.
Sunblock
In my backyard looking for rays.
A train passes nearby.
Sometimes I hear it, sometimes I don’t.
A scrawny mouse scuttles through the grass.
My dog barks. She thinks it’s a frog.
An hour later it’s still there
at the edge of the lawn,
at the end of her cable
a foot away from her snout.
She’s been whining for hours.
An atom from creation sweetens my tea.
Another departs in a black coat.
Most believe the sky is expanding
but I have a sense
everything is contracting
into a meandering focus.
The blue sound of life heightens
as it nears, then dopplers to red
on its way out.
You have to have your head up
to hear the nuanced pitch.
The little mouse has turned over.
Do I cry or take a picture?
Blackbirds mass on a line.
The faint smell of a skunk
remains from last night’s fracas.
When I was a kid I’d lie out
in my backyard all summer long
with Coppertone and Pepsi
and a transistor radio.
Nowadays you can’t do that.
At least not where you can be seen.
The sun never made a showing today.
The lawn with its divots and bare spots
is green and lush. It must have been
a good place to die.
.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Just Received Copies of My First Book of Poems
Just received author's copies of "Night Fires," from my publisher (Pudding House Publications), which was a semi-finalist for The Journal Award (2009), also known as the "Charles B. Wheeler Prize." This is an annual competition to select one poetry maunuscript for publication, sponsored by OSU poets. I'm elated with the printing and the cover art. They did a great job. There are 30 poems in the book, a sort of reflection on early events and circumstances that were important to me in my childhood and early adulthood. I hope I was able to provide a different look at what are no doubt common and perhaps identifiable themes. You can order the book directly from the publisher for $10 (not including postage): Pudding House Publications/ 81 Shadymere Lane/ Columbus, OH 43213, or find it at their website: http://www.puddinghouse.com. I also am offering, on a first-come, first-served basis, inscribed copies from my own pile sitting in the study. If you want to reserve a copy, just email me at: enudelman@msn.com and/or send $14 (postpaid) to Ed Nudelman/125 New Balch St./ Beverly, MA 01915
Here's one of the poems from the book:
Matinees
My father abandoned me.
Left me for hours
with the Saturday morning weirdoes
on Pike Street to watch gorilla
movies one after another
while the poker star
went upstairs following smoke
or downstairs or across the street.
God knows where he went
to play his cards.
When he finally returned
I’d be on a swivel-chair
next to the popcorn machine
where a pal from his war
made sure I was discreetly
sequestered, cool and dry
and bleary-eyed.
When I got home, the smoke
from my cigarette-laced clothes
still reeked. And worse,
the gorillas kept on dying.
.
Friday, January 23, 2009
January Poem of the Month by Grace Cavalieri
.
What I Won
by Grace Cavalieri
The sack dress was in style then
with a single strand of pearls.
The sack dress was designed to see
the body move lightly beneath.
That's why I wore it to my first poetry
contest in Philly,
leaving my four-month old at home.
Of course my husband had to
drive, as nervous as I was
so he waited in the car all
day while I sat in the big room, first time out
since I found my mother
dead and then had a baby two weeks later.
My husband stayed all day in that
car in the snow. I won first prize about
wanting my mother but
it was said much better than this,
as you can imagine, to win first.
It even began with notes upon a phantom
lute, although The Poet
said what do we know of lutes now?
But what did he know of
walking into her bedroom and finding
her a pale shade of lilac.
That just goes to prove I guess I was talking
about the wrong thing in the poem,
and The Poet was surely on to something.
I have to say I looked wonderful,
gaunt with grief and colitis, 1956,
hurrying across the street
where my husband was waiting to take me home,
the first wrong victory in my hand.
Explication
by Edward Nudelman
“What I Won,” a poem by Grace Cavilieri, takes us through experience’s strongest gift, memory, to illustrate how something sought (such as a poetry prize) can fade and lessen in importance in the face of sweeping grief or hardship. Grace provides us with a very specific account traveling with her husband to a poetry contest, with fear and trembling, allowing the seamless movement of the poem to inform us, and herself, of what really matters and what is supremely valued.
The title of the poem, as well as the first few lines, draw attention to perhaps a physical object or prize that might be won. The speaker is dressing for an important event and is taking matters very seriously (‘sack dress in style’, ‘pearls’, ‘designed to see the body move lightly beneath’). Her anxiety over having to go to Philly (we are not told from which city of origin, but the assumption is that it was a fairly long trip) is couched in ambivalent terms. We’re told her husband had to drive (‘as nervous as I was’), but we’re not told if her fears were directly related to having to read, or something quite different, such as an emotional issue or even a physical impairment.
Nearly midway through the poem, however, we learn the crux of the speaker’s difficulty in which she exclaims: “first time out since I found my mother dead and then had a baby two weeks later.’ We find several lines addressing her husband’s loyalty and the speaker’s obvious regard for his willingness to come alongside her in her travail. The speaker will return to this important aspect of support and care later in the poem.
The poem seems to turn, midway, on the phrase, “I won first prize about wanting my mother…” said abruptly and perhaps sarcastically, with the qualifier, “but it was said much better than this… to win first.” Here the speaker is organizing thought around the ambivalence of winning something obviously of importance (poets live for this), while at the same time having to deal with a devastating loss. The close proximity of her mother’s death, the birth of her child, and the poetry contest all mix in to add dynamic suspense to this poem.
