sp09250lvaleri

 = = Lorilei Valeri He has written her a St. Valentine's Day love poem. It is very beautiful; it expresses, embodies a passionate, genuine emotion, emotion of a sort he hardly realized himself capable of, tenderness that is like the tenderness of a better man. At the same time, the imagery is hard, diamond clear, the form intricate yet unobtrusive. He says the poem out loud to himself over and over. He cannot believe it, it is so good. It is the best poem he has ever written.
 * "Love Poems" by Lon Otto (1992) **

He will mail it to her tonight. She will open it as soon as it arrives, cleverly timed, on St. Valentine's Day. She will be floored, she will be blown away by its beauty and passion. She will put it away with his other letters, loving him for it, as she loves him for his other letters. She will not show it to anyone, for she is a private person, which is one of the qualities he loves in her.

After he has mailed the poem to her, written out in his interesting hand, he types up a copy for his own files. He decides to send a copy to one of the more prestigious literary magazines, one into which he has not yet been admitted. He hesitates about the dedication, which could lead to embarrassment, among other things, with his wife. In the end he omits the dedication. In the end he decides to give a copy also to his wife. In the end he sends a copy also to a woman he knows in England, a poet who really understands his work. He writes out a copy for her, dedicated to her initials. It will reach her a few days late, she will think of him thinking of her a few days before St. Valentine's Day. 

**Way 1: First impression **
On the surface, it would appear that the story is about a poet who is able to transcend his own emotional limitations on paper. He writes a beautifully passionate love poem of which even he is amazed. In this opening paragraph, I feel connected to the poet. I am not put off at all by his self-satisfaction. I picture him to be a tender, but self critical man.

In the second paragraph, the poet is clearly excited and cannot wait for his love to receive the poem on St. Valentine's Day which he is sure she will cherish. Again, despite the clear self-satisfaction, I still feel connected to the poet. I can relate to the moves we make, the lengths we go to in order to show our love for someone. It does not seem unusual that he would fantasize about how it will be received by his love.

We soon find out that this poem was not written for his wife, but some other love. In fact, he is so proud of this poem, that he cannot save it for her alone. Soon he decides to submit it to a literary magazine, give it to his wife, and send a copy to a woman poet in England. The illusion of the poet as slightly neurotic and slightly narcissistic in his approach to proclaim his love is shattered. I am left feeling like the rug has been pulled out from under me. The poet is a complete narcissist.

**Way 2: Engaging With the text **
In the first sentence, Otto uses alliteration in his verbs to draw out and draw attention to the expected emotion and purpose of love poems, "expresses," "embodies," "emotion." The second sentence reads more compact, succinct and gives an auditory representation of the sentences meaning. "The imagery is hard, diamond clear...."

In the second paragraph, the words convey an impatience or a need to act as the speaker is imagining the response his love will have to his love poem. The use of parallel subject/verb combinations gives the story a linear, almost marching cadence. This symetry continues into the third paragraph with "he types," "he hesitates," "he omits,""he sends." When I read it and hear it read to me, it conjures up a link to the "See Jane run" stories from my childhood, nothing superfluous, just the bare bones.

** Way 3: Form and its relationship to content **
Flash fiction goes by many titles, but all of them refer to the small word count. While there is no "official" set word count, typically it is a story under 1,000 words. Because of its brevity, the use of simple, straightforward sentence structure is vital to flash fiction. By following this form, the author is able to relate the basic notion of the story in the shortest time without losing its impact. In "Love Poems," the flash fiction form which creates a burst of story, mirrors the speaker's momentary burst of epiphany of himself as a lesser man which is then drowned out by his own mind and ego. The form also allows the burst of epiphany for the reader as they are allowed to see who the poet really is at the end of the story.

