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Post by booklady on Apr 15, 2007 19:26:20 GMT -5
Weeeeeellllllllll, perhaps you have a friend over there whose work you should check on now and then. This is exactly the kind of pointing I'm talking about. Merci beaucoup! Grrrr. I wrote a great travel piece about going to Hibbing, and somebody gave me a "9" rating with no comment.
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Post by booklady on Apr 15, 2007 19:30:50 GMT -5
Gail, these three are my favorite Audens. I can't make up my mind which one I like the best.
Musée des Beaux Arts About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters; how well, they understood Its human position; how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting For the miraculous birth, there always must be Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating On a pond at the edge of the wood: They never forgot That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on. The Labyrinth Anthropos apteros for days Walked whistling round and round the Maze, Relying happily upon His temperment for getting on.
The hundredth time he sighted, though, A bush he left an hour ago, He halted where four alleys crossed, And recognized that he was lost.
"Where am I?" Metaphysics says No question can be asked unless It has an answer, so I can Assume this maze has got a plan.
If theologians are correct, A Plan implies an Architect: A God-built maze would be, I'm sure, The Universe in minature.
Are data from the world of Sense, In that case, valid evidence? What in the universe I know Can give directions how to go?
All Mathematics would suggest A steady straight line as the best, But left and right alternately Is consonant with History.
Aesthetics, though, believes all Art Intends to gratify the heart: Rejecting disciplines like these, Must I, then, go which way I please?
Such reasoning is only true If we accept the classic view, Which we have no right to assert, According to the Introvert.
His absolute pre-supposition Is - Man creates his own condition: This maze was not divinely built, But is secreted by my guilt.
The centre that I cannot find Is known to my unconscious Mind; I have no reason to despair Because I am already there.
My problem is how not to will; They move most quickly who stand still; I'm only lost until I see I'm lost because I want to be.
If this should fail, perhaps I should, As certain educators would, Content myself with the conclusion; In theory there is no solution.
All statements about what I feel, Like I-am-lost, are quite unreal: My knowledge ends where it began; A hedge is taller than a man."
Anthropos apteros, perplexed To know which turning to take next, Looked up and wished he were a bird To whom such doubts must seem absurd.
Villanelle Time can say nothing but I told you so, Time only knows the price we have to pay; If I could tell you, I would let you know.
If we should weep when clowns put on their show, If we should stumble when musicians play, Time can say nothing but I told you so.
There are no fortunes to be told, although Because I love you more than I can say, If I could tell you, I would let you know.
The winds must come from somewhere when they blow, There must be reasons why the leaves decay; Time can say nothing but I told you so.
Perhaps the roses really want to grow, The vision seriously intends to stay; If I could tell you, I would let you know.
Suppose the lions all get up and go, And all the brooks and soldiers run away? Time can say nothing but I told you so. If I could tell you, I would let you know.
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Post by slb2 on Apr 15, 2007 19:32:45 GMT -5
This is exactly the kind of pointing I'm talking about. Merci beaucoup! Grrrr. I wrote a great travel piece about going to Hibbing, and somebody gave me a "9" rating with no comment. Seriously, Bookie? I've given 9 or 8 ratings without comment. I don't usually rate, but sometimes... I mean, if a piece is a ten, well, then! But a nine is still excellent. and it wasn't me
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Post by booklady on Apr 15, 2007 19:38:11 GMT -5
I like 10s.
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Post by ptcaffey on Apr 15, 2007 20:59:46 GMT -5
BK: Excellent Auden quote earlier.
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Post by slb2 on Apr 15, 2007 22:56:49 GMT -5
but books, don't you think all those tens lack sincerity?
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Post by gailkate on Apr 15, 2007 23:32:57 GMT -5
Yes, PT, it is great. Thanks BL, this quote and the poems slb has posted have me as pumped about Auden as you are about Dylan. (Though, were he alive, he could only accept platonic passion from me.)
What he says about the subject matter not being so important is true only very early on, as his own work shows. "Musée des Beaux Arts" could be the textbook illustration of his second theory of poetry: "Poetry as a game of knowledge, a bringing to consciousness, by naming them, of emotions and their hidden relationships."
There's an echo of Musée in this, another favorite of mine. People remember Part III, but I especially like the first two parts. "Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry" says what Auden really thought about where poetry comes from.
In Memory Of W.B. Yeats W. H. Auden I
He disappeared in the dead of winter: The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted, The snow disfigured the public statues; The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day. What instruments we have agree The day of his death was a dark cold day.