The second half of the poem deals with a fictitious poet, referred to as simply, The Poet, and interestingly given a male gender (perhaps to distinguish from a metaphor of the speaker interacting with a mirror poet, or self, though this could still be true). The speaker uses this device as a sounding board to discuss with us the poem which she presented at the contest, which began "with notes upon a phantom lute." While this appears to be a reference to her mother’s death, it could also stand alone as a metaphor for the evanescence and changeability of joy or peace (the lute being a reference to that which could supply either). The speaker goes on to tell us that The Poet asked, "what do we know of lutes now?” What can good things do for the grief-stricken? How can nice words, sleep-aids, poetry awards assuage the pain of loss? In addition, one could ask, how can poetry itself help? The Poet wasn’t there, and so he can’t identify with what happened (the speaker implies, 'But what did he know of walking into her bedroom and finding her a pale shade of lilac’).
The conversation heightens near the end as the speaker goes back and forth rehearsing her arguments before the anonymous Poet. In a moment of either self-effacing doubt or monumental clarity, the speaker throws up her hands, saying: "That just goes to prove I guess I was talking about the wrong thing in the poem, and The Poet was surely on to something.”
The ending, comprising an extremely personal and vulnerable introspection, provides the reader with what they need to take this poem into their world of experience. We find a tired, worn-out, ill person, ‘gaunt with grief and colitis,’ ‘hurrying’ back to her husband who will take her home and continue to love her, even if at that moment she holds in her hand the very emblem of the conflict and dissonance expressed in the poem: ‘the first wrong victory.”
“What I won” is a strikingly intimate poem that lets the reader experience along side the speaker revealing aspects of her emotional life, if only from a snapshot event on one day in Philly, in 1956. It is a poem of love and constancy as much as it is self-discovery. We are privy to the evolution of understanding in the speaker’s heart. What becomes of value necessarily diminishes that which never had value. But much remains. Throughout the poem the speaker is careful to remind us that her husband not only accompanied her, but brought her, waited for her, and finally took her home. The speaker doesn’t ask for sympathy in the loss of her mother, presented as fact. The poem could have gone down that road and reproduced a thousand similar themes. Not that the crystallization of what really matters is not vividly presented here. But the power and excellence in this poem lies in the understated values of love and companionship portrayed, hard commodities to find in this world; but once found, sufficient to assuage the worst of grief.
Brief Bio of Grace Cavalieri
Grace Cavalieri is the author of several books of poetry and 21 produced plays; she founded and still produces/hosts public radio’s “The Poet and the Poem,” now in its 32nd year, now from the Library of Congress. Her new book is Anna Nicole: Poems (Goss183:: Casa Menendez, 2008.) She is book review editor for The Montserrat Review and a poetry columnist for MiPOradio. Her play in progress, on Anna Nicole, is “Beverly Hills, Texas.”
.
What I Won
by Grace Cavalieri
The sack dress was in style then
with a single strand of pearls.
The sack dress was designed to see
the body move lightly beneath.
That's why I wore it to my first poetry
contest in Philly,
leaving my four-month old at home.
Of course my husband had to
drive, as nervous as I was
so he waited in the car all
day while I sat in the big room, first time out
since I found my mother
dead and then had a baby two weeks later.
My husband stayed all day in that
car in the snow. I won first prize about
wanting my mother but
it was said much better than this,
as you can imagine, to win first.
It even began with notes upon a phantom
lute, although The Poet
said what do we know of lutes now?
But what did he know of
walking into her bedroom and finding
her a pale shade of lilac.
That just goes to prove I guess I was talking
about the wrong thing in the poem,
and The Poet was surely on to something.
I have to say I looked wonderful,
gaunt with grief and colitis, 1956,
hurrying across the street
where my husband was waiting to take me home,
the first wrong victory in my hand.
Explication
by Edward Nudelman
“What I Won,” a poem by Grace Cavilieri, takes us through experience’s strongest gift, memory, to illustrate how something sought (such as a poetry prize) can fade and lessen in importance in the face of sweeping grief or hardship. Grace provides us with a very specific account traveling with her husband to a poetry contest, with fear and trembling, allowing the seamless movement of the poem to inform us, and herself, of what really matters and what is supremely valued.
The title of the poem, as well as the first few lines, draw attention to perhaps a physical object or prize that might be won. The speaker is dressing for an important event and is taking matters very seriously (‘sack dress in style’, ‘pearls’, ‘designed to see the body move lightly beneath’). Her anxiety over having to go to Philly (we are not told from which city of origin, but the assumption is that it was a fairly long trip) is couched in ambivalent terms. We’re told her husband had to drive (‘as nervous as I was’), but we’re not told if her fears were directly related to having to read, or something quite different, such as an emotional issue or even a physical impairment.
Nearly midway through the poem, however, we learn the crux of the speaker’s difficulty in which she exclaims: “first time out since I found my mother dead and then had a baby two weeks later.’ We find several lines addressing her husband’s loyalty and the speaker’s obvious regard for his willingness to come alongside her in her travail. The speaker will return to this important aspect of support and care later in the poem.
The poem seems to turn, midway, on the phrase, “I won first prize about wanting my mother…” said abruptly and perhaps sarcastically, with the qualifier, “but it was said much better than this… to win first.” Here the speaker is organizing thought around the ambivalence of winning something obviously of importance (poets live for this), while at the same time having to deal with a devastating loss. The close proximity of her mother’s death, the birth of her child, and the poetry contest all mix in to add dynamic suspense to this poem.
The second half of the poem deals with a fictitious poet, referred to as simply, The Poet, and interestingly given a male gender (perhaps to distinguish from a metaphor of the speaker interacting with a mirror poet, or self, though this could still be true). The speaker uses this device as a sounding board to discuss with us the poem which she presented at the contest, which began "with notes upon a phantom lute." While this appears to be a reference to her mother’s death, it could also stand alone as a metaphor for the evanescence and changeability of joy or peace (the lute being a reference to that which could supply either). The speaker goes on to tell us that The Poet asked, "what do we know of lutes now?” What can good things do for the grief-stricken? How can nice words, sleep-aids, poetry awards assuage the pain of loss? In addition, one could ask, how can poetry itself help? The Poet wasn’t there, and so he can’t identify with what happened (the speaker implies, 'But what did he know of walking into her bedroom and finding her a pale shade of lilac’).
