Catoptric

[shemthepenman]

Hi shemthepenman,

Okay, this is a deep metaphoric freak-out! Especially to a fattened girl. I read it several several times. I like your use of fonts, it gives it a strange tuxedo feel to it. Don't know why I see a tuxedo, weird, how that works. Maybe it's more black and white, no tux. Maybe the word waiter, maybe my mind clicks over to French waiters wearing tuxedos. The only thing that stalled my flow of thought were the words pinhole stare. I don't know why it just didn't seem to fit, but then probably because it popped up another weird place in my mind.

-nibbed

it’s uncanny you should describe it as “black and white” (although, i use this font persistently with all my poems) because i wrote this when my ex-girlfriend was reading The Great Gatsby. and i hadn’t read it and i had no interest in reading it; but i was entirely fascinated by the cover of the book. i would see it lying about, here and there, around the flat. i can’t even exactly picture it now, in my head, but it was a black and white photo of something or other, it looked like a hotel room, a cigarette, an ash tray, something art deco, etc. and i wrote this as a kind of speculation about what was behind that cover. what i would have wanted the book to sound like. something like a nightmare in black and white.
of course, having read it, it’s completely disappointing. these few lines are better  than anything f. scott fitzgerald ever wrote in his entire career. although, the film with dicaprio is good. good soundtrack.

Hi shem, I guess you are right (now that I think about it without looking back) your poems have consistently used this fonts. It was only just now it affected me in such a way. I think all the other times I just thought it "typewriter/mature author sentimentality/artistry stuff"...but this time it seemed to click in the poem and my mind as I read. I didn't like the DiCaprio version of the movie, it was too flamboyant visually, maybe because I had seen it with Robert Redford along with reading the book many years earlier, and well, he's always been pretty amazing...even the fashions he offers are wonderfully down-to-earth-mydream-to-wear, but I fear to wear them, as I fear to wear Ralph Lauren for the same reason, the most lovely stuff... this weirdness having to do with textiles and some crazy science notion I have been given concerning them. hahaha TMI. Anywho, I read the Great Gatsby when I was very young and though I don't remember much about reading it (likely it was required reading and in my teen rebellion I disliked anything required), a visual that sticks in my mind, either from the movie or not, is that of the round eyeglasses, though honestly I am not sure that was on the book I read or not. I think I do remember the soundtrack being phenomenal. Please forgive, my informal writing is often worse than my poetry and I often drift off on trails. Have a blessed day, kid.


nibbed

i haven’t seen the redford version. i’m not entirely sure i like robert redford. i can’t put my finger on anything he’s been in that i particularly liked. maybe The Sting. but Paul Newman’s in that and he’s the tits, so. but anyway, i’ll give it a watch.