Hey Paul,
I've had a look at your website and some of your other poems, and I definitely think you have a unique voice when it comes to expressing your thoughts. This poem here has some nice wording in it. My main suggestion would have to do with your overall meaning. I'll go into more detail below:
(04-10-2017, 04:12 AM)Paul Welsh Wrote: [ -> ]The sailing of a bare Seagull Sea -Is "Seagull Sea" a place? Why is it capitalized?
on field and path, on road and roof
heard radio sound effects man giving birds two deaths -I like this line, and I think it is the strongest line in the entire poem. It creates a wonderful image in my mind.
all my eye-catching gone Go-Birds -Is "Go-Birds" alluding to something?
sick smell the sick
investigate the Burke and Hare rooms -I googled this. Is this a reference to murder?
guilt formation in the new times
opened cognac in olden times before all this Heaven - I like the way these last two lines sound, yet I find the meaning unclear.
https://paulwelsh27.wordpress.com
I find I've read this poem over and over, and still didn't understand what you were trying to say in some lines. Poetry is a difficult balance because you don't want your poems to be too obvious and blunt, but at the same time, if they are too cryptic, then you risk alienating the reader. I know this is a balance I often struggle with in my own writing. I look forward to reading more of our poetry.
Cheers,
Richard
Hi Richard,
Thanks for reading, thanks for the feedback and thanks for visiting my WordPress site
I understand fully your point on interpretation, how difficult it is for new eyes to see anything conclusive here and with many (all?) other poems I've written. Me writing poetry is rather and odd development. When I started to write, I began to write short stories, tried my hand at novels, but found it difficult to pull enough together to make an impact with novels, and I thought the short stories were better than the two unfinished novels, concision seemed to be my thing. I never really gave poetry a thought, and I sort of stumbled across poetry by accident. I've a history honours degree, which is mainly made up of American History courses, so over time have been drawn to American authors, and in 2011 I read Charles Bukowski's novel 'Ham on Rye', a great American novel, and was surprised to learn he was originally a poet, only wrote novels to make enough money to leave his job at the Post Office, as an author he was an interesting man, a breath of fresh air. Here in the UK so much in the 'Literary World' is dominated by the middle classes, it's what acceptable to them that gets published mainly, but not always. When I started to dabble in poetry I really had no idea what the hell I was doing, and it was crap, absolute cobblers, sentiment and saccharine, it made me sick! I think then I was attempting to write like a 'Poet', what I thought a poem should be, which now, I know is a mistake. The style you see here, on WordPress too, is an evolution from that disappointment I suppose. It could be temporary though, I've a few other unpublished poems that are less tangled in form, but again, they don't have the same impact for me, but do have other qualities perhaps? and maybe that's were any issue with this rather surrealist contemporary style lies, I'm writing for 'Me'.
Anyway, this poem itself, I'll try and explain it -
L1 - We start in a fictitious place, but also on a real sea, 'The Seagull Sea', he's ignoring established order, it's mutiny, he's self-naming, the reason for this is later.
L2 - He realises he's never seen a dead seagull at sea, only other types of dead birds, and only on land, as road-kill for example.
L3 - Back on dry land, he's listening to the radio, there's an interview with a man who collects and cooks road kill, then the interviewer has and idea, asks the man to cook two dead birds live on air, to prove he's genuine about eating road-kill, the birds of course are already dead and he fries them live, kills them again.
L4 - A lament for all the beautiful birds he's seen over the years, alive and dead, listening to the radio, he doesn't know, but decides the two birds being fried are two of the most beautiful, probably.
L5 - He's angry, for him, the radio programme is debauchery for entertainment, there's an indication here that's he's unstable, what happened at sea?
L6 - We move on in time, it's left unclear when this is, he's thinking again about his beautiful birds, he can't let go of the bird fryer imagery, realises Burke & Hare were no different from the radio fryer, he's drawing analogy, they stole dead bodies for the medical profession, for anatomical research, but they were never eaten, no cannibalism.
L7 - He's found the radio station and the bird fryer guilty of adjunct cannibalism, nothing ever changes, crimes are committed in new generations, the lines are being blurred though, by himself, for himself.
L8 - He's uncovering, inside himself, what happened on the Seagull Sea, his ship was almost wrecked, to survive his ship's distress, he resorted to cannibalism, the only alcohol available on-board was cognac, that was in the Captain's room, he drank it to dull. He was now in absolute mental distress about this necessary recent past madness, he'd become unable to differentiate between fact and fiction, then, sets himself up as a Nemesis (an angel of righteous anger) against those who eat any meat belonging to his class of what constitutes beautiful life.
Granted it's all a bit weird, but why not.