The conversation heightens near the end as the speaker goes back and forth rehearsing her arguments before the anonymous Poet. In a moment of either self-effacing doubt or monumental clarity, the speaker throws up her hands, saying: "That just goes to prove I guess I was talking about the wrong thing in the poem, and The Poet was surely on to something.”
The ending, comprising an extremely personal and vulnerable introspection, provides the reader with what they need to take this poem into their world of experience. We find a tired, worn-out, ill person, ‘gaunt with grief and colitis,’ ‘hurrying’ back to her husband who will take her home and continue to love her, even if at that moment she holds in her hand the very emblem of the conflict and dissonance expressed in the poem: ‘the first wrong victory.”
“What I won” is a strikingly intimate poem that lets the reader experience along side the speaker revealing aspects of her emotional life, if only from a snapshot event on one day in Philly, in 1956. It is a poem of love and constancy as much as it is self-discovery. We are privy to the evolution of understanding in the speaker’s heart. What becomes of value necessarily diminishes that which never had value. But much remains. Throughout the poem the speaker is careful to remind us that her husband not only accompanied her, but brought her, waited for her, and finally took her home. The speaker doesn’t ask for sympathy in the loss of her mother, presented as fact. The poem could have gone down that road and reproduced a thousand similar themes. Not that the crystallization of what really matters is not vividly presented here. But the power and excellence in this poem lies in the understated values of love and companionship portrayed, hard commodities to find in this world; but once found, sufficient to assuage the worst of grief.
Brief Bio of Grace Cavalieri
Grace Cavalieri is the author of several books of poetry and 21 produced plays; she founded and still produces/hosts public radio’s “The Poet and the Poem,” now in its 32nd year, now from the Library of Congress. Her new book is Anna Nicole: Poems (Goss183:: Casa Menendez, 2008.) She is book review editor for The Montserrat Review and a poetry columnist for MiPOradio. Her play in progress, on Anna Nicole, is “Beverly Hills, Texas.”
.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Does it take 10,000 hours to be a great poet?
.
Malcolm Gladwell, in his most recent book, Outliers, suggests that it takes 10,000 hours to become great, to obtain a critical mass that could allow, say, a young Bill Gates to leverage what he learned during that time into the global giant that is Microsoft. The Beatles didn’t start out great, he explains, but invested and amassed 10,000 hours of hard work into their craft before things took off.
Much can be said about innate ability. About being in the right place at the right time. Networking. Being introduced to the right people just at the instant you have something to offer them (imagine if Einstein hadn’t been accepted into the American scientific milieu). All are factors that can increase opportunities for success. And yet, all are short-cuts, in a sense. How often do any one of these, in particular, play a prominent role in success? A strong argument can be made (and Gladwell makes one) that there is a far more important ingredient.
Elbow grease, a nearly forgotten commodity in today’s ‘give me’ generation, may be the greatest benefactor to success. Does the math work in the literary world? If it works, then how does one measure success in art, when there are so many different motives one might claim to pursue it seriously?
Not by the almighty dollar, we're quick to reply. Number of publications? Number of books? Do you have tenure in the Literature department at a major university, teach at a community college? Do you have your own poetry blog with thousands of viewers? Most agree that these factors, while certainly contributing, are not prerequisites or determinants in establishing quality and value with respect to matters in the art world (I'm generalizing here, but bear with me). We all know of exceptions to the rule (ourselves, for example), and are quick to point out that intelligence, or academic ardor (institutionally speaking), though perhaps useful tools, are not in and of themselves, key players in the universe of art and artists.
Thanks to internet, we have a 100 million experts. Who’s to judge who’s good and who’s bad? In poetry, for example, which poems deserve to be pushed to the fore and celebrated (if this were even possible), and which avoided at all cost? The hyperbole of such an exercise, to be sure, is distasteful. And yet, I think this is what we do to some degree on a moment by moment basis (especially on the net). From what I’ve seen, most writers care deeply about what they write, and they care about getting better. Most are open for critique. However, many don’t seem to want to seek it out proactively. But looking for critical analysis from peers may be jumping the gun. There may be a much simpler route to success.
I like Gladwell’s 10,000 rule. It puts a stronger emphasis on the value of learning a craft, a talent, even a gift. It puts a premium on rehearsing, on honing, on editing, on revising (not to discount stream of consciousness writing, extemporaneous models, etc.) It’s clear we’d do better to read 100 pages for every page we write. Or a 1000 pages. If you write poetry, then read poetry. Read about poetry. Read about the lives of poets. Read history, when a poem about an historical event strikes you deeply.
Write and rewrite. Show your work to experts, consultants, friends, your dog or cat. Success? Everyone has their own models and values of what this means, but most kid themselves if they reject the ideal. All the writers I know, and I know a good deal, care deeply about what they write, and if they understood what it took to get better, they’d move in that direction. Expectations for success can be incremental and modest; or they can be quantum leaps, the sky’s the limit.
Most who write know they need to spend more time working on their craft. Improvement can be measured a million different ways; but, in the end, little improvement is possible without contributing energy into the equation. Does it take 10,000 hours to write a great poem? Probably not (that’s a lot of hours)… but as you approach that kind of commitment, you’re sure to reap a lasting benefit in the development and mastery of your craft.
.
Malcolm Gladwell, in his most recent book, Outliers, suggests that it takes 10,000 hours to become great, to obtain a critical mass that could allow, say, a young Bill Gates to leverage what he learned during that time into the global giant that is Microsoft. The Beatles didn’t start out great, he explains, but invested and amassed 10,000 hours of hard work into their craft before things took off.
