[split] Discussion digression from "I Am In/Stead"

[tun]

There's something deeply self-aggrandizing about this piece that I find just as deeply off-putting. First, the format: one of the first critiques I received in this site is that most modern English poetry is aligned left, not centered, only that critique is not quite true. Most English poetry in general is aligned left, from the earliest editions of Chaucer to Shakespeare's sonnets to Louise Gluck, and for a site like this, aligning left certainly makes a piece easier to critique line by line. When a poem is centered, it usually means three things: it's a concrete poem, which is certainly not the case here (if the goal was to imitate the shape of a tree, then it's a terribly stubby looking plant that's here presented); the author is inexperienced (albeit I've seen the author post pieces formatted elsewise); or the author thinks too highly of the work.

Then there's the choice of a first word. Not only is the very first word of the entire piece "I", but every line bar the penultimate begins with "I", while the penultimate is a question beginning with an interrogative that refers back to the self anyway.

Then there's the question of what that "I" is supposed to refer to. A quick search through both my memories and Google shows me that the more noteworthy "I" poems tend to refer that "I" to someone else, whether God in the Psalms, Humanity in Whitman, America in Langston Hughes, or at the very least Carl Solomon in Howl. This piece doesn't seem to go beyond the speaker---the best it does is refer to common aesthetic-psychological images of "the art, act, ache", "sea", "tree", so common that for this sort of poem we don't really see them as distinct objects anymore.

Then, somewhere in the middle of the piece, the mixed metaphors employing trite references pile on to such a degree that I'm simply lost, that I stop caring to connect everything to everything else. "silent rooster's screech" might be an interesting enough oxymoron, "soil my soul" may be some kind of wordplay on "garden wreath", but then "I wail simulating silent tears soaking sealocked tree", "I state syllables nulling sentence's scream", "grasping life-sized lead" (is it lead the metal or lead the rope?). It's simultaneously too much and nothing at all.

And, circling back to formatting, the slashes. The slashes! I suppose they're supposed to highlight a sense of dichotomy, of division between the Shadow and the Self, but very often---too often, really---they're just....there. "I....dread being/led" "I am little/lovely labor"

Yeah. Both too much and nothing at all. A very frustrating read.

I think you are referring to a real issue here that this poem and many others present to us - and if I understand you, you are saying that this piece does not have a story. Here is something I wrote down the other day in reference to this;

''I think story/ies are a fundamental structure upon which consciousness is formed/built, disposed or elaborated. I don’t think story is optional - but rather it is necessary, original and essential. This is because without story there can be no memory. Without memory, there is no real being. By story - we are to understand a representation of a destiny as an intelligible image - something which can be felt in the body and known by instinct - and therefore remembered.''

In this poem we are presented with some putative 'facts' of a 'self' and there is an implicit assumption/claim that those facts are 'enough' as naked facts on their own, with no demonstrated connection or potential for consequence for anybody else. They are simply exhibited - but without any story as such - these facts are not a story. In this poem the attention terminates at the self but without any elaboration or context or potential for meaning that can create memory. There is no destiny shown as having any potential to become universal. Here the 'self' is given/assumed/claimed to be a story in itself, but it isn't. I have heard that MFA programs have encouraged this inversion of reality, and there is a suppression of the potential for real meaning because real meaning cannot be owned and controlled by a morally bankrupt Academia.

"All posts should be directly related to criticism/analysis/improvement of the original post, the poem. From time to time it is expected that a discussion will arise from a point made in a comment. If it becomes apparent that comments are addressing other comments rather than the original post, a moderator will either move these posts to a new discussion thread in Poetry Discussion -- or for more robust discussion, to The Pig's Arse -- or, if necessary, the moderator will ask that further comments cease altogether. If, as the originator of a thread, you feel that your poem has been "hijacked" or that discussion has moved in a direction you are uncomfortable with, please send a PM to one of the moderators of this forum. It is not appropriate to engage in argument in a Critique forum."

In accordance with the Moderate critique forum's above-listed protocol, the digression has been moved to the discussion forum.  Feel free to continue to explore this train of thought here.  For reference, the original thread can be found here.

Thank you,
Quix/Admin