self-titled

[crow]

self-titled

look at this bug:






now what?

[just mercedes]

Self-referential poetry bugs me too.

[crow]

If I told you that poem creates in a single, specific reader the power to eliminate cynicism from the whole world in a very real and articulable way, would you believe me? That the poem sets into motion a bona fide miracle that will occur at some point in the future? The analysis that delivers that conclusion is really really difficult, but I'm writing it up now.

Anyway, enjoy the puzzle!

[just mercedes]

I don't think I'd like the world without cynicism, and for me a miracle is just an occurrence for which we do not yet have a rational explanation. I don't think in terms of past and future - for me there is only this one moment, right here, right now. I'm sure you have a point, but it's still invisible to me.

[shemthepenman]

If I told you that poem creates in a single, specific reader the power to eliminate cynicism from the whole world in a very real and articulable way, would you believe me? That the poem sets into motion a bona fide miracle that will occur at some point in the future? The analysis that delivers that conclusion is really really difficult, but I'm writing it up now.

Anyway, enjoy the puzzle!

If you believe what you say about this poem, then why is it in the serious forum? Are you genuinely expecting critical feedback on the catalyst for a miracle? or is it really just an opportunity for you to enlighten us poor wretched fools?

sorry, but seriously I hate these kind of puzzle poems. It's like writing "dsljfhslkdfhslkhsdfslllllllll" and then "guess what I was thinking." If the poem doesn't do anything other than inspire confusion and I wonder what it means, then it has failed; furthermore, if a poem can be paraphrased and explained more clearly, then it has failed double.

Also, if it is only effective for one 'specific reader', then again, what is the point of posting it in a critical forum?

(i fully concede that I may be missing some sort of joke here [I am grumpy shem today], but nevertheless, I still don't know why it would be posted here for work shopping)

[justcloudy]

crow, being aware of your habitual offerings I'm quite sure this is tongue in cheek, but maybe shem has a point that it's in the wrong forum...

[crow]

It's def in the wrong forum! Sorry! It should be in misc! All apologies.

And as to the "enlightening the wretched fools," that's not my opinion of the folks here at all. I love you guys, and apologize if I'm seeming like I'm lording mystery over anyone.

In any case, here's my analysis, for anyone who's curious what I was going for:

I know this is poor form, but this poem is almost certainly the best thing I will ever write. Problem is, to see why, you have to walk stepwise through a very difficult analysis that, on its face, the poem doesn't appear to justify. So, against the normal practices, I'm going to provide the analysis, myself . . . It feels weird to me, too, but I think you'll end up liking it . . . I hope . . . (I just sacrificed a small animal to pacify the gods of leanne, billy, milo, et al.'s rolling eyeballs. Aweemaway, lions )

The analysis of this poem comprises five passes.

The first pass was exceptionally well-stated by mercedes, above, as a dig against self-referential poetry. The poem appears at first to be merely irritating. It seems to be a written version of "made you look." As a poem, it references cynicism, hucksterism, negativity, trickery, and vacuousness.

It is a self-referential poem referencing nothing. And that's true for 999,999 of 1,000,000 hypothetical readers. It's a self-referential poem.

To discover the second-pass requires quite an epiphany. It requires the analyst to realize that for that 1-in-1,000,000 reader, it will not be a self-referential poem. Because for that one hypothetical (or actual--the analysis holds either way) reader, a bug will land on the white space just as the reader is reading.

And that changes everything.

That one reader will have an experience 180-degrees different from all other readers. For that one reader, the poem will be spooky. The line, "now what?" will ask the reader to take seriously the miraculous? random? meaningful? accidental? experience that she just had. In short, the reader will be engaged in the kinda of questions that make human beings interesting and good.

The title, self-titled, now emphasizes "self-". Self- refers to that specific reader.

Pass three requires the realization that that one readers experience reforms the self-referential nature of the poem for all other readers, as the poem now references not itself, but the experience if that one reader. This elevation of that readers experience implicates the word "-titled." It is now a word meaning "titled, as a ruler: a king, viscount, etc."

The fourth pass requires the realization that the poem is now about the abstract notion of dignity. It is an optimistic comment on the power of one individual's humanity to defeat the cynicism of a world of other readers. The emphasis returns to the word "self-".

Finally, the fifth pass requires the realization that the reader who conducts such an analysis has, herself, verified the cynicism-defeating experience of the hypothetical reader with the hypothetical bug. This last step reunites "self-" and "-titled".

Or so it seems to me.

[bena]

I am generally a person that takes all kinds of leaps that a poem goes on, but I can't follow you there...and probably wouldn't have even if said bug had landed on my screen, although, it probably would have made me giggle and snort.

Sorry, way to vague for me.

benamel

[SimikPK]

Makes sense in your head, but not to us very much, if I may speak for others as well. If it only was possible to make that bug land on the screen more often - but than the uniqueness and the dignity would vanish, right? The idea in platonic sense is good, but in in dirty reality, doesnt work. I think this is one of those private jokes/ideas love for which we so much want to share but eventually cannot. But your mental processes are very close to me, I really enjoyed them... not as a poem though.
Simon

[crow]

Gratzie! Thanks for the responses and again, sorry for hinging the meaning of the work itself on my private analysis of it.

[crow]

Oh, and SimikPk, no, it could be that usually the bug lands there.

[tomoffing]

Without your explanation, this is such a stretch as to be all but meaningless.
That said, the idea of the fly landing on the page mid-read is intriguing.

I think you should consider a completely different piece developing that same idea however.
A third person account of a reader experiencing said miracle perhaps (or coincidence if we're being more accurate!! )

thanks anyway, including the explanation, this was thought provoking. t

[billy]

kill it or put somehwre other than the serious forum

while it's a clever play on words (if you take bug as being an anomaly of sorts) it's not what i see as being poetic or poetry.

now what?

self-titled

look at this bug:






now what?