Much can be said about innate ability. About being in the right place at the right time. Networking. Being introduced to the right people just at the instant you have something to offer them (imagine if Einstein hadn’t been accepted into the American scientific milieu). All are factors that can increase opportunities for success. And yet, all are short-cuts, in a sense. How often do any one of these, in particular, play a prominent role in success? A strong argument can be made (and Gladwell makes one) that there is a far more important ingredient.
Elbow grease, a nearly forgotten commodity in today’s ‘give me’ generation, may be the greatest benefactor to success. Does the math work in the literary world? If it works, then how does one measure success in art, when there are so many different motives one might claim to pursue it seriously?
Not by the almighty dollar, we're quick to reply. Number of publications? Number of books? Do you have tenure in the Literature department at a major university, teach at a community college? Do you have your own poetry blog with thousands of viewers? Most agree that these factors, while certainly contributing, are not prerequisites or determinants in establishing quality and value with respect to matters in the art world (I'm generalizing here, but bear with me). We all know of exceptions to the rule (ourselves, for example), and are quick to point out that intelligence, or academic ardor (institutionally speaking), though perhaps useful tools, are not in and of themselves, key players in the universe of art and artists.
Thanks to internet, we have a 100 million experts. Who’s to judge who’s good and who’s bad? In poetry, for example, which poems deserve to be pushed to the fore and celebrated (if this were even possible), and which avoided at all cost? The hyperbole of such an exercise, to be sure, is distasteful. And yet, I think this is what we do to some degree on a moment by moment basis (especially on the net). From what I’ve seen, most writers care deeply about what they write, and they care about getting better. Most are open for critique. However, many don’t seem to want to seek it out proactively. But looking for critical analysis from peers may be jumping the gun. There may be a much simpler route to success.
I like Gladwell’s 10,000 rule. It puts a stronger emphasis on the value of learning a craft, a talent, even a gift. It puts a premium on rehearsing, on honing, on editing, on revising (not to discount stream of consciousness writing, extemporaneous models, etc.) It’s clear we’d do better to read 100 pages for every page we write. Or a 1000 pages. If you write poetry, then read poetry. Read about poetry. Read about the lives of poets. Read history, when a poem about an historical event strikes you deeply.
Write and rewrite. Show your work to experts, consultants, friends, your dog or cat. Success? Everyone has their own models and values of what this means, but most kid themselves if they reject the ideal. All the writers I know, and I know a good deal, care deeply about what they write, and if they understood what it took to get better, they’d move in that direction. Expectations for success can be incremental and modest; or they can be quantum leaps, the sky’s the limit.
Most who write know they need to spend more time working on their craft. Improvement can be measured a million different ways; but, in the end, little improvement is possible without contributing energy into the equation. Does it take 10,000 hours to write a great poem? Probably not (that’s a lot of hours)… but as you approach that kind of commitment, you’re sure to reap a lasting benefit in the development and mastery of your craft.
.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
December Poem of the Month by Diego Quiros: Horse Feather
.
Horse Feather
This is a horse feather,
white, the calm of clouds.
I saw it fall from the sky
a slow dart from antiquity
swirling its habitual pattern.
Its vane gentle across my lips
its sturdy rachis could pen
a poem or two about
the process of kissing or
stammering ecstasies.
I wondered if the mythical animal
would part the evening sky
with its pale steady silence
turn its crimson eyes in my direction
and rapture me on moon-hooves
over the matrix of skyscrapers
wearing nothing but its ribcage
between my legs.
Nothing is impossible.
I once loved like that.
-by Diego Quiros
SUMMARY
In Horse Feather, a mythical horse, undoubtedly Pegasus, is conjured into awareness by a musing speaker who imagines seeing one of its feathers (white, the calm of clouds) fall from the sky. The anatomy of the feather is presented with respect to the speaker’s romantic love (could pen a poem or two about the process of kissing or stammering ecstasies). In S3, the speaker delineates the power and majesty and passion of such a mythical creature that could ‘part the evening sky with its pale steady eye’ (and rapture me on moon-hooves). In the final strophe, the speaker imagines riding the horse over skyscrapers with nothing but ‘its ribcage between my legs,” and suggests that such an adventure is within the realm of possibility. In the last line the speaker divulges his hidden sentiments, revealing he once loved in the same fashion.
COMMENTARY
Horse Feather, by Diego Quiros, is a striking poem about the possibilities and limitless boundaries of love. It is a poem that begs for several readings, as it presents insights in several diverging directions. On the one hand, the poem can be read as a fantasy narrative, where the speaker muses on the passionate image of riding Pegasus over skyscrapers. Another view of the poem reveals a more subtle, perhaps melancholy desire to rise above the limits of human love and experience an altogether unbound (unearthly) love as characterized by riding this mythical creature.
The poem consists of four strophes, each with five lines. The rhythm begins fairly uniform, nearly tetrameter in the first two strophes, then half-way through, defaults to a more drawn out beat, both in sound and length of line. This shift at S3 coincides with a tone shift where the speaker becomes more open, his feelings more vulnerable.
“This is a horse feather, white, the calm of clouds,” opens the poem with a striking visual picture. It is falling from the sky, this tranquil ‘slow dart from antiquity.” Up front, the speaker wants us to know that he is really talking about Pegasus, that winged horse, sired by Poseidon, an emblem of power and grace. The name, Pegasus derives from "spring or well." Whenever the horse strikes a hoof to earth, a beautiful spring bursts forth. The metaphor aptly sets up the reader for S2 which dissects the feather into its component parts and relates them to sensual aspects of love: the vane (soft, wispy) ‘gentle across my lips; and the rachis (the part used in ink pens) ‘sturdy,’ ‘could pen a poem or two about the process of kissing,” etc.
