Talk:The Hangman (poem)

A spoiler warning for a poem? And is it really a children's poem, it never seemed like one to me.Morrock 20:24, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's a narrative poem so the spoiler warning is appropriate since we are giving away the ending. I would say it is a children's poem, although I would also say that Animal Farm is a children's novel, for much the same reason. Maybe YA is a more appropriate designator. --Mathew5000 23:25, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

" the hangmans scaffold had grown in size.

              Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
              the gallows-tree had taken root." -- Quote From the Hangman.

Things like this don't seem very child friendly. Maybe the messages conveyed would be suitable, but analagies and imagry like this, well... I can't see anyone reading it to a 10 year old, hehe. Alright, I guess there's reason for the spoiler, but the poem isn't JUST narrative. It's mainly about how people will idly stand by and allow something to happen, as long as it doesn't affect them. And uh... you wouldn't happen to know a site with information on Ogden himself would you? Morrock 20:24, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, I don't. Wikipedia does need an article on him. About whether the poem is for children or not, it's hard to say. I would be curious where it was originally published, and some other information about its origins; otherwise we are just speculating. This article badly needs references. Lots of fairy tales and so forth are very violent (grandmother getting eaten by a wolf, kids being cooked alive by a witch) so just because this poem has violent imagery does not mean that it was not intended as a children's poem. --Mathew5000 20:30, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We do badly, though through hours of googling, yahoo'ing and whatnot I could only find references to the poem. Though in my searching, I found a few things we could... "specualte", though that is of course never good enough for wiki. In several large forums, nobody knew if this poem had ever been publish in a book or anthology, or if Ogden had ever written anything else. I forgot about the Grimm Brothers poems and other fairy tales imageries, very true. Though I still think it was written as criticism of things (Isn't this a fun argument, :p ?) like the Holocaust, McCarthyism, or many other incidents involving circumstances similar to this; even though it could pass as a childs story. It's like if Cinderella was originally a critique about spoiled royalty. I love the imagery and analogies in this poem though, my personal favorite. I just with the author had as much information about him floating around as the poem itself does... Morrock 22:49, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and there was this great quote that goes well with this poem, If I can find a link to it, or something, should I add it to the article? Something like, "The nazis took the communists, but I wasn't one, so I watched. Then the jews, but I was protistant, so I watched. etc... Than they came for me, and nobody was there to help." Morrock 22:51, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The other quote you're referencing is "First they came..." by Martin Niemoller. This poem is a good thing to show kids that talk about the holocaust and it shows that u should not stand around and it showed what happen when u do. A commenter at imdb claims Maurice Ogden taught (or still teaches) freshman lit at Coast Community College in Costa Mesa. TGGP (talk) 05:10, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Copyrighted?

Given that the poem was copyrighted in 1959, I've removed the full text that was previously there. (And unintentionally marked it Minor, apologies.) If reproducing it in full is somehow acceptable, please feel free to restore it.Shouriki (talk) 02:43, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]