08-15-2024, 07:08 PM
Hi Bryn,
thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed breakdown. You are right that I am writing about a funeral procession, as the poem was inspired by the death and funeral of a friend's mother, who had passed away in an old people's home, after spending many years suffering from dementia. Your notes are great, though I may not agree with all of them, it is always good to get a fresh eye over one's work. It is probably true that a lot of this may not make a heap of sense to someone not inside my own head, but I try to make art according to Satre's maxim that "you are your life and nothing else"
Frank Ocean
There’s a death factory at the end of our road. Good opening This references the care home that sits at the end of out road, that is silently visited by ambulances through the week.
They package up pretty parcels, tied up with a forget-me-not bow.
Yellow boxes arrive, Christmas lights blinking,
in the dead of the morning, in the heat of the night. These come across as cliche to me This flowed out of me but is probably a bit redundant
Maybe it’s better, this cascade of memory, not sure where the memory comes from This references the onset of dementia, the memory collapsing into itself.
unboxed jigsaw puzzles, pieces half missing,
than the cold, hard remaining, and what 'remaining' is referring to.
still sharp as a tack, still blunt as a knife. not sure what 'blunt as a knife' means since knives are sharp, generally I had recently visited my mother, who though is 82 and in poor health, has had no cognitive decline (and is very plain speaking, hence the blunt), and I wondered at the time which is better, awareness or unawareness, as one approaches the end of one's life.
Alone in my car, a warm hard cocoon, need a comma after warm but then that is a lot of commas I always seem to find punctuation in poetry a little tricky, and over use it I think
Frank Ocean singing, no sign of pupation. awkward continuation of the cocoon metaphor that doesn't add. not everything needs to be clever. I don't know, I quite like this passage, as it describes the safeness I feel in the car, listening to music, which is something I enjoy very much
Red reptile eyes retreat fast before me, again, reptile doesn't seem right
drifting along the sibilant curve. I don't think 'hissing' curve works here either
Driving to pick up my beautiful son
he still in the fecund of growing; fecund also not the right word I think it is, but I am not using it as an adjective, as would be usual
With a heart full of beats; this, I like and the next two lines. Though 'bed sitting room' is awkward. The bed setting room is an oblique reference to Pinter's Bedsitting room, although I think I may have only included it to improve the flow
I've never seen a dead body before, so he told me,
as we went through the door, to the bed sitting room.
The sluggish procession, a chattering bruise 'A sluggish..." chattering also not the right word
of grey, blue, and black, unwinds fat before me, 'of grey and blue, unwinds...' it's a rhythm thing for me. like the 'fat'
a scar through the fields
you cold in front, me at the back,
warm and listening to Frank Ocean; period here? Either that, of the next line should be lower case. I tend to over use semicolons anyway.
Why see the world, when you’ve got the beach?
The blunt, dumb sea water stares back at the crowd water seems redundant Perhaps, though it is there for rhythm more than anything
with a bovine, blank look, and the basalt grey fingers as does 'blank'. and basalt has a color. not sure it's grey, but redundant. I am pretty sure it is grey, though as you say, maybe redundant
crisscross the horizon, accusing the nonchalant sky. not sure how a sky can be nonchalant I am projecting emotions on to unemotional entity, but I preferred nonchalant to uncaring, but then I might be trying to hard
Willow’s song plays Alright, who's Willow? This is an allusion to The Wicker Man, and the song that Willow sings in it as she tries to seduce the Policeman, that I was a bit obsessed about at the time
a song of seduction, a song of redemption. like this line and the next
If only he’d listened, the zealot, the fool. though this line has no context, so loses some of its power. It has context if you recognize the above reference, as the Policeman's life would have been spared if he had gone to Willow (and lost his virginity). On such moments and decisions are live revolve.
The Vampire’s kiss, as cold as the sun, now back to the non-sensical juxtapositions. Suns are hot so when you write cold as a sun you are just saying it's hot. Now if you wrote, 'a cold sun' that's different. I think in poetry, we are allowed to make such juxtapositions, no?
caresses my neck, a whisper forgotten, and forgotten whisper. otherwise sounds like Yoda speak, also kill the 'and'
the broken old shaman croaks out his incantation
mic’d up like a failing comedian, on a stage made of clay, like the comedian reference. no need for comma after; and period after clay. I agree
the crowd sidles off; we are all dying here. this is a great ending. The kind of subtle ambiguity that makes for excellent poetry. I also agree ;0)
[/quote]
Cheers,
James
thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed breakdown. You are right that I am writing about a funeral procession, as the poem was inspired by the death and funeral of a friend's mother, who had passed away in an old people's home, after spending many years suffering from dementia. Your notes are great, though I may not agree with all of them, it is always good to get a fresh eye over one's work. It is probably true that a lot of this may not make a heap of sense to someone not inside my own head, but I try to make art according to Satre's maxim that "you are your life and nothing else"
Frank Ocean
There’s a death factory at the end of our road. Good opening This references the care home that sits at the end of out road, that is silently visited by ambulances through the week.
