Sitting Shiva

[Cousin Kil]

SITTING SHIVA

You look real good man
a special kid yells to me
on the station floor
he likes my suit
my friend presses the machine,
gets his ticket for the line out
of the car sound and onto Capital South,
where we’ll quit the rail and
walk DC
he has his ticket, with a nicotine ghost
blue suit perfumed by
stubbed butts
rolling papers
the sweet skunk of weed
we’re on the line and he
tells me how when he sat shiva for his
dad’s brother,
he didn’t feel so terrible,
rattles out
a shiva fills you remembering,
we’re on the metro’s plastic seats
and we talk about the retarded kid
who'd hardly smash a fly
off the rail
paid up
the escalator
thinking how this is his second time
in the city for a funeral
we rise,
and I let my friend's smoke fill me,
imagining his dress shoe stamp out
another cig,
I don’t give a damn about the secondhand

[Tiger the Lion]

Hey Cousin. Your use (or not) of punctuation and uppercase letters is a distraction. It almost seems too chaotic to be unintentional. In my limited experience, the more often a reader has to go back a line or two to clarify their understanding, the less likely it is they will ever be bothered to get to the end. I do enjoy the feel of disjointedness in the poem, but for now it is weighed down by the punctuation, not accentuated by it. Your other option of course is to use no punctuation or caps at all. Would have read stronger to me with none.
Thanks for sharing and good luck with it.
Paul

[Cousin Kil]

Hey Cousin. Your use (or not) of punctuation and uppercase letters is a distraction. It almost seems too chaotic to be unintentional. In my limited experience, the more often a reader has to go back a line or two to clarify their understanding, the less likely it is they will ever be bothered to get to the end. I do enjoy the feel of disjointedness in the poem, but for now it is weighed down by the punctuation, not accentuated by it. Your other option of course is to use no punctuation or caps at all. Would have read stronger to me with none.
Thanks for sharing and good luck with it.
Paul

Hey Paul,

To be honest, I wrote this poem a while ago and just decided to throw it up here. I don't remember exactly why I made the choices on punctuation and capitalization, but I understand how it could trip up it's reception.
Made the appropriate changes for a proper read.
Would love if you gave it a second glance and let me know what you think of the material itself. This is one of the poems I'm more fond of, so I'm eager to get as much feedback as I can.

Best,
CK

[rayheinrich]

Good poem. I love the story: Its halting rhythm, the movie-like jump cuts*,
the necessity to re-read lines. That last one can go both ways. If used right,
it strengthens the effect of the poem, it slaps the reader a bit and makes
her/him take notice. I think you've got it down pretty well; maybe another
edit or two to get the jump cuts right.

Oh, and:
"gets his ticket for the line out
of the car sound and onto Capital South,"
??
-ray


*"Jump cut" - Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless... might be worth a google.

P.S. Go totally naked, it complements the creative confusion necessary to this poem.
But if you go naked, you should break the lines to go with the rhythm and add a few
white line breaks to delineate a few of the stanzas.

BUT! I don't mean you should "smooth it out". Let the meanings mix and
leave the reader to use his/her brain a few times. (I don't mind losing
lazy readers, fuck them if they can't take a joke.)

P.P.S. When I read a poem 10% of my opinion is derived from the rhythm (mainly the
placement of words, not the damn caps or punc. marks) and 90% from the
"story".

---

Hey Paul,

To be honest, I wrote this poem a while ago and just decided to throw it up here. I don't remember exactly why I made the choices on punctuation and capitalization, but I understand how it could trip up it's reception.
Made the appropriate changes for a proper read.
Would love if you gave it a second glance and let me know what you think of the material itself. This is one of the poems I'm more fond of, so I'm eager to get as much feedback as I can.

Best,
CK

"the appropriate changes" aren't bad, didn't screw it up.

[Magpie]

Hi I initially read this poem last night and was really surprised with it and how fresh it seemed and within the first three or four lines I was part of the journey that was being travelled. And yeah it was perhaps slightly disorientating at first but I got there in the end. I would even say that the quick moves in the time frame not only made a second read necessary (a second read is always necessary regardless) but gave it another interesting aspect, like a sense of clarification. Like when you watch 'Fight Club' the second time, it's like a totally different film in some ways.

Also to be honest, I never even noticed that there was a lack of punctuation, which in many ways is odd because it's usually the first thing I would notice about a poem. So it obviously suited the style if I didn't notice.

