Verse Poem (s)

[Daniel]

Pessimistic Morning

We?d suffer anything to create a world
better than the one we?re born into.
The birth-pangs of our illusory savior

reverberate in the steel tresses of turnpikes
and bridges? the pretzled steel that remakes
chasms into toll-ways, valleys once rich

with ghosts into ghostless suburbs, robotic
submarines droning back to the Titanic as though
we could refloat our souls alongside

the drowned pianos and blind crabs
we?ve fed with hubris. No world
is too small to escape to, even

if that world is as tiny as a grain
of sand, that slips, first, through a poet?s
clenched fist, and then, through

centuries, building speed for eternity?
growing sun-sized inside willing imaginations
to tide a planetary catastrophe: a single sand-grain?

our world no less a fumbled parcel
without an address. I only wanted to write
love-songs, but somehow my notebook burst

with double-entendres, and the nihilism
I?d adorned (donning black in high-school)
refused to scrub off, as I inched toward my grave.


"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."
Daniel

[Daniel]

Optimistic Night

Tonight
An ample white dove
will telepathize
shimmering thought waves
over the lake, the ripples
slide laterally in circles like

Saturn?s rings, the slanting
waves will spool to a purer white
than a primed canvas.
When the sun dive-bombs
to China,
the stars will shred

to a trillion asterisks,
each an undulation of
the unconscious.
An orange dragonfly
harmless, loving, may touch my prow.
As a mosquito

skims the green-gold surface
of the lake, fireflies
will mime love, joy....
The treetops will whisper
of another life (the sky-forest
soon seen through
moonlight reflections).






"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."
Daniel

[Daniel]

These are older lyrics that aren't going anywhere. Sometimes, I've found that a poem just is what it is. Yes, I could get rid of "tresses" in the 4th line of the first poem; yes, I could refine the diction (word-choice) in either one of these frags to make it more modern and less stilted. But the poems are of a "cloth" as they are; I like them this way, I don't care about publishing them and they don't need to serve any other purpose than what they have served which was to help clear the way toward other, maybe more important themes and insights.

Plus, it's good to remain active. A bird sings every day (no bird has an eight month block!) but it is not every day that its song stops even one passer-by with its clarion melody.

I post them here, less seeking advice than reinforcing my point from other threads that sometimes a poem doesn't have to be publishable, per se, to still play an *active* role in one's creative development.





"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."
Daniel

[crystalwizard]

I like number two, but this line:

will telepathize

makes my head hurt.

Bewildering Stories would probably take both of those, if you feel like submitting them.

Never meddle in the affairs of a wizard unless you are soggy and hard to light!


<a href="http://flashingswords.sfreader.com" target="_blank">
Managing Editor of Flashing Swords</a>

Visit my art gallery on art wanted (http://artwanted.com/crystalwizard)
All my books in print (http://sojourn.omnitech.net)

[RHFay]

Just some personal observations and feelings...
I kind of like the repetion of the "t" sound in the line:

*reverberate in the steel tresses of turnpikes*

I don't really like poetry that splits lines between stanzas, but that's just my personal preference. So something like this looks odd to me:

*we could refloat our souls alongside*

*the drowned pianos and blind crabs*

But, admitedly, I don't know much about modern poetic forms.

"Optimistic Night" definitely has some nice imagery. I especially like the reference to Saturn's rings.

They do seem as if they could use a little polishing with the diction, as you point out, but they are fine left somewhat black from the creative forge.

And, yes, I will admit you can still be creative even if you don't seek publication. However, it does give me personally that extra motivation to continue being creative. There are times real life gets in the way, and it's good to have some external motivation as well as internal. Otherwise, the rest of life might overwhelm my creative side.

Does that make any sense?




"I'm going to do what the warriors of old did. I'm going to recite poetry!" Andrew of Armar.

http://azurelionproductions.com

[Daniel]

Thanks for the comments, guys.

On publication: writing with no view toward publication as I have done here and also in the prose poems I posted is a reward in itself. You are right, RH about there needing to be an audience of some kind -- one which comes from the boards, in this case, is as good as being "published" per se.