They package up pretty parcels, tied up with a forget-me-not bow.
Yellow boxes arrive, Christmas lights blinking,
in the dead of the morning, in the heat of the night. These come across as cliche to me This flowed out of me but is probably a bit redundant
Maybe it’s better, this cascade of memory, not sure where the memory comes from This references the onset of dementia, the memory collapsing into itself.
unboxed jigsaw puzzles, pieces half missing,
than the cold, hard remaining, and what 'remaining' is referring to.
still sharp as a tack, still blunt as a knife. not sure what 'blunt as a knife' means since knives are sharp, generally I had recently visited my mother, who though is 82 and in poor health, has had no cognitive decline (and is very plain speaking, hence the blunt), and I wondered at the time which is better, awareness or unawareness, as one approaches the end of one's life.
Alone in my car, a warm hard cocoon, need a comma after warm but then that is a lot of commas I always seem to find punctuation in poetry a little tricky, and over use it I think
Frank Ocean singing, no sign of pupation. awkward continuation of the cocoon metaphor that doesn't add. not everything needs to be clever. I don't know, I quite like this passage, as it describes the safeness I feel in the car, listening to music, which is something I enjoy very much
Red reptile eyes retreat fast before me, again, reptile doesn't seem right
drifting along the sibilant curve. I don't think 'hissing' curve works here either
Driving to pick up my beautiful son
he still in the fecund of growing; fecund also not the right word I think it is, but I am not using it as an adjective, as would be usual
With a heart full of beats; this, I like and the next two lines. Though 'bed sitting room' is awkward. The bed setting room is an oblique reference to Pinter's Bedsitting room, although I think I may have only included it to improve the flow
I've never seen a dead body before, so he told me,
as we went through the door, to the bed sitting room.
The sluggish procession, a chattering bruise 'A sluggish..." chattering also not the right word
of grey, blue, and black, unwinds fat before me, 'of grey and blue, unwinds...' it's a rhythm thing for me. like the 'fat'
a scar through the fields
you cold in front, me at the back,
warm and listening to Frank Ocean; period here? Either that, of the next line should be lower case. I tend to over use semicolons anyway.
Why see the world, when you’ve got the beach?
The blunt, dumb sea water stares back at the crowd water seems redundant Perhaps, though it is there for rhythm more than anything
with a bovine, blank look, and the basalt grey fingers as does 'blank'. and basalt has a color. not sure it's grey, but redundant. I am pretty sure it is grey, though as you say, maybe redundant
crisscross the horizon, accusing the nonchalant sky. not sure how a sky can be nonchalant I am projecting emotions on to unemotional entity, but I preferred nonchalant to uncaring, but then I might be trying to hard
Willow’s song plays Alright, who's Willow? This is an allusion to The Wicker Man, and the song that Willow sings in it as she tries to seduce the Policeman, that I was a bit obsessed about at the time
a song of seduction, a song of redemption. like this line and the next
If only he’d listened, the zealot, the fool. though this line has no context, so loses some of its power. It has context if you recognize the above reference, as the Policeman's life would have been spared if he had gone to Willow (and lost his virginity). On such moments and decisions are live revolve.
The Vampire’s kiss, as cold as the sun, now back to the non-sensical juxtapositions. Suns are hot so when you write cold as a sun you are just saying it's hot. Now if you wrote, 'a cold sun' that's different. I think in poetry, we are allowed to make such juxtapositions, no?
caresses my neck, a whisper forgotten, and forgotten whisper. otherwise sounds like Yoda speak, also kill the 'and'
the broken old shaman croaks out his incantation
mic’d up like a failing comedian, on a stage made of clay, like the comedian reference. no need for comma after; and period after clay. I agree
the crowd sidles off; we are all dying here. this is a great ending. The kind of subtle ambiguity that makes for excellent poetry. I also agree ;0)
[/quote]
Cheers,
James