Flash fiction, like all forms of fiction, has certain form requirements that are essential to convey the story. Most important to a successful story are a beginning, a middle, and an end. "Momentum, Disruption, and Proof of Deflection: A Story in Three Steps" from Bruce Holland Rogers' series of web articles entitled "Short-Short Sighted" further delineates these three elements as they relate to flash fiction. According to Rogers, the beginning introduces us to the character and allows us to see the direction he is going. In the first paragraph of "Love Poems," we are introduced to the character and learn he is a poet that has just written the most emotional and tender love poem he has ever written. Rogers also states the middle must show a potentially life changing event. In "Love Poems," this life changing event is shown through the urgency of the speaker's need to mail the poem to his lover and through his fantasizing about her reaction to the poem. Finally, Rogers explains the ending must contain an unexpected action of the character (Rogers). In "Love Poems," we realize the speaker is not the deep, loving artist we had thought when he shallowly decides to not only submit the poem to a journal for his own ego-filling need for recognition, but also to give the poem to two other women, one of them being his wife. The form of the story may be bare bones, but all of the essential elements are present.

In addition to the overall structure of "Love Poems," Otto utilizes other types of form within the paragraphs to convey his story. Most notably is the use of parallelism. Otto utilizes parallel structure in different ways at different points in the story. In the second paragraph, the use of parallelism propels the story forward and creates momentum. In the final paragraph, the parallel structure of "in the end" shows that none of his final actions really has any more importance than the other; there is no truer or deeper love. In fact, none of the women is any more important than his submission to a literary magazine. Flash fiction uses parallel structure as a "unity of effect, building toward a single climax" (Brown & Yarbrough, 77).

**Way 4: Unpacking Figurative Language**
This phrase is a simile used to compare the tenderness the speaker sees in his poem with the tenderness he would imagine belongs to a better man. Unlike most tropes, this simile does not make a visual comparison to an object, but rather it is a more direct comparison of the speaker to his image of a man who is better than himself. Because it comes at the beginning of the story when we believe he is a man who is going out of his way to write a special poem for his love, the simile comes off as the speaker's modesty. Once we have finished the story, however, that phrase lingers as a moment of self-insight that is otherwise lacking in the speaker. 

**Way 4: Another Example of Unpacking Figurative Language **
The speaker compares his expert use of imagery in his love poem to a diamond. Just like the speakers imagery, a diamond is not only hard and clear, but it is dimensional and reflects its beauty multiplied and outward. This comparison of the speakers imagery to a diamond is a clever use of imagery in itself. The reader is able to visually see the poem's imagery as a precise but brilliant diamond. 

**Way 4: Another Example of Unpacking Figurative Language**
The use of St. Valentine's Day versus the colloquial Valentine's Day reinforces the rising action by elevating the poet's "love" to an ethereal level. St. Valentine's Day conjures images of angels and cherubs; whereas Valentine's Day conjures up Hallmark cards and elementary school. This word choice helps the reader buy into the passionate and ernest love the poet wants to convey to the object of his affection.

**Way 5: Analyzing the Setting **
<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">Due to the brevity of flash fiction, the focus typically rests on the character, the plot, the narrative, the action. Often, setting is one of the elements that is either left completely to the reader's imagination or only the barest facts revealed with the rest left to the reader's imagination. In "Love Poems," we know that it is just prior to Valentine's Day. This fact reinforces the theme of an expression of love. However, the setting also sets up the ironic subtheme of "Love Poems." In particular, as readers when we allow ourselves to be carried away by the passion and the romanticism of the love poems we read, envisioning the sensitive and deep soul who created it, do we really know the true depths of feeling that were used to create that poem? By timing this piece just before Valentine's Day, the most romantic day of the year, the impact of the irony delivers a stronger punch.

Except the time of the story, no other concrete facts regarding setting are given. That does not, however, prevent the imaginative reader from conjuring an office, not just any office, but an office worthy of such a deep and serious writer, possibly overlooking a wooded area that opens to a lake. The furniture would be large and serious. Despite using a computer for his writing, there would be a typewriter for effect. It would be a place that his wife would not enter because she would not want to interrupt his creative process. The room would not have her presence, other than maybe a photo of the two of them laughing on their latest ski trip; it would definately be a masculine, but refined room, maybe even stodgy. While this room does not exist in "Love Poems," it does exist in my imagination as a ponder "Love Poems." That is the beauty, or to some the horror, of the flash fiction genre.