I wouldn't want to publish either one of these poems even if they were spruced up a bit because they don't "cut it" for me, theme-wise at all.

The first one is basically a Hart Crane "pastiche" or remix although it doesn't borrow anything specific, just the overall theme and the second one, while nice from a "pastorale" pov, does not deal with the theme of exaltation through nature at a level which I presently find intense enough. So publishing them would be just adding two "echoes" of themes and ideas that have already been written and offered to the world a thousand times before in much better poems.

But writing each of these fragments helped me get to the point where I can say with conviciton that I've moved beyond what's in them and the techniques used to make them, but thatmaking them is how I moved on.





"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."
Daniel

[Daniel]

RH

The submitting side of poetry terrifies me. Not because I don't get decent results, but because I find that whenever I am consciously thinking about poetry subs and publication my actual writing suffers. It's harder to start, finish, and revise poems when I am conscious at all of publication. I felt the opposite way years ago when i started: it was a desire to be read that fueled my writing. Nowadays, I am secure in that I am a good poet, I just want to be better and the desire forpublication, at least for me, doesn't seem very useful for the nextstep I need to make. In other words, I am already 'good enough" to be published, that hurdle was passed so long agao --I have the "external validation" we all need, but the motivation to go *farther yet* must come from within and not from without. Hope that makes sense.

OTOH, it is *essential* to study markets, to make submissions, to not write in a vaccuum, and to gain precisely the motivation you are talking about.

So I agree with you; I just have reached the point personally where I resent the submission process, even acceptances -- because it is feels like it *should* be an extraneous thing to making art.

But it isn't.





"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."
Daniel

[Daniel]

I don't really like poetry that splits lines between stanzas,

***

RH

It's called enjambment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enjambment). I am also working on this element in my poetry as we speak.





"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."
Daniel

[RHFay]

Just from a purely personal aesthetic, it looks funny to me. I doubt it would be something I would ever use in my stuff. I don't think I would be comfortable with it, and while it's good to challenge ones self once in a while, if you're not comfortable with a certain technique or style, I think it will show in your work.

"I'm going to do what the warriors of old did. I'm going to recite poetry!" Andrew of Armar.

http://azurelionproductions.com

[Daniel]

*we could refloat our souls alongside*

*the drowned pianos and blind crabs*

***

Not that anyone asked or probably cares about this, but it might be fun to talk about anyway. There should be a *reason* for enjambment -- one which may not at first be apparent to a reader, nor is it *meant* to be immediately apparent.

Here's what I mean: in this specific caase, as the line "jumps" down here through the enjambment on "the drowned, etc" you get a feeling of "plunging" into the line with ocean imagery which is a cool form/image/theme unification.

In other lines like:

When the sun dive-bombs
to China,
the stars will shred

Does the same thing with "plunging" but also adds a fragmented enjambment to emphasize or even "plasticize" the word and image of "shred."

Does a reader have to be conscious of these things to make a poem work? Or just like it? No. Some will be, though. And these readerswill "sink" deeper into your poem and learn to trust and admire you more as a poet and *believe* in your themes because the technique and forms are innately powerful.

Is the poet always conscious of these things during the composition of a poem? No.

Do they matter as to whether a poem is perceived as meaningful or emotionally resonant? Heck yes!





"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."
Daniel

[Daniel]

RHFay said...
Just from a purely personal aesthetic, it looks funny to me. I doubt it would be something I would ever use in my stuff. I don't think I would be comfortable with it, and while it's good to challenge ones self once in a while, if you're not comfortable with a certain technique or style, I think it will show in your work.



I have a long way to go with refining enjambment in my poetry. Your intuition is sound here.

There are poets, like Shakespeare, who are sorcerers with enjambment, though.




"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."
Daniel

[RHFay]

Well, Shakespeare was a genius. Even the Doctor said so!

"I'm going to do what the warriors of old did. I'm going to recite poetry!" Andrew of Armar.

http://azurelionproductions.com

[crystalwizard]

RHFay said...

I don't really like poetry that splits lines between stanzas

I'm with Richard.

I know what it is.
I know why it's used.
I dislike it immensely.

[Daniel]

Well, Shakespeare was a genius. Even the Doctor said so!