Far from his illness The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests, The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays; By mourning tongues The death of the poet was kept from his poems.
But for him it was his last afternoon as himself, An afternoon of nurses and rumours; The provinces of his body revolted, The squares of his mind were empty, Silence invaded the suburbs, The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers.
Now he is scattered among a hundred cities And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections, To find his happiness in another kind of wood And be punished under a foreign code of conscience. The words of a dead man Are modified in the guts of the living.
But in the importance and noise of to-morrow When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse, And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed, And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom, A few thousand will think of this day As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual. What instruments we have agree The day of his death was a dark cold day.
II
You were silly like us; your gift survived it all: The parish of rich women, physical decay, Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry. Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still, For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives In the valley of its making where executives Would never want to tamper, flows on south From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs, Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives, A way of happening, a mouth.
III
Earth, receive an honoured guest: William Yeats is laid to rest. Let the Irish vessel lie Emptied of its poetry.
In the nightmare of the dark All the dogs of Europe bark, And the living nations wait, Each sequestered in its hate;
Intellectual disgrace Stares from every human face, And the seas of pity lie Locked and frozen in each eye.
Follow, poet, follow right To the bottom of the night, With your unconstraining voice Still persuade us to rejoice.
With the farming of a verse Make a vineyard of the curse, Sing of human unsuccess In a rapture of distress.
In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountains start, In the prison of his days Teach the free man how to praise.
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Post by booklady on Apr 16, 2007 7:22:33 GMT -5
(Pssst...I posted the Auden poems -- he's my favorite poet who isn't also a musician.)
I don't think I would like Dylan today if a colleague of mine at school hadn't handed me a W.B. Yeats poem four or five years ago and asked me for my interpretation and thoughts. That poem, which I'll c&p below, got me started reading and thinking about poetry for the first time in my life (even though I'm an English major), and led me to Yeats, Plath, Auden, Cisneros, and others (including Bob Dylan). I just never thought I could "get" poetry. Now I know I often don't "get" poetry and it doesn't matter. I just love the words, the sound, the look of it.
I studied Yeats a bit that year, and thought him sort of a lunatic (his affection for the scary-looking Maude Gonne one indication). My favorite Yeats poem may be his simplest and most straight-forward:
A Drinking Song Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That's all we shall know for truth Before we grow old and die. I lift the glass to my mouth, I look at you, and I sigh.
And here is the poem that opened the poetry door for me:
The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
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Post by booklady on Apr 16, 2007 7:27:59 GMT -5
What I like about Musée des Beaux Arts is how beautifully he shows how placidly and cluelessly life goes on when we are in the midst of terrible ordeals and tragedies.
This is another that is among my favorites:
Another Time For us like any other fugitive, Like the numberless flowers that cannot number And all the beasts that need not remember, It is today in which we live.
So many try to say Not Now, So many have forgotten how To say I Am, and would be Lost, if they could, in history.
Bowing, for instance, with such old-world grace To a proper flag in a proper place, Muttering like ancients as they stump upstairs Of Mine and His or Ours and Theirs.
Just as if time were what they used to will When it was gifted with possession still, Just as if they were wrong In no more wishing to belong.
No wonder then so many die of grief, So many are so lonely as they die; No one has yet believed or liked a lie, Another time has other lives to live.
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Post by booklady on Apr 16, 2007 10:13:13 GMT -5
Now HERE'S a poem, in honor of Patriot's Day, in Massachusetts: The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere
Listen my children and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five; Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, "If the British march By land or sea from the town to-night, Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch Of the North Church tower as a signal light,-- One if by land, and two if by sea; And I on the opposite shore will be, Ready to ride and spread the alarm Through every Middlesex village and farm, For the country folk to be up and to arm."
Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffled oar Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore, Just as the moon rose over the bay, Where swinging wide at her moorings lay The Somerset, British man-of-war; A phantom ship, with each mast and spar Across the moon like a prison bar, And a huge black hulk, that was magnified By its own reflection in the tide.
Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street Wanders and watches, with eager ears, Till in the silence around him he hears The muster of men at the barrack door, The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet, And the measured tread of the grenadiers, Marching down to their boats on the shore.
Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church, By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread, To the belfry chamber overhead, And startled the pigeons from their perch On the sombre rafters, that round him made Masses and moving shapes of shade,-- By the trembling ladder, steep and tall, To the highest window in the wall, Where he paused to listen and look down A moment on the roofs of the town And the moonlight flowing over all.
Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead, In their night encampment on the hill, Wrapped in silence so deep and still That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread, The watchful night-wind, as it went Creeping along from tent to tent, And seeming to whisper, "All is well!" A moment only he feels the spell Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread Of the lonely belfry and the dead; For suddenly all his thoughts are bent On a shadowy something far away, Where the river widens to meet the bay,-- A line of black that bends and floats On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride, Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere. Now he patted his horse's side, Now he gazed at the landscape far and near, Then, impetuous, stamped the earth, And turned and tightened his saddle girth; But mostly he watched with eager search The belfry tower of the Old North Church, As it rose above the graves on the hill, Lonely and spectral and sombre and still. And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height A glimmer, and then a gleam of light! He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns, But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight A second lamp in the belfry burns.
A hurry of hoofs in a village street, A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark, And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet; That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light, The fate of a nation was riding that night; And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight, Kindled the land into flame with its heat. He has left the village and mounted the steep, And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep, Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides; And under the alders that skirt its edge, Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge, Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.
It was twelve by the village clock When he crossed the bridge into Medford town. He heard the crowing of the cock, And the barking of the farmer's dog, And felt the damp of the river fog, That rises after the sun goes down.
It was one by the village clock, When he galloped into Lexington. He saw the gilded weathercock Swim in the moonlight as he passed, And the meeting-house windows, black and bare, Gaze at him with a spectral glare, As if they already stood aghast At the bloody work they would look upon.
It was two by the village clock, When he came to the bridge in Concord town. He heard the bleating of the flock, And the twitter of birds among the trees, And felt the breath of the morning breeze Blowing over the meadow brown. And one was safe and asleep in his bed Who at the bridge would be first to fall, Who that day would be lying dead, Pierced by a British musket ball.
You know the rest. In the books you have read How the British Regulars fired and fled,--- How the farmers gave them ball for ball, From behind each fence and farmyard wall, Chasing the redcoats down the lane, Then crossing the fields to emerge again Under the trees at the turn of the road, And only pausing to fire and load.
So through the night rode Paul Revere;= And so through the night went his cry of alarm To every Middlesex village and farm,--- A cry of defiance, and not of fear, A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door, And a word that shall echo for evermore! For, borne on the night-wind of the Past, Through all our history, to the last, In the hour of darkness and peril and need, The people will waken and listen to hear The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed, And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
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Post by booklady on Apr 16, 2007 10:15:43 GMT -5
All right, just one more. I've gone poetry mad, thanks to you, Gail. Did you all know that two British soldiers are buried at the Old North Bridge?
Concord Hymn Sung at the Completion of the Battle Monument, April 19, 1836 BY the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world. The foe long since in silence slept; Alike the conqueror silent sleeps; And Time the ruined bridge has swept Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. On this green bank, by this soft stream, We set to-day a votive stone; That memory may their deed redeem, When, like our sires, our sons are gone. Spirit, that made those heroes dare To die, and leave their children free, Bid Time and Nature gently spare The shaft we raise to them and thee.
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Post by gailkate on Apr 16, 2007 14:38:34 GMT -5
What a bonanza, BL. Yes, the Irish rebellion poems are as visceral as they get, to use anja's word. What amazes me about "The Second coming" is that it is always brand new. He wrote the final word for the 20th cnetury and now our own.
I guess it's a fine thing for us that his love was unrequited, poor man.
And look at these stirring anthems to our nation's birth! Kids used to have to memorize these poems whole. Whew. This is how I remember the 18th of April in '75, but I sure can't recite the rest.
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Post by booklady on Apr 16, 2007 15:37:57 GMT -5
At our school we have a speech meet every other year. This was a year for it. "The Concord Hymn" is one of the choices for my fifth-graders, and someone has chosen it the past two meets. One of our seventh graders (a former student of mine ) memorized "The Highwayman" this year!! Shades of Anne Shirley!
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Post by Trusty on Apr 19, 2007 0:02:08 GMT -5
I wish I could figure out how to write about a personal experience, or write from a personal experience, without it being so damn personal -- to make it so the reader is experiencing the story instead of voyeuristically watching me experience it. This is a problem for me for both poetry and fiction based on experience. The other morning over coffee I was watching Strawberry reading - watching her facial expressions as she reacted to the words on the page. I was watching sweet innocent expressions from one who always has a book in her hand - one who had to teach herself to read because she had grown up in the city limits of Detroit with an education system that is geared to produce engineers for the auto industry, an education system that teaches math at the expense of literature. So she reads slowly, but thoroughly. I watched, and this thought came into my mind: "When you start seeing the words of the book through the eyes of the author of the book, you will never want to see the words of that book through your own eyes again." I've had to buy and build many bookshelves in our house. Strawberry is continually loading them with new books and classics. I looked around and saw all sorts of different titles - from War and Peace to Lake Wobegone Days. I wondered what it was like to see the words the way the author saw them - and felt about them - as they were written. I started applying this thought to every book I saw. And then, near the middle of the third shelf from the floor, was the family Bible.