**<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">Way 6: Identify and Analyze Point of View **
<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">"Love Poems" is written in the third-person limited point of view. According to Brown and Yarbrough in __A Practical Introduction to Literature__, "...the third person limited point of view is told by a detached narrator who is not a character in the story, but the story is focused through the consciousness of a single character" (64). We do not know our character by name, but he is fully developed because we are able to know his actions and his thoughts. Additionally, we see the supporting characters only through the speakers concsiousness. The second paragraph, in particular, focuses on the speaker's imagining the reaction of his "love" once she receives the poem. We have no direct or objective information to verify that his fantasizing is accurate.

Although the author does not use a switch to first person in order to facilitate a stream of consiousness, the overall effect of the point of view does approach a first person or "interior voice" (Brown and Yarbrough, 65-66). The reader feels the story more from the speaker's conscious with the narrator's presence slipping into the background. The reader feels they are inside of the speaker's head. Had "Love Poems" been written in the first person, the story would have become too vivid and lost the quality of allowing us to "peer through the window" to watch the story. The first person would have also diminished the ironic subtheme by focusing too much of the story towards the speaker's narcissistic tendencies. The third person omniscient point of view would have shifted the focus of the story and changed the plot of the story. The true feelings of the poem's recipient are not relevant to either the theme or the subtheme of the story. Since there are no real character interactions, the third person objective point of view could not have been used in this story.

<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;"> The genre of flash fiction is not only controversial, it is difficult. Flash fiction does not always follow the rules of most fiction. The specific difficulty in "Love Poems" is the ambiguous theme with few clues to help the reader find their way. There are no lengthy setups; there is not enough written to have a good feel for the author's tone; there is literally just a literary flash that the reader is left to ponder. What is the purpose of "Love Poems?" At first, my disappointment in the speaker closed me to any possibilities within the story. However, after letting it sit and coming back again, I can see that there is possibly so much more there. My difficulty is in determining if this is a moral story in which I mean the moral of the story is "don't believe everything you read," or if this is a prank story in which I mean "the joke's on you." Possibly could this be a longing for the Romanicism of old? Maybe it is the opposite, maybe it is meant to be the reinforcement of the realism of now. And maybe, just maybe, this is just a story about a narcissistic jerk of a writer, maybe even someone the author knows personally.

The story, itself, is straightforward. There language is simple. There is not an abundance of figurative language to wrap myself around. There is no strict form guidelines to pull apart, no specific exceptions to rules that I can twist through my head. I have no rhyme at which to marvel or meter to count. My difficulty is that flash fiction has few rules to guide me in my analysis.

<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">**__Horizontal Thinking: Connecting the Text to Wider Contexts__**
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">**Way 8: Considering Canonicity**
<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">Defining the canon or canonicity is a good place to start when considering the canonicity of "Love Poems." According to Brown and Yarbrough, "...most writing judged to be literary and thus a part of what is referred to as the canon...[has] some combination of its perceived aesthetic and cultural value" (2). Brown and Yarbrough go on, however, to state that the canon is not static, it is as subjective and open to change as society itself. Despite its fluid nature, certain literature has a lifelong membership in the canon because of the mastery of the art of writing. While many people would question the inclusion of flash fiction into the literary canon, some of the most highly regarded writers have created artistic flash fiction long before the term became popular. Some of these writers include Aesop, Chekhov, Kafka, Bradbury, and Hemingway. Certainly Aesop's Fables meet the criteria for canonization through their combination of aesthetic and cultural value. They are, after all, still very relevant and often read. In an online interview for Shattercolors Literary Review, author Kris Saknussemm stated, "Debussy's Etudes are exercises for the piano. Picasso's immense ... print works were exercises for his technical skill and craftsmanship. Some people's exercises are art (and most people's art is an exercise)" (Saknussemm). Therefore, literature is not and should not be precluded from the canon based solely on the flash fiction genre.

The question of whether "Love Poems," in particular, is worthy of canonization must still be considered. While there is certainly amazing technique involved in telling a story in such a condensed word count, I do not believe that is a worthy aesthetic quality. "Love Poems" does contain literary devices and figurative language used in a technically proficient way, however, I again do not believe that the artistry is worthy of canonization. There is certainly an undercurrent of irony that artfully lay hidden until it slaps us in the face upon reaching the climax. While there are these tiny moments of fine aesthetic writing, as a whole, the story just does not transcend the thousands of other great stories that are well written.