A couple of moments were very noticeable and I thought added something extra to the characters, but I just wanted to clear up if they were intentional or not because I know that what seems obvious in one culture is not in another (British - American thing). The first one was, is 'the special kid' in the second line the same as the 'retarded kid' later on, and by same I don't mean necessarily the same person but the same as in, did they both have 'learning disabilities'. To me the shift was very telling indeed and effective. From 'special' a not perfectly politically correct term, but passable to 'retarded' a totally unacceptable form in some ways. I ask specifically because I have encountered the fact that Americans don't think that the words 'spaz' or 'spacca' are particularly offensive whereas in Britain they are classed as one of the most offensive things you can call someone with disabilities. But there is a whole cultural and perfectly acceptable reason why we differ over that.
The other point was when the speaker says "for his dad's brother" instead of Uncle, it seemed quite poignant, but then it again it could have been culture or a time jump thing that I missed.

Lastly, honest...   the first two times I read it I was still unaware that 'Sitting Shiva" was a Jewish ritual. I assumed that Shiva was the same Shiva in 'Shiva Shanti' so I appreciate the fact that you noted a connection and included the weed and smoke reference.

Right, honestly I'm finished now,

Cheers for the read, much enjoyed it,

Mark

[ellajam]

Hi I initially read this poem last night and was really surprised with it and how fresh it seemed and within the first three or four lines I was part of the journey that was being travelled. And yeah it was perhaps slightly disorientating at first but I got there in the end. I would even say that the quick moves in the time frame not only made a second read necessary (a second read is always necessary regardless) but gave it another interesting aspect, like a sense of clarification. Like when you watch 'Fight Club' the second time, it's like a totally different film in some ways.

Also to be honest, I never even noticed that there was a lack of punctuation, which in many ways is odd because it's usually the first thing I would notice about a poem. So it obviously suited the style if I didn't notice.

A couple of moments were very noticeable and I thought added something extra to the characters, but I just wanted to clear up if they were intentional or not because I know that what seems obvious in one culture is not in another (British - American thing). The first one was, is 'the special kid' in the second line the same as the 'retarded kid' later on, and by same I don't mean necessarily the same person but the same as in, did they both have 'learning disabilities'. To me the shift was very telling indeed and effective. From 'special' a not perfectly politically correct term, but passable to 'retarded' a totally unacceptable form in some ways. I ask specifically because I have encountered the fact that Americans don't think that the words 'spaz' or 'spacca' are particularly offensive whereas in Britain they are classed as one of the most offensive things you can call someone with disabilities. But there is a whole cultural and perfectly acceptable reason why we differ over that.
The other point was when the speaker says "for his dad's brother" instead of Uncle, it seemed quite poignant, but then it again it could have been culture or a time jump thing that I missed.

Lastly, honest...   the first two times I read it I was still unaware that 'Sitting Shiva" was a Jewish ritual. I assumed that Shiva was the same Shiva in 'Shiva Shanti' so I appreciate the fact that you noted a connection and included the weed and smoke reference.

Right, honestly I'm finished now,

Cheers for the read, much enjoyed it,

Mark

American here. Yep, retard and spaz are both raw insults here, I had the same impression as you did, a jump from public to private face.

Immediately associating shiva with the mourning ritual Shiva never came to mind, interesting, thanks for that.

To the poem: Interesting read, Cuz, I still trip on car sound and paid up. I never get to the end without seeing the friend as the special kid. I may be going somewhere you didn't intend, I think it's the awkward attempt at dress-up, the lack of connection in dad's brother and the simple but true sum-up of shiva that gets me there, but that's where I am so far.

Thanks for the read, fun.

[Cousin Kil]

Hi I initially read this poem last night and was really surprised with it and how fresh it seemed and within the first three or four lines I was part of the journey that was being travelled. And yeah it was perhaps slightly disorientating at first but I got there in the end. I would even say that the quick moves in the time frame not only made a second read necessary (a second read is always necessary regardless) but gave it another interesting aspect, like a sense of clarification. Like when you watch 'Fight Club' the second time, it's like a totally different film in some ways.

Also to be honest, I never even noticed that there was a lack of punctuation, which in many ways is odd because it's usually the first thing I would notice about a poem. So it obviously suited the style if I didn't notice.

