Name Game

[kolemath]

edit2

Train Tracks Train


 
1
Your name
 
the sound of John or Jane
tracks upon your brain
 
 
this is your name
this is your name
this is your name 
 
If John is Joe, or Jane, Elaine,
if you had a different name,
would you be the same?
 
this is your name
this is your name
this is your name
 
 
Bob hammers houses in Houston
Were I Bob, would I be a builder?
I've yet to know Cletus the theorist.
 
 
2
Imagine naming yourself
 
Slower
 
Imagine naming your             self
 
Stop
 
Exhale
 
Imagine your
 
self
 
unnamed
 
 






 








 Edit 1


Name Train Tracks


Born and staked a name
pounded on the brain
the sound of John or Jane
cuffing the rhythm to claim
 
This is your name!
This is your name!
This is your name!
 
If John were Joe or Jan were Jane,
the tracks would lead the same?


Bob the builder 
hammers houses in Houston.
But Cletus the theologian?  No.
Should have named him Theodore.
 
Dig up the pseudonym,
the tracks the name has set.
Map a distant station,
the naming of the self.



First Draft

Name Game


1
Your name

staked in your brain
like tracks of a railroad train.
 
If you had a different name,
would you be the same?
 
2
From birth you are staked with a name
hammering over your brain
like thousands of rattling trains
chuffing out rhythms proclaimed,
 
This is your name!
This is your name!
This is your name!
 
Do names limit lives
as tracks limit destinations?
 
Joe the plumber
pulls pipes in Pittsburgh.
Bob the builder 
hammers houses in Houston.
 
But where is Cletus the theorist?

Should have named him Theodore.
 
3
Imagine naming yourself.
 
Slower.
 
Imagine naming 
 
your 
 
self
 
without the tracks
your name has rattled, 
rattling you away.
 
Now, imagine 
your 
self
unnamed.
 
These pseudonyms won’t last. 


Hello fellow writers and critics. I posted this to the novice forum a few days ago, but am hoping to elevate the piece to some more critical eyes, post-revision.  Please rip to shreds at your convenience!  

Next time just ask to have it moved, less confusing and less work for me. ella/mod
The original thread:
http://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-18838.html

[UselessBlueprint]

Name Game


1 (Not sure what the numbering does, really. The seperation seems awkward, almost random)
Your name

staked in your brain
like tracks of a railroad train. (was "railroad tracks" too hard to rhyme? A lot of extra words that make it sound unpleasant just for the sake of rhyme?)
 
If you had a different name,
would you be the same? (sort of a whimsical section here, which I actually think fits the position in the piece.)
 
2
From birth you are staked with a name (this is the sort of thing that bothers me for some reasons. I like beginnings at the beginning and endings at the end. I like Up to be up and Down to be down. In this case, birth is a beginning, but it is not at the beginning of the piece -- not even the first word in the line.)
hammering over your brain
like thousands of rattling trains (repeating the rhyme? not a fan of that...)
chuffing out rhythms proclaimed, (the line I like the most, even if poorly disguised the inversion is)
 
This is your name!
This is your name!
This is your name!
 
Do names limit lives
as tracks limit destinations? (slightly odd comparison, but it somewhat fits.)
 
Joe the plumber (this section has some weird sonics)
pulls pipes in Pittsburgh. (percussive P sounds don't mimic plumbing, they seem to suggest hammering)
Bob the builder
hammers houses in Houston. (and the aspiration of the letter H here suggests strenuous work, such as lifting, pushing, or pulling something heavy)
 
But where is Cletus the theorist?

Should have named him Theodore. (lost on the purpose of this and the previous line)
 
3
Imagine naming yourself.
 
Slower.
 
Imagine naming 
 
your 
 
self (that's a hell of a lot of whitespace)
 
without the tracks
your name has rattled, 
rattling you away.
 
Now, imagine 
your 
self
unnamed.
 
These pseudonyms won’t last. (this statement lacks support. Why do they not last? What makes them different from the other infinite amount of things that do not last?)

Only a mild critique here, of course. Personally, I think the idea is a perfectly fair one, but the style and execution make me cringe. I actually saw it in Novice first, but couldn't make myself read through it before. Critically, my biggest issues are the placement of "birth" in section 2, the awkward sonics in section 2, and the unjustified final line. I think that carrying the railroad tracks metaphor through the piece is useless if you don't make the tracks tangible, or at least audible. I'm not able to connect the idea of names with an image of tracks in my head -- and honestly, I'm not sure what should be changed to make that possible.

[Magpie]

Hi Kolemath, this is a neat idea and ultimately an interesting question. Because you mentioned that you had already posted it in 'Novice' then I couldn't help but look, so it may have some bearing on what I say here.