Which then leaves us with considering canonization based on cultural value. While the genre of flash fiction certainly is relevant and has cultural value to our technosavvy, on-the-go lifestyle, "Love Poems" does not have a wide-sweeping, universal, or fresh message that either connects or newly illuminates our times and our society. Regardless of which ambiguous theme a reader embraces within "Love Poems," there is no new message that has not been told elsewhere in a more resonating manner. So, while I believe "Love Poems" is a clever, technically well-written example of flash fiction, I do not believe it meets the criteria for canonization.

**<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">Way 9: Biographical Context **
<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">"Love Poems" was published in an anthology of Flash Fiction. In fact, the anthology that coined the term flash fiction. Lon Otto had two books of stories and one chapbook published prior to "Love Poems" inclusion in the anthology. He has been taught at the College of St. Thomas since 1982 and currently holds the title of professor of English. Lon Otto was born in Missouri to a minister and a housewife. According to the University of St. Thomas website, his Ph.D. dissertation was on medieval prosody and four modern poets. He has many areas of specialized teaching including fiction, poetry, and literary magazines. One speciality, in particular, may give some insight into "Love Poems;" that being William Faulkner. William Faulkner is known for among other things, his short stories. Faulkner is known to have skillfully shown the darker side of humanity in unexpected places. Faulkner also used stream of consciousness point of view in many of this writings. He was not a believer in writing or critical theory and felt the only way to become a good writer is by writing (Wikipedia, William Faulkner). It could be argued that Faulkner's influence on Otto can be seen in "Love Poems" through its unconventional genre, its point of view that reads as stream of conscious, and its perversion of the sentimental emotion of love through its perversion of the love poem.

**<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">Way 10: Historical and Cultural Context **
<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">As stated in Way 8, flash fiction is not a new phenomena within literature. However, the popularity of flash fiction has mirrored the exponential growth of personal computers. Flash fiction caters to limits on time and space. The late 20th century could be described as capitalism realized. Time was money and money was time. Out of that mentality came flash fiction, the "commuter friendly" fiction. It can be read on a handheld device, no extra weight and bulk necessary. It is the perfect little story to reinspect the mundane, the everyday, and distort it for effect. It is the Dennis Miller of literature. With an ever expanding visual media, flash fiction may be the odds on favorite for fiction maintaining any stronghold on the westernized, short attention span imagination. Not only has technology impacted the face of fiction, but the ever-increasing secularism and cynicism of our constantly bombarded with information psyche seems unable or unwilling to break from the realism that came post WWI. Having dispelled many of the social and sacred myths, modern man has made an art of picking himself apart. "Love Poems" is a direct reflection of its cultural context not just in its genre of flash fiction, but in its self indulgent inspection of the self indulgent, whether by artful design or by limiting error. <span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">

<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">**Way 11: Theoretical Application - Psychoanalytical**
<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">While some narcisstic tendencies are healthy and allow the individuation from the whole of society, when these tendencies overrun the majority of the ego, the result is a self-destructive, narcissistic personality. Narcissism as a personality disorder can be seen as a with the dual traits of grandiose ideas of self and lack of empathy. "Love Poems" can be seen as a narcissists ode to himself. Just like the greek hero Narcissus, the speaker lacks any empathetic feelings or insight outside of his own self. There is very little mention of the potential consequences of his emotional, if not physical, affairs. His concern for the potential "embarrassment" of a dedication to a woman other than his wife, while ambiguous, seems to be concern for his own embarrassment. Because Narcissus could be cruel in his selfishness, the gods punish him by making him fall in love with his own reflection in a pool. Unable to tear himself away from his own reflection, he dies there. The speaker in "Love Poems" seems unable to get enough of his own written reflection. He can hardly tear himself away from the poem; "He says the poem out loud to himself over and over. He cannot believe it, it is so good." Just as Narcissus was "in the end" killed through his self-idolatry, so is our speaker "in the end" emotionally disconnected if not dead from his inability to see beyond his own ego. The emotion that he most hopes to express will forever allude him because he is incapable of forming deeper, meaningful relationships.