A couple of moments were very noticeable and I thought added something extra to the characters, but I just wanted to clear up if they were intentional or not because I know that what seems obvious in one culture is not in another (British - American thing). The first one was, is 'the special kid' in the second line the same as the 'retarded kid' later on, and by same I don't mean necessarily the same person but the same as in, did they both have 'learning disabilities'. To me the shift was very telling indeed and effective. From 'special' a not perfectly politically correct term, but passable to 'retarded' a totally unacceptable form in some ways. I ask specifically because I have encountered the fact that Americans don't think that the words 'spaz' or 'spacca' are particularly offensive whereas in Britain they are classed as one of the most offensive things you can call someone with disabilities. But there is a whole cultural and perfectly acceptable reason why we differ over that.
The other point was when the speaker says "for his dad's brother" instead of Uncle, it seemed quite poignant, but then it again it could have been culture or a time jump thing that I missed.

Lastly, honest...   the first two times I read it I was still unaware that 'Sitting Shiva" was a Jewish ritual. I assumed that Shiva was the same Shiva in 'Shiva Shanti' so I appreciate the fact that you noted a connection and included the weed and smoke reference.

Right, honestly I'm finished now,

Cheers for the read, much enjoyed it,

Mark

Hey Mark!

I'm very happy to find this one's had a good effect on you, and I'm especially glad the feel of the poem translated when you read it. Quick movement is the intended motion of a lot of my poetry, as well as how I read my work. I shoot for it to come across "fast and ugly" and am glad to see it has In regards to punctuation, it's usually the last thing I notice and not personally a priority in my writing... It's not so much that I try to abandon it altogether, but rather that I'll be damned to let the hard stop of a period kink up my rhythm.
Apologies to all the passionate punctuators out there, haha
Okay, now for the material itself...
1) For the "special kid" line, yes the retarded kid and special kid are both mentally disabled, and when I wrote the piece I intended for them to be the same person. You hit the nail on the head, cultural filters aside haha
2) "Dad's brother" isn't so much a cultural thing, or at least not intended to be. This poem is a string of moments reset into one ride on the DC metro I took with my best friend for a conference (though we weren't there for a funeral, there had been a handful of deaths/funerals that year, and for one of the services he had travelled by metro with a mutual friend). Before my ride into the city with him, there was a night when he told me how he sat shiva for his "dad's brother" and the process of remembering and the covering of the mirrors and so forth. It was an idiosyncrasy I'd thought I'd include to stay true to the character, plus I appreciated the sonic value of it.
3)Finally, yes the title is in reference to the Jewish tradition, and thanks for noticing the candles

^There's probably some unnecessary background there in No. 2., but I included it to give a little preface to the poem's meaning. The poem is about loss, really. There was a lot of death that year (actually it was this year) and shortly after, my friend left for college. It's about savoring the smoke in a "fast and ugly" read 'cause life goes just as quick. And it's also about remembering.

Sappy I know haha, and I'm really happy you enjoyed it
Thanks,

Cousin

---

[/quote]

American here. Yep, retard and spaz are both raw insults here, I had the same impression as you did, a jump from public to private face.

Immediately associating shiva with the mourning ritual Shiva never came to mind, interesting, thanks for that.

To the poem: Interesting read, Cuz, I still trip on car sound and paid up. I never get to the end without seeing the friend as the special kid. I may be going somewhere you didn't intend, I think it's the awkward attempt at dress-up, the lack of connection in dad's brother and the simple but true sum-up of shiva that gets me there, but that's where I am so far.

Thanks for the read, fun.
[/quote]

Hey Ellajam!

Yup, Mark is dead on about the association with the Jewish Shiva.
Also, "trip" as in it messes with the rhythm? Or does it not help the images well enough?
"Car sound" was there to give a small taste of the Vienna station's atmosphere, it being right on the highway and thats all you can hear. Personally, I felt it paired well with "Capital South", but there could be better options I suppose...
"Paid up" was there for it's brevity because I wanted that sequence to flow quickly. It also describes payment of the ticket upon arrival at Capital South and leads into the ascension motion of the escalator and last lines.

^This is all just to explain my choices, and I'm always interested in hearing suggestions

Finally, the special kid and my friend are intended to be separate, and I'd hoped "we talked about the retarded kid/who'd hardly smash a fly" would clear that up. Didn't mean to take you where you went, but I can see your reasoning.

Glad you found it a good/interesting read!
Cousin