Paul
Quote='Richard' pid='226948' dateline='1491767989']
Hey Paul,
I've had a look at your website and some of your other poems, and I definitely think you have a unique voice when it comes to expressing your thoughts. This poem here has some nice wording in it. My main suggestion would have to do with your overall meaning. I'll go into more detail below:
(04-10-2017, 04:12 AM)Paul Welsh Wrote: [ -> ]The sailing of a bare Seagull Sea -Is "Seagull Sea" a place? Why is it capitalized?
on field and path, on road and roof
heard radio sound effects man giving birds two deaths -I like this line, and I think it is the strongest line in the entire poem. It creates a wonderful image in my mind.
all my eye-catching gone Go-Birds -Is "Go-Birds" alluding to something?
sick smell the sick
investigate the Burke and Hare rooms -I googled this. Is this a reference to murder?
guilt formation in the new times
opened cognac in olden times before all this Heaven - I like the way these last two lines sound, yet I find the meaning unclear.
https://paulwelsh27.wordpress.com
I find I've read this poem over and over, and still didn't understand what you were trying to say in some lines. Poetry is a difficult balance because you don't want your poems to be too obvious and blunt, but at the same time, if they are too cryptic, then you risk alienating the reader. I know this is a balance I often struggle with in my own writing. I look forward to reading more of our poetry.
Cheers,
Richard
[/quote]
Hi Paul Welsh,
This is an interesting poem and I am glad you gave it your intentions. You explained it as I would see a movie, or dream. It is an abstract that indeed can slip thoughts and interpretations into certain minds and that alone made it very interesting. It makes me want to go on a search, and then strangely,visions of Joan of Arc appear, I cannot explain it. She is a person in History that I would like to be given the gift to write a poem about some day. I was attracted to the title because seagulls have been roosting in a farmer's field across from me. We haven't a sea nearby and the lake that is near us is not so close that seagulls should be here in this field. I suppose they are scavenging for seed or whatever they do for food. All in all the poem is rather sad and a reflection of human darkness, perhaps even metaphor, touching on spiritual battles all around us we cannot understand, and thankfully, not see in person. Oh, I also understand about wanting to write for 'me'. It can be therapeutic and calming. I hope your day gets filled with more light and hope, and may sunshine brighten where you are and lift your spirits high! Best wishes.
Nibbed, this is the last time you'll be asked to refrain from posting in the workshops if you are unable to focus on the poem and offer helpful critique. /ella
Sorry, Ella.
Here is an edit on my poor critique,
Nibbed
The sailing of a bare Seagull Sea Perhaps interject Edinburgh or the name of a place somewhere to set the scene?
on field and path, on road and roof
heard radio sound effects man giving birds two deaths let the reader know if this is good or bad
all my eye-catching gone Go-Birds
sick smell the sick
investigate the Burke and Hare rooms
guilt formation in the new times why is there guilt? I know it's abstract...
opened cognac in olden times before all this Heaven
Abstracts are difficult to critique. Perhaps that is why I offered only interpretive comments.
Sorry, sometimes I get off track, forgetful.
(04-10-2017, 04:12 AM)Paul Welsh Wrote: [ -> ]The sailing of a bare Seagull Sea
on field and path, on road and roof I sense a rhythm. Although, it's the images that I feel are disconnected. Fields, paths, and roads are all grounded, and roofs are erected into the air. I think you are identifying areas seagulls like to loiter in, but I am actually failing to see the connection made here. The rest of the poem is very abstract, so... I am not going to suggest anything outside of what you've already written.
heard radio sound effects man giving birds two deaths Is the Seagull Sea hearing these effects?
all my eye-catching gone Go-Birds Between "No seagull feel" and this line, I sense a connection made. In general, just a connection of senses. Seagulls not feeling and you not seeing. Previously, though, something is heard on the radio. Maybe I'm overanalyzing it now. Coming next...
sick smell the sick The hearing and the smelling have been favored over seeing and feeling?
investigate the Burke and Hare rooms
guilt formation in the new times
opened cognac in olden times before all this Heaven You can hear cognac opening and smell it, and once tasted may make you feel sick. Why haven't you explored tasting after exploring the other four senses?
https://paulwelsh27.wordpress.com
Beyond my observations, I feel like you have a deeply interwoven poem broken from the confines of reality. I respect the wording and the imagery. Surrealism and Absurdism have always fascinated me.
Also, any allusions made, I do not understand. Really, I don't know what this is about.
Hey Paul,
Thank you for the thorough explanation of your poem. I really enjoyed reading it as it made me appreciate the poem a lot more. It also confirmed what I already suspected, that you had put a lot of thought into this work. I have seen other surreal poems often just explained as being beyond explanation, which always seemed to me to be a bit of a cheap way to explain away the nonsense. As abstract as your poem is, I would definitely never classify it as nonsense. Based on your explanation though, I do have one suggestion. The way you explained line 3 makes me want an entire poem just about that radio broadcast. I feel like some of the feelings and thoughts you had in this poem could easily be explored in a poem about that.
I look forward to reading more from you,
Richard