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Post by ptcaffey on Apr 19, 2007 5:48:33 GMT -5
Speaking of moral instruction...
Villon’s Straight Tip to All Cross Coves
(William Ernest Henley’s rendition of François Villon’s "Ballade de bonne doctrine a ceulx de mauvaise vie" done in 19th-century thief argot)
Suppose you screeve? or go cheap-jack? Or fake the broads? or fig a nag? Or thimble-rig? or knap a yack? Or pitch a snide? or smash a rag? Suppose you duff? or nose and lag? Or get the straight, and land your pot? How do you melt the multy swag? Booze and the blowens cop the lot.
Fiddle, or fence, or mace, or mack; Or moskeneer, or flash the drag; Dead-lurk a crib, or do a crack; Pad with a slang, or chuck a fag; Bonnet, or tout, or mump and gag; Rattle the tats, or mark the spot; You can not bank a single stag; Booze and the blowens cop the lot.
Suppose you try a different tack, And on the square you flash your flag? At penny-a-lining make your whack, Or with the mummers mug and gag? For nix, for nix the dibbs you bag! At any graft, no matter what, Your merry goblins soon stravag: Booze and the blowens cop the lot.
THE MORAL
It’s up the spout and Charley Wag With wipes and tickers and what not. Until the squeezer nips your scrag, Booze and the blowens cop the lot.
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Post by gailkate on Apr 20, 2007 9:17:23 GMT -5
Brilliant - as is much hip-hop invention. The references are mighty similar, too, adding to our puzzle over what deserves to be censored.
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Post by Trusty on May 10, 2007 18:34:58 GMT -5
How is THIS a poem? Billy Collins follows in the footsteps of music videos with animated poetry. Seems he has done a few.
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Post by joew on May 10, 2007 21:50:23 GMT -5
Even without the animation, of course, it has elements like the bit about the southern hemisphere of the brain (actually the recognized hemispheres are left and right, if I remember rightly) with the fishing village where there are no telephones — an extended metaphor — the apparent reference the the River Lethe, the connection of the moon to a love song, which raise it above the level of prose. The animation adds to the enjoyment, like illustrations on a printed page. But my brother, seated beside me at his computer, was chuckling without looking at my screen; and I think it would work even in unadorned print. But being spoken does improve it, as is often the case with humor
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Post by ptcaffey on May 11, 2007 2:46:03 GMT -5
It was Julian Grey, of Headgrear Animation, who did these video adaptations of three poems by Billy Collins; they aired on the Sundance Channel. I saw one of the three there; it may even have been "Forgetfulness." I can't quite remember. But they're very cool. Thanks for reminding us, T.
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Post by gailkate on May 11, 2007 9:14:25 GMT -5
This is fun and I'll check out the others, but Joe is right: they're fine without the animations. The whole point of a poem is to evoke images that grow and deliquesce in the reader's mind. I'm going to be haunted by the memories in my spleen all day.
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Post by gailkate on May 19, 2007 8:32:59 GMT -5
OK, here's another. It came to me on a daily poetry site and I have very mixed reactions to it. I think of Mansfield as a short story writer, or maybe I'm mixing her up with Katherine Anne Porter. Anyway, what's good, what needs work, what should have been scrapped?
Camomile Tea by Katherine Mansfield.
Outside the sky is light with stars; There's a hollow roaring from the sea. And, alas! for the little almond flowers, The wind is shaking the almond tree.
How little I thought, a year ago, In the horrible cottage upon the Lee That he and I should be sitting so And sipping a cup of camomile tea.
Light as feathers the witches fly, The horn of the moon is plain to see; By a firefly under a jonquil flower A goblin toasts a bumble-bee.
We might be fifty, we might be five, So snug, so compact, so wise are we! Under the kitchen-table leg My knee is pressing against his knee.
Our shutters are shut, the fire is low, The tap is dripping peacefully; The saucepan shadows on the wall Are black and round and plain to see.
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Post by slb2 on May 19, 2007 11:15:58 GMT -5
On first read, it seems nice. For me, not too full of poignant images. I always like the iambic foot--it eludes me, imo. (One reason that mike's words attract me.)