**<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">Way 12: Another Theoretical Application - Feminism **
<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">Despite the speaker's desire to convey deep passion and love, there is no woman present in the story to receive that love. A poststrucural feminist reading of "Love Poems" illuminates the gender specific, "phallogocentric" language of the story (Brown and Yarbrough, 231). The sentence structure is strictly linear and have an almost military cadence and precision. The "...structure, syntax, and grammar..." is functional, black and white, lacks the "ecriture feminine" such as being "poetic" or "free associated" (Brown and Yarbrough, 231). In addition to the language, "Love Poems" gives no humanity to the feminine. None of the women to whom the speaker gives a copy of his poem is ever given a voice outside of the speaker's point of view. In fact, these women do not exist outside of the speakers point of view despite being the perported muses for his emotional and artistic expression. The action, specifically, poly-infidelity, also speaks to the objectification of women in a male-dominated society, the woman as conquest, the man as power, manipulator. The woman as reader would most certainly have a different initial reaction to "Love Poems." The woman as reader must first deal with her engendered reaction as victim and oppressed. As a woman, it is difficult to move beyond the denotative action of the story upon the initial reading. In order to find additional connotative meaning and merit, the female reader must accept the speaker with objectivity, look beyond the betrayal. Denotatively, "Love Poems" sits as a small phallic symbol, but connotatively the reader realizes that size does not matter.

<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">**Way 13: Unifying Interpretation**
<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">"Love Poems" by Lon Otto contains neither the language nor the emotion of love. The writing is straightforward, linear, parallel, common place. The almost military cadence marches the reader through his story. Despite the third person point of view, the narrator's presence is almost non-existent; the reader instead feels as though they are peering into the speaker's mind through a window. As we look through the long, straight hall of the speaker's thought process, we are left in a stunned vertigo when the hallway veers suddenly and violently.

The use of flash fiction and its minimal explanatory and extraneous information precludes a strictly structural interpretation. So much is left to the reader to imagine, assume, connect, that one dominant theme does not overshadow the whole of the piece. With each reading, the potential themes grow exponentially. On the surface, "Love Poems" is a story of a writer's attempt to connect to another through a love poem, but instead engaging in poly-infidelity, at least on the emotional level. However, the small story continues to expand as it sits in the reader's mind. This story is also the story of irony; a narcissist who is unable to experience true, dimensional, and deep love as the writer of love poetry. This story is also the story of grief over society's loss of myth and idealism to the more cynical science and secularism. This story is also the embracing of the truthful, if cynical, reign of society's turn to science and secularism over the fake idealsim and romanticism of old. "Love Poems" is a product of its culture. It caters to the technosavvy public who are on the go and want their enjoyment quick and convenient. It is the elevation of the mundane to heights worthy of inspection, introspection, and theorizing. It is the demolition of romantic ideals and myth in favor of an almost cold, calculating, scientific, and even repulsive view into man's psyche. It rebels against tradition even as it mimics tradition in its stereotypical gender typification.

"Love Poems" by Lon Otto while of the flash fiction genre lingers well beyond the pop of the flash.

_

Works Cited

<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">Brown, James S., and Scott D. Yarbrough. __A Practical Introduction to Literary Study__. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Eduction, Inc. 2005.

"Our Faculty." __Dept. of English__. 2009. __University of St. Thomas__. 8 May 2009. <[edu/english/faculty/ottolon%20.htm|http://www.stthomas.edu/english/faculty/ottolon%20.htm]

Rogers, Bruce Holland. "Momentum, Disruption, and Proof of Deflection: A Story in Three Steps." __Flash Fiction Online__. Aug. 2008. 8 May 2009 <[]>

Saknussemm, Kris. "Shattercolors Standard Interview -- Author Version: Kris Saknussemm." 2006. __Shattercolors Literary Review__. 8 May 2009. <[]>

<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">Gale, Thomson. "Lon Otto." __Contemporary Authors__. 2005. __Gale Literary Databases__. 8 May 2009. [galegroup.com.ezproxy.uwc.edu/servlet/GLD/hitsr=d&origSearch=true&o=DataType&n=10&l=d&c=1&locID=cicctr&secondary =false=CA&t=KW&s=2&NA=lon+otto|<http://galenet.galegroup.com.ezproxy.uwc.edu/servlet/GLD/hitsr=d&origSearch=true&o=DataType&n=10&l=d&c=1&locID=cicctr&secondary=false&u=CA&t=KW&s=2&NA=lon+otto]