10-18-2013, 04:42 AM
Hi Leanne,
Given the considerable response to this poem and the length of time since your revision, I was a bit reluctant to add my two cents, but my remarks I think are related to an important question for enough poets (e.g. some posts below) that I thought I'd throw them out here for consideration and then give your poem a critique.
A poet friend of mine recently read a draft of a poem I've been laboring over and hit me with this: "For me it is like being dropped mid ocean without any sense of East or west or where the nearest shore may be--and the only thing that makes sense is to keep swimming onward and hope for the best." His remark, of course, is directed at the issue of accessibility. The same issue was addressed by a couple of poets at a reading I recently attended. So the question is how much do we wish, as communicators, to communicate as entirely as possible, at every level we can, with our art? When I was much younger, I was content to do a lot of suggesting and leave a reader with a mood and hopefully the motivation to work hard enough to fill in some blanks for themselves--I had trouble finding repeat readers, though that could have been for other reasons. : ) Having confronted my mortality though, I've decided I have very specific things to say that I really want understood and read or listened to with the most intense focus I can stimulate and that I can convey a mood or moods and still be understood, sometimes with helpful prodding from others and if I work hard at it given my lack of facility. So I'm very grateful to my friend, who was absolutely right, for pointing out that what I thought was clear was insufficiently developed and hopefully is no longer. All of that said, I'll share this quote I came across that is attributed to Emily Dickenson (I believe incorrectly): "To be a poet is all. To be known as a poet is nothing." Whoever wrote it, I think it's worth keeping in mind for various reasons. Now to your poem:
Given the considerable response to this poem and the length of time since your revision, I was a bit reluctant to add my two cents, but my remarks I think are related to an important question for enough poets (e.g. some posts below) that I thought I'd throw them out here for consideration and then give your poem a critique.
A poet friend of mine recently read a draft of a poem I've been laboring over and hit me with this: "For me it is like being dropped mid ocean without any sense of East or west or where the nearest shore may be--and the only thing that makes sense is to keep swimming onward and hope for the best." His remark, of course, is directed at the issue of accessibility. The same issue was addressed by a couple of poets at a reading I recently attended. So the question is how much do we wish, as communicators, to communicate as entirely as possible, at every level we can, with our art? When I was much younger, I was content to do a lot of suggesting and leave a reader with a mood and hopefully the motivation to work hard enough to fill in some blanks for themselves--I had trouble finding repeat readers, though that could have been for other reasons. : ) Having confronted my mortality though, I've decided I have very specific things to say that I really want understood and read or listened to with the most intense focus I can stimulate and that I can convey a mood or moods and still be understood, sometimes with helpful prodding from others and if I work hard at it given my lack of facility. So I'm very grateful to my friend, who was absolutely right, for pointing out that what I thought was clear was insufficiently developed and hopefully is no longer. All of that said, I'll share this quote I came across that is attributed to Emily Dickenson (I believe incorrectly): "To be a poet is all. To be known as a poet is nothing." Whoever wrote it, I think it's worth keeping in mind for various reasons. Now to your poem:
(06-10-2013, 04:48 AM)Leanne Wrote: Edit 6/10/2013
In this twisted menagerie What menagerie? Society? School? Politics? Family? Specifying would, in my mind, only add richness and direction. What part of my brain should be starting to fire with intensity?
I awake with stripes
finger-painted on my hide;
the sort that only appear
the morning after,
when my eyes are closed. Masterful image, but without some kind of signpost I can't help but conclude with others here that it's about sex and possibly rough and unkind sex, even though you say sex wasn't in your head (though perhaps it was unconsciously). I like trusting the unconscious mind, but it must later be directed by the conscious mind, in my opinion. Now I can't help but wonder (quite strongly) whether I'm being led down a path about sex.
Shouts and flashes built my box
and I am independent of the floor
I once commanded, Sound very much like a "dissociative" experience, a psychologically unhealthy response to emotional trauma, often sexual in nature, which supports my thoughts about the previous stanza.
a transportable label that others know
by osmosis rather than effort. I am the moan
that passes complacent lips. Nice language, but once again, huh? Now that I'm looking for possible sexual content, you throw in the word "moan", which now just about confirms for me that that's what you're talking about, whether that's your intention or not.
Fragments of me leave
in iMemories. Collected and centrifuged,
they would yield nothing but sludge: I'm still focused, though still with a tiny question mark, on sex and wondering about sexting in its various forms. The language and imagery are wonderful but incomplete--no door knob or windows to provide access.
omitto tacitus Is English so barren that it's necessary to use Latin here and stop your reader probably so annoyed as to be devoid of the desire to look it up? Final lines are the icing on the cake! On most English language readers'/listeners' tongues, Latin is sawdust.
This poem has huge potential I think, but I also think that perhaps a desire to be concise and/or vague has hijacked it. Such wonderful imagery and language (minus the Latin) I believe deserve more. With more flesh and intention, I think this is publishable. I truly hope you return to it.
In service,
JunKai
Original Version
I awoke with different stripes
finger-painted on my hide,
the sort that only show when your eyes are closed.
Shouts and flashes built my box
and I am independent of the floor
I once commanded,
a transportable label that others know
by osmosis rather than effort, as they
absorb the quiddity you stapled to the bill.
Fragments of me leave
in iMemories. Collected and centrifuged,
they would yield nothing but sludge:
omitto tacitus