But it is in S3 where we begin to see the inner unction of the speaker with respect to love. As well, the poetics and imagery spring more freely from the idea of the mythical animal as having superhuman abilities, both in power and beauty (part the evening sky with its pale steady silence) and in its natural proclivity to rapture (on moon-hooves across skyscrapers).
In S5 we find the culmination of such an adventure, as the speaker alludes to the naked power (ribcage) churning between his legs, a very striking and erotic metaphor which is effortlessly merged into one image. Finally, and importantly, the speaker exhales and draws back from the vision declaring, ‘nothing is impossible.” If he has loved, and loved well in the bounds of his humanity (I once loved like that), why not in the boundless sky? Why not like Pegasus, riding unbound through the heavens?
The power of this poem lies in its central proposition that love is without limits. What makes it click is that the speaker doesn’t dwell on a litany of past experience. What adds to its cohesiveness and beauty is the speaker’s confidence. The poetic, yet blunt tone. It is sufficient to merely say, “I once loved like that,” and the honesty and forcefulness of such a declaration drives the poem home like a dagger.
BIO
Diego Quiros is a poet, artist, and Electrical Engineer living with his family in South Florida. He was born in 1962 in Havana, Cuba, lived in Spain for several years, and traveled to the United States by himself at age ten.
His poetry, has been published in several issues of Ocho, Mipoesias, and Verse Libre Quarterly. Diego also co-hosted the MipoRadio show “Deconstructions”. Diego’s first collection of poems “Alchetry” (click here); a study on the four elements of writing and their relation to the four basic elements; was recently published by Goss 183 (formerly Menendez Publishing) and it is available at Books and Books and Amazon.
He credits all his work to conversations with a Muse he describes as “a woman with long dark green hair, green eyes, and light green skin”. He claims she walks around his home in South Florida and drops subtle whispers here and there while he writes.
.
Horse Feather
This is a horse feather,
white, the calm of clouds.
I saw it fall from the sky
a slow dart from antiquity
swirling its habitual pattern.
Its vane gentle across my lips
its sturdy rachis could pen
a poem or two about
the process of kissing or
stammering ecstasies.
I wondered if the mythical animal
would part the evening sky
with its pale steady silence
turn its crimson eyes in my direction
and rapture me on moon-hooves
over the matrix of skyscrapers
wearing nothing but its ribcage
between my legs.
Nothing is impossible.
I once loved like that.
-by Diego Quiros
SUMMARY
In Horse Feather, a mythical horse, undoubtedly Pegasus, is conjured into awareness by a musing speaker who imagines seeing one of its feathers (white, the calm of clouds) fall from the sky. The anatomy of the feather is presented with respect to the speaker’s romantic love (could pen a poem or two about the process of kissing or stammering ecstasies). In S3, the speaker delineates the power and majesty and passion of such a mythical creature that could ‘part the evening sky with its pale steady eye’ (and rapture me on moon-hooves). In the final strophe, the speaker imagines riding the horse over skyscrapers with nothing but ‘its ribcage between my legs,” and suggests that such an adventure is within the realm of possibility. In the last line the speaker divulges his hidden sentiments, revealing he once loved in the same fashion.
COMMENTARY
Horse Feather, by Diego Quiros, is a striking poem about the possibilities and limitless boundaries of love. It is a poem that begs for several readings, as it presents insights in several diverging directions. On the one hand, the poem can be read as a fantasy narrative, where the speaker muses on the passionate image of riding Pegasus over skyscrapers. Another view of the poem reveals a more subtle, perhaps melancholy desire to rise above the limits of human love and experience an altogether unbound (unearthly) love as characterized by riding this mythical creature.
The poem consists of four strophes, each with five lines. The rhythm begins fairly uniform, nearly tetrameter in the first two strophes, then half-way through, defaults to a more drawn out beat, both in sound and length of line. This shift at S3 coincides with a tone shift where the speaker becomes more open, his feelings more vulnerable.
“This is a horse feather, white, the calm of clouds,” opens the poem with a striking visual picture. It is falling from the sky, this tranquil ‘slow dart from antiquity.” Up front, the speaker wants us to know that he is really talking about Pegasus, that winged horse, sired by Poseidon, an emblem of power and grace. The name, Pegasus derives from "spring or well." Whenever the horse strikes a hoof to earth, a beautiful spring bursts forth. The metaphor aptly sets up the reader for S2 which dissects the feather into its component parts and relates them to sensual aspects of love: the vane (soft, wispy) ‘gentle across my lips; and the rachis (the part used in ink pens) ‘sturdy,’ ‘could pen a poem or two about the process of kissing,” etc.
But it is in S3 where we begin to see the inner unction of the speaker with respect to love. As well, the poetics and imagery spring more freely from the idea of the mythical animal as having superhuman abilities, both in power and beauty (part the evening sky with its pale steady silence) and in its natural proclivity to rapture (on moon-hooves across skyscrapers).
In S5 we find the culmination of such an adventure, as the speaker alludes to the naked power (ribcage) churning between his legs, a very striking and erotic metaphor which is effortlessly merged into one image. Finally, and importantly, the speaker exhales and draws back from the vision declaring, ‘nothing is impossible.” If he has loved, and loved well in the bounds of his humanity (I once loved like that), why not in the boundless sky? Why not like Pegasus, riding unbound through the heavens?
The power of this poem lies in its central proposition that love is without limits. What makes it click is that the speaker doesn’t dwell on a litany of past experience. What adds to its cohesiveness and beauty is the speaker’s confidence. The poetic, yet blunt tone. It is sufficient to merely say, “I once loved like that,” and the honesty and forcefulness of such a declaration drives the poem home like a dagger.
BIO
Diego Quiros is a poet, artist, and Electrical Engineer living with his family in South Florida. He was born in 1962 in Havana, Cuba, lived in Spain for several years, and traveled to the United States by himself at age ten.
