone with power. It is someone creepy and pervy. It is someone impervious to abhorrence, someone who 'churns in his stinking heaven' and someone who is her assassin of the world. Does all this add up to being Hitler or could it be someone else? What about if the poet says it is Hitler which as far as I know she hasn't publicly?

Secondly, if 'the best man' is Hitler does this completely ruin the poem and the collection? At the moment I feel like it does but I wonder if anyone sees it as a kind of enhancement.

(Just for the record this is not a homework task)

A lot depends on whether the "I" of the poem is the author or a fictitious narrator. But not everything, perhaps, because it's arguable that even when an author is acting a part something of themselves is invitably bound up in their creation.

Oh, and a big hello.

Thanks for the welcome.

I suppose I did read the poem at first as being perhaps in some way related to the poet's own experience. I don't think I was the only one. I seem to rember the reviewer in the Poetry Review mentioning something similar in relation to 'the best man' poem.

However, if the poem is about Hitler then clearly the narrator of the poem is distanced from the poet herself and instead is a kind of persona. Although for all I know Annie Freud is not adverse to a bit of spanking, but I guess that is out of the realms of the poem itself.

It is just that if the man is Hitler then the focus of the poem moves away from the woman's voice and it inevitably throws the man into focus. Well, at least that's what I don't like about it.

I liked it. I suppose it could be read as about Hitler, but just as easily about any other 'dangerous' man who women find themselves attracted to. Not literally, but it could have been read as from Leni Reifenstahl or the woman who was his secretary in the bunker. There was clearly an admiration or a fear/love/respect combination for the man from the women around him. But how different is that from the wives or lovers of any dangerous public (or, in fact, private) figure?

Surely there's a romance about flying too close to the flame. Add to that the formality of the experience (the signing in; the pre-meeting briefing) and the feeling of 'this is special, therefor I am special' is palpable.

And tapping into that feeling shouldn't necessarily be off-putting just because we don't like the supposed subject. Poetry should take you to new places.

Yes, I totally agree - the whole 'flying too close to the flame' feel from the woman, going against the mores of her family, escape into a more exciting world, the being close to power, and the price of submission were all fascinating I thought. I suppose I just go 'yuk' if it is Hitler. It kind of warps things for me.

Sorry - being thrown out of the Internet cafe right now. Can't add more for the moment.

QUOTE:
I suppose I just go 'yuk' if it is Hitler. It kind of warps things for me.

Yes, but this is a very easy trap to fall into when it comes to the man. Transport yourself back to Germany in, say, oh...anywhere from 1933 to 1942-ish...and you'd have a different perspective on him than we have with the benefit of hindsight. Then, he was a powerful and charismatic leader who'd restored much of Germany's self-respect/dignity/honour (maybe not the right words, but I can't find it) and pulled them out of the muck and despair that existed since the end of WWI. While his flaws were well-known to his contemporaries, they'd likely have been invisible to the average single woman with a bit of a gleam in her eye for the man. How he was seen in the early years, by Germans, is far different than he's seen today by 'us'.

Oh, and welcome.

Thrown out of an Internet café? How does one achieve that?

Exactly, WOM. Easy to forget that Hitler wasn't the cartoon villain he is regarded as now. Still, even then he must have caused at least as much unease as did Dubya did to many in 1999/2000.

And welcome jane doe; a cracking start to what will hopefully a long stay here (unless you're a formner poster going by a new name, in which case I'd ask: "And who the feck were you back home?").

I'm starting to suspect jane doe is a marketing plant.

Unless all 560 OTF members have rushed out to buy the collection, I suspect it's one doomed to failure. No one's pulled this on us since Trev Meath's The Ironical Hooligan.

No I am really not trying to market this book! Does no one else here read modern collections of poetry on this board?

I am afraid to post about any more collections now in case people think I'm trying to flog them. I'm actually a teacher and a former lurker from the old OTF. I did post once during the 2002 FIFA world cup and someone gave me an excellent betting tip for the Denmark-France match and some of my colleagues and I made quite a lot of money. Unfortunately after that I suggested some non-OTF approved bets and some of us lost a large part of it. Yes, taught me a lot about gambling that did.

Don't fret about WOM's misgivings. It'd be a radical marketing scam indeed that tried to awake interest in something by saying it makes you feel a bit icky.

Anyway, I think it's possible to read something a bit broader and allegorical into the poem. It could be seen as a metaphorical explanation of how people fall into rapturous support of the most unpleasant leaders. Hitler's support wasn't coerced, it willingly and democratically submitted - at least, at first. And the same could apply to all sorts of other figures who were adored despite grinding down (all but a select few of) the very people who adored them. Margaret Thatcher, it is well documented, excited a real sexual frisson among some of her underlings.

The poem seems a bit overwrought, though, to me too deliberately written to shock. And perhaps courting the controversy about a possible association with Hitler, or fascism, a bit obviously: what's the "corded sheaf of birch twigs" if not an intended evocation of the fasces?

Apologies for my suspicions, jane. Please don't let that keep you from posting again. I work in advertising, so I'm perhaps a little too finely tuned when it comes to...er...non-traditional marketing approaches. Discussion boards are actually a very good way to start guerilla word-of-mouth campaigns, so I suspected we'd been had.

Now, on with more poetry.

Thanks to you both for your reassurances.

Blimey, Andy C, I hadn't caught 'the corded sheaf of birch twigs' as being faeces! I thought it was for the spanking later, but actually on rereading I see there is the newspaper and the way he washes his hands and also the strange 'so pure, so natural' comments.

I guess it is a poem that yields up its meaning only by very close reading. I do think that it is different to read the poem without the key knowledge that it refers to Hitler and to read it knowing that it does. I don't think that it is very clear that this is who it is refering to, which is one of my objections - I felt sullied on the discovery. However, maybe that is also part of the effect. That some people/women of the time were unable to 'read' Hitler for who he really was.

Anyway, thank you for your comments on the poem. It has made me see it in a different way and get a bit beyond 'yuk'. Btw Andy, if you think this is over-wrought I suspect you won't enjoy the rest of the collection (assuming you haven't read it).

Just wondering, but who has suggested it's Hitler?

Fasces, not faeces!

You're correct to assume that this poem is new to me.