I do like my knee is pressing against his knee--how it personalizes the poem, makes it more intimate. But I don't find anything too clever, not much to make me say, "Mmmm. What a poem!"
Still, it's pleasant to read. I think much of America likes a poem that uses cuteness, rhyme, rhythm, not that Mansfield was driving for that goal, that is, of writing something palpable to the masses. But she has.
And I've read it again by this point. I enjoyed it.
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Post by joew on May 19, 2007 21:47:21 GMT -5
First and third stanzas tell what is happening outside. Fifth stanza says the shutters are closed. She can't see what is going on outside.
Maybe I've read too carelessly but I don't see a parallel between the events outside and those inside. What does one have to do with the other?
And the images of the fifth stanza are altogether too commonplace to set beside the fantastical ones of the third, or even the vivid nature imagery of the first. Instead of a connection with nature outside, the poem makes a disjunction. The images are well enough crafted, and each stanza is alright in itself, but taking it as a whole it strikes me as incoherent.
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Post by gailkate on May 20, 2007 17:39:31 GMT -5
When I first read the poem, it came with an interruption - an ad, or listing of other topics - so that the poem seemed to end after the 4th verse. If you read it that way, it's a much better poem, don't you think? The focus then is on the coziness and intimacy. I hadn't thought about the imagery that Joe sees as incoherent, but I see his point. Lopping off the last verse helps, but the witches maybe are too fantastical. I found the rhyme and meter too sing-songy. The reference to the cottage on the Lee too private. In fact, I didn't like it much till the last line - which turned out not to be the last line! Let this be a lesson to all our writers who sometimes feel unappreciated. Lots of published poetry by respected writers can be picked to bits.
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Post by joew on May 20, 2007 18:44:33 GMT -5
At your service!
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Post by ptcaffey on May 21, 2007 0:52:39 GMT -5
//I don't see a parallel between the events outside and those inside. What does one have to do with the other? ...it strikes me as incoherent.//
Well, as I read it, the narrator of the poem is sharing a cozy moment with her lover. Descriptions of the roaring sea and the wind that shakes the trees accentuate said coziness. Once the witches begin to fly and the goblins start toasting bumble-bees, coziness has tipped over into romantic bliss, a dreamlike state wherein the impossible comes true (i.e., a rocky relationship is rekindled). "We might be fifty, we might be five!" The heady romantic rush continues, years are shaved magically away, and then--and this is the critical part--the narrator begins to narrow her focus to concrete images in the Present Moment: the pressing knees, the shut shutters, the low fire.
In cinematic terms, it's a a long-shot:
Outside the sky is light with stars; There's a hollow roaring from the sea.
Then close-up:
The saucepan shadows on the wall Are black and round and plain to see.
The shadows suggest, by way of the shrinking firelight, a growing intimacy. Abstract thoughts give way to the immediacy of sensations (i.e, black, plain, round). The image of a saucepan tells us that something's cooking! What is "plain to see" is where, this night, this relationship is headed.
What a poem!
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Post by joew on May 21, 2007 9:49:40 GMT -5
You must be an English Major, PT.
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Post by gailkate on May 21, 2007 10:08:04 GMT -5
I've been thinking about a classified ad for him: Poem Polisher - Add depth, texture, unintended meaning to your work. Reas. PT, www.spiffup.com.
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Post by ptcaffey on May 21, 2007 15:40:47 GMT -5
Hee hee
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Post by gailkate on May 22, 2007 22:45:32 GMT -5
I can't critique this one. From the Writer's Almanac a couple of days ago, a treat I want to be sure you all see:
Poem: "Appeal to the Grammarians" by Paul Violi, from Overnight. © Hanging Loose Press, 2007. Appeal to the Grammarians
We, the naturally hopeful, Need a simple sign For the myriad ways we're capsized. We who love precise language Need a finer way to convey Disappointment and perplexity. For speechlessness and all its inflections, For up-ended expectations, For every time we're ambushed By trivial or stupefying irony, For pure incredulity, we need The inverted exclamation point. For the dropped smile, the limp handshake, For whoever has just unwrapped a dumb gift Or taken the first sip of a flat beer, Or felt love or pond ice Give way underfoot, we deserve it. We need it for the air pocket, the scratch shot, The child whose ball doesn't bounce back, The flat tire at journey's outset, The odyssey that ends up in Weehawken. But mainly because I need it—here and now As I sit outside the Caffe Reggio Staring at my espresso and cannoli After this middle-aged couple Came strolling by and he suddenly Veered and sneezed all over my table And she said to him, "See, that's why I don't like to eat outside."
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