His poetry, has been published in several issues of Ocho, Mipoesias, and Verse Libre Quarterly. Diego also co-hosted the MipoRadio show “Deconstructions”. Diego’s first collection of poems “Alchetry” (click here); a study on the four elements of writing and their relation to the four basic elements; was recently published by Goss 183 (formerly Menendez Publishing) and it is available at Books and Books and Amazon.
He credits all his work to conversations with a Muse he describes as “a woman with long dark green hair, green eyes, and light green skin”. He claims she walks around his home in South Florida and drops subtle whispers here and there while he writes.
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Monday, December 15, 2008
Poetry and Language: Ramblings on the Sweetness of Poetry
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Poetry and Language: Ramblings on the Sweetness of Poetry
It was Auden who said, “A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.” I can only imagine what a sweet love affair it was for one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century, a prolific poet who used language to shape about 400 of the greatest published poems in the Western poetry lexicon.
Still, even Auden must have anguished over his words. I’m sure he had his moments gnawing his knuckles over the bitter inconsistencies of grammar and syntax- the inexorable frustration of having only one set of rustic tools: the naked, two-dimensional cryptograms of an alphabet.
But is it accurate to think of language merely as a tool? Can it ever be more than that? Does it provide discrete limitations to our knowing, or can we supersede the perceived barriers of language by using it in special ways? Mysterious ways?
And what can poetry contribute to this equation? Some would argue that we can move into new rubrics of understanding as we move from prose to poetry, as one might move from a photograph to a painting. I’m not at all sympathetic to such a stretch, but I am open to the notion that poetry is distinctively different than prose; not at any one particular facet or quality: but as one takes the whole of prose and sets it along side what we have in poetry, patterns emerge. One of the most salient of all, it occurs to me, is that of the sweetness of language.
For me, poetry gives language a sweet-smelling savor. Like what I get when I slowly breathe in a Chateau Margaux (1961, please) that has had one hour to rise above the rim of a decanter. In poetry, we ask language to do special things. We ask it not only to convey, but to speak. Or better, we ask it to play music. To bounce, or slide, or glide, or stop nearly on a dime, then whisper inaudibly into our memory. Finally, we ask it to remain on the palate, or in the nose. For a lifetime. Great poetry will do this. And often with only 14 lines.
A crude thought experiment, if you will: what is the difference between the following two paragraphs:
Are you sad, Margaret, because Goldengrove’s trees are losing all their leaves? You are young and carefree, but as you age you’re liable to be much sadder than you are today, much more bewildered and perhaps find that life itself is corruptible; you may cry and still not understand that it is all the same: Spring or Fall- either way- it is still your nature to find sorrow, just like the rest of us. Only now, you are sorry for Margaret, alone.
Versus:
Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
I know, the prose section could have been a bit stronger, but you get the idea. Hopkins loaded his poem, Spring and Fall, with the fiery darts of language. “Goldengrove unleaving,” is a masterpiece of innovation, as is “world of wanwood leafeal lie,” and the whole poem uses language, the cadence, the sound, the smell of leaves, short bursts of energy packed into images that can be seen by the eye, all culminating in a rush of identification whereby the reader at the end finally realizes that they have, all along, been where Margaret has been. May be going where Margaret is going.
Human beings have this amped-up gift of appreciating language in all its complexity and nuance. A single word, or small group of words, if properly placed, can strike a hidden neuron in the farthest reaches of the brain, retrieve a memory, a smell; or a fundamental crisis of being.
Poetry works to tweak these neurons. It uses language and the sound of words, and the intermingling meanings and connotations to create something out of nothing. It takes the black ink outline of letters on a page and turns it into a picture. Key to all of this process is the naiveté of the poet, who, like the tiny bee in a hive of a million bees, can have no idea or appreciation for the delicacy that she is making at its center. Yet she works away with ardor, compelled by instinct, or maybe even the prospect of something sweet tickling an antennae. Either way, the honey is sweet. And the bee continues to work. In most cases, without remuneration and without acclaim. And suddenly, one day, the poet looks up from the page and realizes there is something sweet here. And the honey remains sweet.
-EDN, 12/15/08
.
Poetry and Language: Ramblings on the Sweetness of Poetry
It was Auden who said, “A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.” I can only imagine what a sweet love affair it was for one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century, a prolific poet who used language to shape about 400 of the greatest published poems in the Western poetry lexicon.
Still, even Auden must have anguished over his words. I’m sure he had his moments gnawing his knuckles over the bitter inconsistencies of grammar and syntax- the inexorable frustration of having only one set of rustic tools: the naked, two-dimensional cryptograms of an alphabet.
But is it accurate to think of language merely as a tool? Can it ever be more than that? Does it provide discrete limitations to our knowing, or can we supersede the perceived barriers of language by using it in special ways? Mysterious ways?
And what can poetry contribute to this equation? Some would argue that we can move into new rubrics of understanding as we move from prose to poetry, as one might move from a photograph to a painting. I’m not at all sympathetic to such a stretch, but I am open to the notion that poetry is distinctively different than prose; not at any one particular facet or quality: but as one takes the whole of prose and sets it along side what we have in poetry, patterns emerge. One of the most salient of all, it occurs to me, is that of the sweetness of language.
For me, poetry gives language a sweet-smelling savor. Like what I get when I slowly breathe in a Chateau Margaux (1961, please) that has had one hour to rise above the rim of a decanter. In poetry, we ask language to do special things. We ask it not only to convey, but to speak. Or better, we ask it to play music. To bounce, or slide, or glide, or stop nearly on a dime, then whisper inaudibly into our memory. Finally, we ask it to remain on the palate, or in the nose. For a lifetime. Great poetry will do this. And often with only 14 lines.
