http://www.tssys.com/lysander/kim.html (Internet on a CD, 07/1998)Meet Kim Doyle
Kim A. Doyle is renown for his in-depth pondering of everything Lysanderian. Now you can read what he has to say.
Kim Doyle talks about Wish I Was Me
Lysander: Your Lysanderian poetry caught me at an apropos moment. I have just finished reading Northrop Frye’s exegesis
on T. S. Eliots’ poetry (and poetic plays) and his work, Studies in Poetic Archetypes. Frye, as you know I’m sure, believes
in 1) a close reading of the text and 2) relating images and ideas in the text (even the pattern of the text) to recognized
archetypes. For example: the opening lines of Eliots ‘ The Wasteland -- "April is the cruelest month" -- reference the
archetypal lines from the prologue of Chauser’s The Canterbury Tales -- "Whan that Aprile withe the shoure soute/ Hathe to
the roote of Marche/Pierced with swich liquor..." (Middle English version). Individual lines, words, take on unexpected
resonances.
I have given your poem Wish I Was Me the type of reading Frye might have given.
The title says it all. Wish I Was Me. This immediately brings to mind the fracture of modern man. Here it seems more than the
Jungian concept of doppelganger (should be an Umlaut over the ‘o’ but, then, I’d need a Germanische Keyboard, see what
you can do about it, OK?!). The "I" is identified as yang and the "Me" as yin -- sort of like the evil twin concept on the
archetypal show Days of Our Lives. Of course the self viewing itself and seeing itself as two selves becomes, then, three
selves. But the movie Multiplicity already handled this theme. Already handled this theme. Already handled this theme.
I digress. I wish I was me;/Who I’d rather be. Now this line comes directly from a bit of dialogue spoken by John Cleese
in "Fawlty Towers" show #57. That line went , however, I wish me was I/ Else me’d rather die. As Martin Short put it so
concisely: Is it you/Is it me/Is it you? It’s you, isn’t it? The dilemma of modern man, particularly modern Lysanderians, is
that of identity. In the next line, the evil twin is immediately attacked : I’m tired of being you,/ Tired of wearing your
shoes. Who is this you? Lysanderian poetry is replete with puns, anagrams, and word play. It has been said that V.
Nabokov was a "closet" Lysanderian. Perhaps, then, the poet is addressing a sheep. Who is you/ewe? Which makes us think
of that famous Yogi-ism: Who is Yoo-Hoo? This makes it clear that the author is tired of wearing sheeps hooves. In that light
the next line becomes clear: Tired of looking at your toes. (Cloven hoof, devil worship, Satanism, ta-ya-tatta,
ta-ya-tatta...) Tired of wearing your clothes. (wool, no doubt) Tired of living in you state (the animal state, the desire to
be human) Tired of living in your house./Tired of feeding your pet mouse.
Hmmmmm.....Perhaps the you is not a ewe but a you. In which case the you might be the Lysanderian poet’s mother .
Lysanderian poets do spend lengthy gestation periods at home usually until the three moons of Maeria are eclipsed once
each. In this case, then, the line (in the second verse) Tired of being your sex. can be read in many ways. Does the poet
mean tired of being your gender??? Or are their darker meanings. In other/prior lines Tired of your boyfriend Bob./...Tired
of putting up with you ex. , the reader begins to feel that the poet is male.
So many questions. The questions all great verse provoke in us. NEXT, an examination of the punctuation marks. Why, in
rhymed couplets, only one comma????
Click here to read Wish I Was Me!
Kim Doyle talks about Lysanderian Dreams
Lysander: I found all your dreams to be fascinating and fun. It has been shown that people who give their dreams -- the unconscious -- attention have richer and longer dream periods. Dreams, as Carl Jung has noted, (see his book MEMORIES, DREAMS and REFLECTIONS) are your unconscious working for you to recocile issues in your waking life. Jung would take it a step further ; its your unconscious working out "archetypal" issues that man deals with again and again.
Certainly all your dreams have some of the basic "archetypal" patterns. There is a journey of some type (a journey of self-discovery). There are "gatekeeper figures" ("woman at the book store", mother and amie's father, "Ice Cube at the toll booth") who signal you are going to transition into another world
Historically this has been the "underworld" (Odysseus, Aeneas, Jesus, etc) In your first dream you actually do die (are shot). The next archetypal stage is then reached -- re-birth with a transforming vision of the world or into a world transformed.
Dream #2 reflects all these archetypes of the hero's journey (see Joseph Campbell's classic, must read work, THE HERO WITH A THOSAND FACES) and it is a patented sub-genre of this jouney. The rabbit hole has often been seen as the birth canal and you emerge from it, as do we all, with red eyes and a sore head because it isn't big enough. Into the hospital delivery room with bright light and a Mom and Dad to receive you. The rest of the dream recapitulates this event and you are even told something like if you had "broken the dam" it would have been easier. Obviously symbolic of the breaking of water before birth.
These motifs appear again and again in dreams. The journey, the entrance into a new and hostile world, and the return as a transfigured person.
In our daily life, our waking life, we make this journey day-by-day. We wake into a new world where challenges face us, where only our personal courage and vision can transform the mundane into the mystical. We have our little deaths each night when we sleep. And all the while our life's journey goes on towards..what??? "To sleep, perchance to dream...Aye, there's the rub Horatio.." (HAMLET)
Remember Lysander, when you come to the River Styx don't pay the pilot (Archeron) until he gets you to the other side.
Visit the Lysanderian Dream page
Kim Doyle talks about Stuck on a Stepping Stone
It's good to read that the world of Lysanderian poetry is not only composed of rhymed couplets. "Stuck On A Steppingstone" reveals another and more complex side of Lysander. An overall feeling of alienation permeates the lines with echoes of THE WHO's Tommy. For the reader learns that the central figure feels useless "...with no choices,/Like a mute..." And even later in the poem we learn "he feels fear ...feeling no sensations." The "Deaf, Dumb and Blind Kid" sure can't play a mean pinball, in Lysander's world, nor can he even move in the end.
Perhaps, then, a "Lysanderian Generation X'ers" indictment using the "Baby Boomers" own favorite lyrics or echoes of those lyrics. For doesn't "Steppingstone" start off with an echo of The Beatles "A Day in the Life". Compare: "I read the news today, Oh, Boy..." (Lennon/McCartney) to "Our little boy called today..." The dialogue between Mother and Father, again, reminds the reader of similar words, certainly similar feelings in "She's Leaving Home". In that anthem they say: "How could she leave us so thoughtlessly/How could she do this to me." While Lysander writes: "Oh, yes, he's tired of doing things our way."
Even the very image of the steppingstone reminds us of the ersatz Beatles group THE MONKEES who sang: "I'm not your steppingstone...Not your steppingstone."
I once heard another Lysanderian say: "Our parents ruined everything for us -- including sex , drugs and Rock 'n Roll." Thoughts summed up in this line from the poem: "And feeling useless with no choices..." We leave the little boy "stuck on a steppingstone..." He's leaving home.
Bye-Bye.
Read Stuck on a Stepping Stone
email Kim your comments on his comments.
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