Name Game


1  -- The numbering of parts of the poem doesn't seem necessary
Your name

staked in your brain
like tracks of a railroad train.
 
If you had a different name,
would you be the same? -- Everything you say in this part you essentially say again in the next part, which makes it somewhat redundant. Although I prefer the rhythm of this first part.
 
2
From birth you are staked with a name
hammering over your brain -- this line seems odd when the obvious connection with 'hammer' would be the 'stake' from the previous line in which case it would be 'hammered into your brain' like a stake is hammered into the ground
like thousands of rattling trains -- could possibly be shortened to 'like a thousand rattling trains'
chuffing out rhythms proclaimed, -- Ah, in the original you had this as 'cuffing' was it a mistake? 'cuffing' as in 'hitting with an open hand' fits in better with your idea of a name being hammered and repetition.
 
This is your name!
This is your name!
This is your name! -- Sounds like a train, sounds like a train... I like it. Also back to the previous line, 'cuffing' would fit in better with these three lines.
 
Do names limit lives
as tracks limit destinations?
 
Joe the plumber -- I get 'Bob the builder' but sonically shouldn't this be something like 'Joe the joiner'
pulls pipes in Pittsburgh.
Bob the builder 
hammers houses in Houston.
 
But where is Cletus the theorist? -- Bear with me on this one, but would 'theologist' work better here because 'theorist' is related to 'theory' which comes from 'theoros' meaning spectator and related to 'thea' meaning 'a view' as in 'theatre'. However 'Theodore' literally means 'gift of god', 'theos' - god 'doron' - gift... Do you see where I'm coming from??

Should have named him Theodore.
 
3
Imagine naming yourself.
 
Slower.
 
Imagine naming 
 
your 
 
self -- I imagine the train slowing down here, so this works for me.
 
without the tracks
your name has rattled, 
rattling you away.
 
Now, imagine 
your 
self
unnamed.
 
These pseudonyms won’t last. -- I think that the previous statement is a more powerful one to end on and it implies what is said in this line, don't do all the work for the reader.


Hello fellow writers and critics. I posted this to the novice forum a few days ago, but am hoping to elevate the piece to some more critical eyes, post-revision.  Please rip to shreds at your convenience!  

I really enjoyed reading this poem and its simple yet poignant question. It is a question that I have thought about many times. I am adopted and therefore had one name for about six months and then it was changed by my adoptive parents. So often when I was growing up I couldn't help but wonder, 'What if...', thanks for making me ponder it again.

Thanks for the read,

Mark

[kolemath]

I really appreciate your feedback, UselessBlueprint!  You've given me a lot to think about.

---

Thanks for the feedback ambrosial revelation!  Especial the suggestion of etymology, that connection's brilliant.

[RiverNotch]

Name Game - Just myself; listening to a bunch of hip hop albums lately, and this title reminds me too much of a Kanye West song.

1
Your name

staked in your brain 
like tracks of a railroad train. Railroad tracks. Trains run on tracks; they do not themselves have tracks. At least, that's what I know. And if the name was staked in a brain like tracks of a train, then that has the subtle implication of tracks being planted on a train, which, again, is wrong. Or rather, weird -- but nothing's meant to be so weird here.
 
If you had a different name,
would you be the same?
 
2
From birth you are staked with a name
hammering over your brain Is "hammering over" an actual usage? Shouldn't this be "hammered onto/into" or "hammering out"?
like thousands of rattling trains
chuffing out rhythms proclaimed, I don't think the inversion would be as problematic here if this piece didn't have other such problems.
 
This is your name!
This is your name!
This is your name!
 
Do names limit lives
as tracks limit destinations? For your consideration: Rails staked into the ground, names hammered onto the brain. Fine. But then the name becomes the train in this section's first stanza, and now the names themselves limit lives as tracks limit destinations, so the names as the tracks (and, with the brain being the natural stand in for a mind, the mind switching from earth to train) --- that's a lot of twisting.
 
Joe the plumber
pulls pipes in Pittsburgh. Agreed with an earlier point: sonically, this feels more like hammering. In fact, you could just remove these two lines (so as to have the playfulness in Bob the Builder stand out), then -----
Bob the builder 
hammers houses in Houston.
 
But where is Cletus the theorist? ---- fuse this and the following line. I think this might specify the speaker's culture (of mild condescension) too much for the poem's benefit. 

Should have named him Theodore. Note on earlier point: Theologist would have more intellectual meaning, but that shine I think would distract from the rest of this poem's much simpler tone. 
 
3
Imagine naming yourself.
 
Slower.
 
Imagine naming 
 
your 
Yeah, at this point the white space just annoys.
self
 
without the tracks
your name has rattled, And now again the name is a train? Good grief, make up your mind.
rattling you away.
 
Now, imagine 
your 
self 
unnamed.
 