***

LOL!!!!


"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."
Daniel

[Daniel]

I'm with Richard.

I know what it is.
I know why it's used.
I dislike it immensely

***

I think form in poetry is best when married without any distinction to theme.

So, when you have a good marriage it really doesn't matter what the form is -- from an 'outside" pov. When the form of a poem is off-putting -- even to a casual reader -- as inthe case of these pieces I've posted -- the problem is in the composition and it is not a solid "marriage" of form and theme.

So, when Shake or Emily Dickinson uses enjambenmt, even you, CW are less likely to 1) notice it 2) "dislike it immensely" -- or if you do, yours is at least not representative of the only or even primaryimpact that (skilled) enjambment can produce in readers, as dear Emily's "spasmodic" poems have gone over quite well these past 150 years or so....

In fact, she's the national poet of America, in my book. Whitman can go hang with his "stream of consciousness free-verse"!

LOL


/emoticons/rofl.gif


"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."
Daniel

[BitterHermit]

Enjambment is one of my favorite stunts. When I'm on my game, I'm excellent at it. And the example cited here is both good and bad as an example. First, it's really tricky to use enjambment from stanza end to begin the next stanza. You can use it line to line- and then it is hardly noticed by most not conscious of the technique (and lots of us will take it as a happy accident despite knowing that every single time we ourselves use it, we do it deliberately; this is a double standard as incorrect as most).


One important matter in good enjambment is that you have more than one thing happening. Here, you get the line "as though / we could refloat our souls alongside", which is a though unto itself . . . but then the it effectively repeats the line to extend it to "we could refloat our souls alongside the drowned pianos and blind crabs." This finishes with an image that is much easier to grasp. " . . . as though we could reloat our souls alongside" is very esoteric and would make most people uncomfortable, especially those who are 'too much in this world', which is to say those whose intelligence modality is given more to concrete than abstract thought patterns.


There's a great deal to like in both poems, Dan. And I think they could fairly simply be 'modified' for publication. And, I respect your decision to leave them alone. So, I won't mention much on them except to say that I agree with RH about the consonance in the steel trusses and if I were going to take anything from that line, it would be your superfluous article, "the", because it cushions what should be a more staccato 'ping' of echo. /emoticons/wink.gif

Literarily speaking: More prolific than sin!
Blog: http://bitterhermit.wordpress.com
Hunh? (other blog): http://fringemonkey.wordpress.com

[RHFay]

I'm talking specifically about enjambment between stanzas. It doesn't look as wrong to me when used between lines, at least in some instances.

However, I feel that some modern poets seem to use it willy-nilly. There are plenty of poems I've seen that seem to just leave words hanging at the end of a line, and these are usually not pleasant on the eyes at all.

Used too much, it seems to make the poem look too choppy and hard to read. And, if it's so hard to read that a reader just skips over the rest of the poem, then the poet really didn't do a good job. If they are writing poetry only to show how clever they are with format and construction, and aren't concerned about others reading it and getting something out of it, then they shouldn't be presenting that poetry to the public to begin with.







"I'm going to do what the warriors of old did. I'm going to recite poetry!" Andrew of Armar.

http://azurelionproductions.com

[BitterHermit]

RHFay said...
Used too much, it seems to make the poem look too choppy and hard to read. And, if it's so hard to read that a reader just skips over the rest of the poem, then the poet really didn't do a good job. If they are writing poetry only to show how clever they are with format and construction, and aren't concerned about others reading it and getting something out of it, then they shouldn't be presenting that poetry to the public to begin with.








Depends on the target market. If it's for the poetry in-crowd, then often we have to gild the poem to such an extent that our critics in the ivory towers don't call us glib and say what sellouts we are for bowing to the popular (read as "philistine") readers. Billy Collins, in his work for Pittsburg Poetry Press, writes wonderful and cunning verse that seems absolutely guileless and to some extent artless - and the critics took him to task for it. Wrongly. Blind bungling idiots couldn't see past the country finish to the pure oak beneath. Their criticism was completely invalid; unfortunately, it became a sort of self-fulfilliing prophecy with some of Collins' more recent work. His books from the big publishing house are full trunk poems that lack the poetic artistry of his small press work. It's a bit early to tell if this is because he changed paradigms or simply because he was too busy with administrative nonsense to craft his poetry as he had previously.