A crude thought experiment, if you will: what is the difference between the following two paragraphs:
Are you sad, Margaret, because Goldengrove’s trees are losing all their leaves? You are young and carefree, but as you age you’re liable to be much sadder than you are today, much more bewildered and perhaps find that life itself is corruptible; you may cry and still not understand that it is all the same: Spring or Fall- either way- it is still your nature to find sorrow, just like the rest of us. Only now, you are sorry for Margaret, alone.
Versus:
Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
I know, the prose section could have been a bit stronger, but you get the idea. Hopkins loaded his poem, Spring and Fall, with the fiery darts of language. “Goldengrove unleaving,” is a masterpiece of innovation, as is “world of wanwood leafeal lie,” and the whole poem uses language, the cadence, the sound, the smell of leaves, short bursts of energy packed into images that can be seen by the eye, all culminating in a rush of identification whereby the reader at the end finally realizes that they have, all along, been where Margaret has been. May be going where Margaret is going.
Human beings have this amped-up gift of appreciating language in all its complexity and nuance. A single word, or small group of words, if properly placed, can strike a hidden neuron in the farthest reaches of the brain, retrieve a memory, a smell; or a fundamental crisis of being.
Poetry works to tweak these neurons. It uses language and the sound of words, and the intermingling meanings and connotations to create something out of nothing. It takes the black ink outline of letters on a page and turns it into a picture. Key to all of this process is the naiveté of the poet, who, like the tiny bee in a hive of a million bees, can have no idea or appreciation for the delicacy that she is making at its center. Yet she works away with ardor, compelled by instinct, or maybe even the prospect of something sweet tickling an antennae. Either way, the honey is sweet. And the bee continues to work. In most cases, without remuneration and without acclaim. And suddenly, one day, the poet looks up from the page and realizes there is something sweet here. And the honey remains sweet.
-EDN, 12/15/08
.
Friday, November 21, 2008
November's Poem of the Month, by Aaron Belz
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WHISPERED JOKES
If I’m in such good company, please
explain why I have to keep looking
over my shoulder to see who’s not there:
ghost of the staircase, living
room phantasm—whispered jokes,
unheard and ungotten—or maybe not.
I call them the comedians of chance,
and I have discovered that they’re
completely cornball. Canned.
They’ve written routines
in sharpie on their luminous
hands and keep looking down
to see what comes next. My father
used to laud people who know
“what goes where,” but I swear,
I don’t anymore—it’s all up in the air,
half-visible pins twirling end over
end, and I, their ghastly juggler.
SUMMARY
Whispered Jokes gets your attention in the title and alerts the reader to look for what might be forthcoming: perhaps jokes whispered to self, some kind of cryptic messaging. The opening strophe gives what could pass for a joke: “If I’m in such good company, please/ explain why I have to keep looking/ over my shoulder to see who’s not there.” And who’s ‘not there’ is, namely, a “ghost”, or a “phantasm.” In short, “whispered ghosts,” perhaps unheard or whose punch lines are “ungotten.” The speaker calls the joke-tellers “comedians of chance,” and tells us that they’re “completely cornball.” Further attention is given to how and where they’re written, such as “in sharpie,” and “on their luminous hands.” The processes involved are alluded to as “routines.” There is a tone and content shift in S5 where the speaker speaks of his father who “used to laud people who know ‘what goes where,’” and uses the construct to insert an unsettling sense of ambivalence in personal experience: "I swear,/ I don’t anymore-it’s all up in the air.” The poem ends in a characterization of the problem and consequences of not knowing or understanding something key and fundamental in the evocative image of pins which are “half-visible,” and “twirling end over end,” with the speaker as the “ghastly juggler.
COMMENTARY
This poem, with its seemingly off-handed and light tone, has much to offer in speaking to the fundamental nature of how we learn, how we know, and how we accommodate to things we feel we can’t understand. The poem’s rolls out freely with easy words and syntax. Nothing complex here. And yet, there is a kind of deceptive foil here for an underlying deeper consideration of identity and self-appraisal. Additionally, the formal presentation, though not rhymed (except for 'swear/air' near the end) is nonetheless nicely put together in neat, free-flowing tercets, further directing the reader into the poetics of the speaker.
Some key questions are raised at the beginning of this poem. What is the nature of these “whispered jokes,” who are the people that are saying them… and to whom are they being said? As well, the poem seems to be addressing the issue of how we process what we’ve learned, what we make of past failures, for example. And how do we make order out of what often appears to be a disordered, random world.
We can see by the speaker’s opening interrogative, that there’s some degree of equivocation in his voice. This is not a prescriptive essay or a document on how to solve the world’s problems. It is the speaker sort of talking out loud, remembering his own ghosts and phantasms walking around his house (perhaps as a child), jokes uttered and not heard, or not understood. But the jokes aren't one-liners. These are innuendos, rationale, ways of thinking to ward off other ways of thinking.
The dissonance increases in S3 where the speaker, who has his own expression for these jokesters, “comedians of chance,” makes a decided tone-shift away from self-examination and toward mild invective. Here we find that the speaker has a distaste for the joke-tellers who tell 'corny' jokes; but worse, actually write them down (in indelible ink) and then refer to them as needed. This is perhaps the moment at which the poem turns from inward to outward commentary. The speaker seems to be making an ethical statement regarding meaning. Is it enough to rely on past performance, old jokes or riddles which cannot suffice, in unwrapping the serious issues of life? Indeed, they often return (as ghosts) to haunt, rather than providing any sort of apologetic for living. The speaker references his own father, and relates his (the speaker's) obvious disdain for that kind of philosophy which is blithely self-confident (“people who know what goes where.)” It leaves one wondering what the subtext is here. As with many poets, a father (or mother) theme will pop in and out of poems freely, and the poem gives room and desire to hear more on this subject. Still, it amps up the immediacy of feeling. There is a bewilderment in the voice here, that it should be so easy for these kind of people to be cavalier in their movement through life, that they would have nothing better to do than rehearse old jokes.