These pseudonyms won’t last. This is unnecessary.

At first reading, I kinda liked this, but the more I dissected, the more I noticed inconsistencies, either in sound (which unraveled with the awkward constructions of the first stanza) or substance (unraveled when I realized how much you twisted around what "name" meant in relation to a train). Somehow, I think this would be a much better poem if you just ditched most of the train bits, and went with the meal of the last stanza:

"Imagine naming yourself.

Slower.

Imagine
naming

your self

without the tracks
your name has set.



Now imagine yourself
unnamed."

And note how I compressed all the "your/self"s -- I actually don't know what to make of them. The separation, conceptually, is right, emphasizing the self-connected nature of the names, but the separation annoys the heck out of me --- perhaps "your self", instead, just so you wouldn't have an unnecessarily extra line? In fact.....

[kolemath]

I really appreciate your reading, RiverNotch.  Thanks for pointing out so many inconsistencies in the metaphor.

[kolemath]

(I hope I'm posting this edit correctly).  I tried to clean up the metaphor, compress concepts, and reorganize stanzas.  [b]Thanks to everyone for the input! [/b]

Edit 1

Name Train Tracks


Born and staked a name
pounded on the brain
the sound of John or Jane
cuffing the rhythm to claim
 
This is your name!
This is your name!
This is your name!
 
If John were Joe or Jan were Jane,
the tracks would lead the same?


Bob the builder 
hammers houses in Houston.
But Cletus the theologian?  No.
Should have named him Theodore.
 
Dig up the pseudonym,
the tracks the name has set.
Map a distant station,
the naming of the self.

[justcloudy]

Off to bed in my part of the world but just wanted to say real quick-- in your edit you give up on a lot of really nice elements that you had in the first poem. I liked the spacing at the end (train slowing down as someone said), and the ending, minus the last statement, was really strong. In the original your rhyming-at-the-beginning-but-not-at-the-end worked. In the edit it feels wrong. Plus the Bob-Joe-Theo part in the original was much strong in my opinion. The Joe-John-Jane line in the edit is nice but so was the similar line in the previous version.

Sometimes edits have to get further away before they can get closer. All part of the creative process; you need to experiment and see what you like best. In the end that's what it comes down to. My opinion is mine-- yours as the author is much more important.

-jc

PS No need to clean up stanzas or compress anything if that's not what your poem is asking for! And trains go on long journeys... so maybe that's not called for here. Your call.

PPS Generally you should post the edit in the original post. Click "edit" under the original and add it above, labelled as edit

[kolemath]

Thanks so much, JC! I get so lost in reading my own words and start questioning things (perhaps) too much.  I new to this forum too, so the give and take is new to me.  (I love it by the way). Thanks for reminding me of the middle ground! -Kole

---

And thanks for the edit posting tip!

---

No problem, Ella!  I appreciate your effort/patience/presence!!

[Achebe]

Hi kole - liked this one, though S3 felt a bit gimmicky. Also, 'rattling you away' feels like it's just been tossed in there without too much thought.
Ending it at 'Cletus the theorist' works fine for me.

[kolemath]

Thanks for your feedback, Achebe!  I appreciate your specific comments on these lines.  I'm not sure how I feel about them either!

[Lizzie]

I have to agree with "justcloudy." I really like the original because it was, well...original. It made me laugh and the revision didn't -- I found the revised version forgettable. I think that there's a fresh perspective and voice in your work and I would hate for that to be lost.

I would much prefer to read something new than something tidy.

[Jonsy3k]

First of all - WOW. Just wow. Poetry is meant to act as a lyrical bridge between people for thought. For emotion. Elicit a reaction. On multiple levels, with but a few words shard by many, yet none too often does a poem truly make you invert those thoughts and evoke a reaction as strongly as this did for me. 

Who am I? What is it that makes me, myself?
A name? A device with which others might call me?
We're I not named Chris would I truly be a different post? Would my track have gone broader had i been an Erik?  Or Sébastien? Would it have stopped with the assignment of another?

Your idea for this was superb. I'm honestly too wrought with questions to truly do any true editing for this save that being descriptive never hurts. Go in depth. Explore. Find the track this was meant to take and ride the rails until life is laid bare before you. 

Thank you. Truly. 

Jonsy3k

[justcloudy]

Didn't see that you had posted another edit. (If you could write "2nd edit" or something above it in the post it'd be easier to see.) I'm a fan. You got to the heart of it and really made me think about my name, etc. I wasn't distracted by anything, the message came through. For me, it's a winner. Well done!

-jc

[kolemath]

@jc Thanks for the tip! (still learning the navigation schemes).
@liz You helped me remember the difference between my work and another's opinion. I needed to hear that!
@Jonsy Thanks for reading and responding!