[crow]

Thanks for moving it!

[tectak]

Thanks for moving it!

It was






bugging me.

tectak

[justcloudy]

The explanation, as convoluted as it is, was more interesting than the poem by miles.
Maybe make it into a poem and have the "poem" as an intro?

[billy]

no problem, it was just a bug

Thanks for moving it!

[azure]

self-titled

look at this bug:






now what?

Ugh... Okay, it would have had more meaning to me if a gnat or fly landed on my screen while reading, but then again probably not. This is like post modern spaghetti sauce. Too conformist for me. Lol. Interesting though.

[shemthepenman]

I have wanted to comment on this for a long while since your 'explanation', but I feared I would write an dissertation or something, and I hardly sleep as it is. And to be sure, whatever the problems I have with this (of which there are many), it has inspired me to think about it every day since you posted it, so, swings and roundabouts and all that.

Anyway and in short, I am sorry, but this is not a poem. At best, it is a work of conceptual art, and at worst it is a work of weak-concept conceptual art; and let's face it, the difference is usually minimal and one of degrees.

and just an aside, the real miracle would not be for a bug to land on the white space on the page, but rather that if it did your speculations about how one would react being entirely verified. And to be honest, this is this worst kind of pseudo-speculative philosophy, in as much as it appears unverifiable, whereas in reality one could perform this experiment on a subject (without them knowing, of course) and verify your claims. The fact is, I suppose (and this is me being pseudo-speculative, because I do not have the time nor patience to carry out the experiment) that the only person that this poem would affect, in the specific way you have described, is you.

By the way, I didn't mean this in a mean-spirited way. anything that inspires a bit of passion, which this certainly did, is always a positive, i suppose

[crow]

Shem,

Many thanks for the passionate response! Here's my reply.

I'm going to say a thing with conviction and then immediately contradict myself. So here goes.

Having thought at length about this, and without pretending to authority, it is my contention that the longstanding debate about the definition of art is over. Every novel artistic movement has been scrutinized under that lens. Is Impressionism art? Cubism? Dada? Abstract Expressionism? Found Art? Monet, Picasso, Duchamp, Pollock, Duchamp again--art?

To me, it's settled. I am fully convicted that the answer to the question, "What is art?" is, "Art is anything published as art."

It may be bad art, but it's art. It would be weird to criticize a fallen acorn for its artistic merits. But if I pointed to it and called it art, such a critique would be licit.

That's what I think, and I refuse to budge!

But then Shem walks into the room and says, "That thing you made is art."

Ugh.

I dunno, man. Maybe so. I can't tell you that, for reasons, you can't say "this isn't a poem, it's art." All's I know is, to me, I didn't publish it as art and so it isn't.

I could make good arguments against your argument that it's art--your argument proves too much, it voids the word "art" of scope, it's generally unresponsive to the piece itself--but I just want to say, "really, man? I'm trying here, could you meet me halfway?"

Is it cool if I just kinda sidestep the issue of whether it's conceptual art and instead engage in the dialogue I was trying to kick up?

(1) Is it a poem?
(2) Is it a worthwhile poem?
(3) Is the reader of a poem required to attempt the kind of analysis I performed before passing on to an evaluation of that poem's worth?

So, quickly, I'd say yes to all three. And, quickly, here's why.

(1) Is it a poem?

First, I'd note that a thing may be a poem despite a reader's refusal to call it such. Here, your refusal to call it a poem amounts to a tautology. That's nothing personal, but much of your argument hinges on a subjective denial that "self-titled" is a poem rather than a proposal about what makes a bunch of words a poem and where this particular bunch of words doesn't fit that definition

Second, "self-titled" is intended to interrogate the nature of poetry. To do so, it refuses to adopt any poetic devices, such as rhyme or meter. However, it references those devices by its refusal: It slant-rhymes "bug" with "what," but just barely, it has line breaks that give it the look of a poem but that can be explained as merely getting out of the way of the bug, it flouts grammar conventions as poet's often do, but in away that just looks lazy, and any effort to define its metrical feet is frustratingly frustrated. At first, line 1 feels spondaic, but that can't exist in English. But if you read line 1 as a stressed, standalone syllable followed by an anapestic foot, then it sounds like I'm asking you to look at this bug rather than, say, listening to it. And if you read it as two iambs, it sounds like you should look *at* at this bug and not around or through or beside it. Then, reading it as two trochees makes it seem like I'm directing your attention to *this* bug and away from others. And trying to read a dactyl into the line creates gobbledygook. And yet, it can't be spondaic . . .

So, then, maybe call it an anti-poem. Maybe that's what it is. And maybe, if that's where the analysis takes you, you can say, "meh, I got something out if it, so I guess it was worthwhile, I guess. So I guess, the answer to (2) is yes, I guess."

But that brings us to (3), "Is the reader of a poem required to attempt the kind of analysis I performed before passing on to an evaluation of a poem's worth?"

So, for ease, let's call my analysis a "close read." That's not exactly right, but it'll do for now. Must a reader perform a close-read before judging a poem as good or bad?

I think yes. I think, specifically, until the reader has conducted a close reading, the best they can do is "I think the poem is good," or "I think it's bad." The close read gives you license to drop the "I think . . . ".

Now, the steps behind a proper close reading of a poem are, to my knowledge, underdetermined. And this is my justification for the poem, the analysis/interpretation, and this response. If one were to develop such steps, they could be tested against "self-titled." If they failed to yield the analysis/interpretation above, they're missing a piece.

So . . . that's all.