This is a direct poem. It tweaks the reader to ask their own questions and assumptions about what makes them sure. Not that we should be fettered with doubt. But the poem speaks to a kind of unguarded optimism that doesn’t examine deeply into meaning. And what is left? “Half-visible pins twirling end over end, and I, their ghastly juggler.” Here we find the result of such thinking: enervating, dangerous, a vacuous pursuit.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ABOUT AARON
Aaron Belz writes poetry in Los Angeles. He has a Ph.D. in American Literature from Saint Louis University and an M.A. in Creative Writing from NYU. His first book of poetry,The Bird Hoverer, was published by Buffalo: BlazeVOX Books, in 2007. Aaron’s second book of poems, Direction, is forthcoming from Persea. Some of his poems, essays, biographical history and much more- may be found at these websites (just click):
belz blog
belz poetry on wordpress
.
WHISPERED JOKES
If I’m in such good company, please
explain why I have to keep looking
over my shoulder to see who’s not there:
ghost of the staircase, living
room phantasm—whispered jokes,
unheard and ungotten—or maybe not.
I call them the comedians of chance,
and I have discovered that they’re
completely cornball. Canned.
They’ve written routines
in sharpie on their luminous
hands and keep looking down
to see what comes next. My father
used to laud people who know
“what goes where,” but I swear,
I don’t anymore—it’s all up in the air,
half-visible pins twirling end over
end, and I, their ghastly juggler.
SUMMARY
Whispered Jokes gets your attention in the title and alerts the reader to look for what might be forthcoming: perhaps jokes whispered to self, some kind of cryptic messaging. The opening strophe gives what could pass for a joke: “If I’m in such good company, please/ explain why I have to keep looking/ over my shoulder to see who’s not there.” And who’s ‘not there’ is, namely, a “ghost”, or a “phantasm.” In short, “whispered ghosts,” perhaps unheard or whose punch lines are “ungotten.” The speaker calls the joke-tellers “comedians of chance,” and tells us that they’re “completely cornball.” Further attention is given to how and where they’re written, such as “in sharpie,” and “on their luminous hands.” The processes involved are alluded to as “routines.” There is a tone and content shift in S5 where the speaker speaks of his father who “used to laud people who know ‘what goes where,’” and uses the construct to insert an unsettling sense of ambivalence in personal experience: "I swear,/ I don’t anymore-it’s all up in the air.” The poem ends in a characterization of the problem and consequences of not knowing or understanding something key and fundamental in the evocative image of pins which are “half-visible,” and “twirling end over end,” with the speaker as the “ghastly juggler.
COMMENTARY
This poem, with its seemingly off-handed and light tone, has much to offer in speaking to the fundamental nature of how we learn, how we know, and how we accommodate to things we feel we can’t understand. The poem’s rolls out freely with easy words and syntax. Nothing complex here. And yet, there is a kind of deceptive foil here for an underlying deeper consideration of identity and self-appraisal. Additionally, the formal presentation, though not rhymed (except for 'swear/air' near the end) is nonetheless nicely put together in neat, free-flowing tercets, further directing the reader into the poetics of the speaker.
Some key questions are raised at the beginning of this poem. What is the nature of these “whispered jokes,” who are the people that are saying them… and to whom are they being said? As well, the poem seems to be addressing the issue of how we process what we’ve learned, what we make of past failures, for example. And how do we make order out of what often appears to be a disordered, random world.
We can see by the speaker’s opening interrogative, that there’s some degree of equivocation in his voice. This is not a prescriptive essay or a document on how to solve the world’s problems. It is the speaker sort of talking out loud, remembering his own ghosts and phantasms walking around his house (perhaps as a child), jokes uttered and not heard, or not understood. But the jokes aren't one-liners. These are innuendos, rationale, ways of thinking to ward off other ways of thinking.
The dissonance increases in S3 where the speaker, who has his own expression for these jokesters, “comedians of chance,” makes a decided tone-shift away from self-examination and toward mild invective. Here we find that the speaker has a distaste for the joke-tellers who tell 'corny' jokes; but worse, actually write them down (in indelible ink) and then refer to them as needed. This is perhaps the moment at which the poem turns from inward to outward commentary. The speaker seems to be making an ethical statement regarding meaning. Is it enough to rely on past performance, old jokes or riddles which cannot suffice, in unwrapping the serious issues of life? Indeed, they often return (as ghosts) to haunt, rather than providing any sort of apologetic for living. The speaker references his own father, and relates his (the speaker's) obvious disdain for that kind of philosophy which is blithely self-confident (“people who know what goes where.)” It leaves one wondering what the subtext is here. As with many poets, a father (or mother) theme will pop in and out of poems freely, and the poem gives room and desire to hear more on this subject. Still, it amps up the immediacy of feeling. There is a bewilderment in the voice here, that it should be so easy for these kind of people to be cavalier in their movement through life, that they would have nothing better to do than rehearse old jokes.
This is a direct poem. It tweaks the reader to ask their own questions and assumptions about what makes them sure. Not that we should be fettered with doubt. But the poem speaks to a kind of unguarded optimism that doesn’t examine deeply into meaning. And what is left? “Half-visible pins twirling end over end, and I, their ghastly juggler.” Here we find the result of such thinking: enervating, dangerous, a vacuous pursuit.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ABOUT AARON
Aaron Belz writes poetry in Los Angeles. He has a Ph.D. in American Literature from Saint Louis University and an M.A. in Creative Writing from NYU. His first book of poetry,The Bird Hoverer, was published by Buffalo: BlazeVOX Books, in 2007. Aaron’s second book of poems, Direction, is forthcoming from Persea. Some of his poems, essays, biographical history and much more- may be found at these websites (just click):
belz blog
belz poetry on wordpress
.
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