Audience, in this case markets especially, tend to be as great a factor in accessibility of poetry as craft. There's a great deal of poetry I'd spit at and murmur "merde" at, but still hesitate to call uncrafted or stupidly written simply because I'm not the audience for which it was intended.


Any conceit, device, tool, stunt, etc. overused or injudiciously used mars the poem. But . . . if that is deliberate, then that is the poet's choice. Ginsberg's late verse was mostly a parody of his own generation, himself . . . pretty much everything. And there is a great deal of it I would be happy to see disappear completely from history. But that's about my opinion and not about his intent or talent or craftsmanship.


In the end, it's the poet who makes those decisions. If he fails to make them deliberately, he makes them nonetheless. But if not deliberately, then he is lost both to his own genius and his own foolishness - and, yes, I believe we are all both genius and fool; it's just a matter of which we express or fail to express. Most of us fail to express our genius because either we ourselves or someone outside ourselves have convinced us of the "common sense" axiom damning genius to an infinitessimal and highly esteemed minority of human beings.

Literarily speaking: More prolific than sin!
Blog: http://bitterhermit.wordpress.com
Hunh? (other blog): http://fringemonkey.wordpress.com

[Daniel]

Anything in any poem that puts off readers is a mark against it for universality. A great poem, or poetic vision, grabs and holds and is beyond form in its impact: it is only later after the 'smoke' clears that a few shell-shocked veterans deem it wise to slip into the poem's guts and figure out *why* it was so explosive.

For these practice scales: it is natural to attempt just about anything whilst 'jamming' that's what 'jamming' is for.

I may have learned something about enjambmnt from writing these poems and from posting them here, but the lessons aren't applicable to the practice pieces. The practice pieces are just that: like tackling dummies or driving range balls -- I do all kinds of stuff at the driving range I'd never try in an actual round of golf. I even use clubs tehre that I have nver used on the course, proper.

I do invite my friends to the driving range to critique my swing, though. But I'd hat eit if they started to do so in an actual round of golf!

Same with poetry: I don't mind sharing my practice pices, but if you were critiquing my published poems, I'd probably get really mad and say'What do you know Philistines!! I am a REAL poet! I've been published!'

LOL


"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."
Daniel

[BitterHermit]

Daniel said...
Same with poetry: I don't mind sharing my practice pices, but if you were critiquing my published poems, I'd probably get really mad and say"What do you know Philistines!! I am a REAL poet! I've been published!"




To which I would reply something like, "What do you expect, Frog? I am, after all, a scorpion." [Have no idea the origin of this fable, but ask if you don't know this one. It's a fun little fable they like to toss around in Group Therapy and Psych chats and Secret-esque societies.]


I'd also tell you I know very well that you are REAL poet. A serious poet. But I'd likely stay away from the matter of published and not for a number of reasons, mostly 'professional courtesy'. /emoticons/wink.gif

Literarily speaking: More prolific than sin!
Blog: http://bitterhermit.wordpress.com
Hunh? (other blog): http://fringemonkey.wordpress.com

[RHFay]

I'm just commenting from a rather plebian perspective; from the perspective of someone who hasn't immersed himself in the study of poetry. I don't believe poetry has to be understandable by an elite few to be good. My problem with a lot of current poetry is that is what they seem to be doing.

And enjambment is one of the things that makes the poems less than enjoyable, for me. Now, I adore Shakespeare, so maybe my problem is more when it is used incorrectly.

I know what I like, and I know what I don't.

"I'm going to do what the warriors of old did. I'm going to recite poetry!" Andrew of Armar.

http://azurelionproductions.com

[Daniel]

I know what I like, and I know what I don't.

***

So does everyone else!

That doesn't keep them from forgetting it, wilfully or not, when they are defining 'critical standards' in literary circles or handing out awards in SF circles. People very *rarely* stand up for their convictions and true desires, especially regarding art, and especially in groups of any kind.

It is pointless to look to others at all for validation as an artist. That's my whole point all along.


"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."
Daniel