.
I'm very happy to present a brilliant poem to you by Pris Campbell, an accomplished poet with a long list of published poems. Her poem, "Undertow," is a great example of controlled use of energy in the form of sadness and identification, which the reader takes in and tries to accomodate all through the poem. It leaves you with an easy feeling. It delivers!
Undertow
I expected my father's death
to draw the sea to my feet,
the water threatening to bear me
away with it--not mother's.
Our voices were constant coils
of disagreement; my hair was too long.
I was too thin. My clothes were too tight.
My mish-mash of dishes would never do
if the relatives came down for Christmas.
I lived 'in sin' with a man, traveled with him,
tossed away my bra to her mortification.
After my knees buckled
and this illness pinned me to my bed of thorns,
the core of metal between us softened,
became a pillow to rest our heads upon, but
she slipped quietly into that undertow
and I was left alone on the beach, a girl again,
weeping.
.
This powerful and compact poem builds on
layers of dysphoria which the narrator recalls
from early maternal influences up to the present.
Interestingly, the poem opens with a reference to
the speaker's father, whose death was anticipated
to take a much larger toll (at least when compared to
grief experienced through her mother). We find a
metaphor of the sea, which in this case, 'threatens
to bear me away with it." A sense of instability and
loosened underpinnings, early on, is evinced, that
appears to be superseded by her mother's constant
jabbing and attacks on self esteem ("my hair was
too long, I was too thin, my clothes were too tight").
But we're not looking at generation gap here, or the
dystopic imaginations of an adult making hyperbole
of what otherwise might be considered adolescent
bewilderment. What really hurts, and where the
poem turns on both tone and importance, is here:
"After my knees buckled and this illness pinned me
to my bed of thorns, the core of metal between us
softened:" a serious physical problem, as well as
obvious deep emotional injury (the two are
all too often inextricably related). Interestingly,
this malady somehow brought an apparent softening
in the Mother-daughter relationship, that was
tragically, short-lived. Thus, the force in the poem
is set up and springs as the narrator returns to the
sea metaphor and its ever-present pull, expressed
as 'that undertow." The language here puts the
effects in the dynamic range. This is not something
that just happened, but a process over many, many
years. And it hearkens back to earliest memories,
with her father, and now operating to pull her mother
back under. It's not hard to imagine, though never
stated, the tacit idea that the daughter has to deal
with these same negative forces. The striking
reversion, in the closing line, to a childhood day
at the beach conjures up images of a real drowning
and hammers home the heat of the poem in blazing,
enervating sadness. This poem brings one startingly
close to the edge of shared experience and allows
for just the proper amount of detachment (in tone)
to enter into the narrator's strife, but not be overcome
by its negative pull.
.
Pris Campbell, A Brief Bio
Among other journals and anthologies, Pris Campbell's poetry has appeared in Poems Niederngasse, Boxcar Poetry Review, MiPo (digital/print/radio/OCHO), Thunder Sandwich, The Dead Mule, Empowerment4Women, In The Fray, The Cliffs: Soundings, and The Wild Goose Review. She's been featured poet in a number of journals and appeared on PoetryVlog, a site for video poems run by George Wallace. She has two chapbooks: Abrasions and Interchangeable Goddesses (Rank Stranger Press and Rose of Sharon/3 Virgins Imprint). A third chapbook, Hesitant Commitments, will be part of Lummox Press' Little Red Book series. A former Clinical Psychologist, she's now sidelined by CFIDS. She lives in the greater West Palm Beach, FL , with her husband. More of her poetry can be found at her website poeticinspire and her MySpace blog
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Monday, July 21, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Winner, Poem of the Month, by John F. Walter
.
Freezing In Phantasmal Light, by John F. Walter
Throw away mousepads, wolfman gone to snow! Blood moon glows
with a crispness not envisioned in virtual risings ever displayed.
Nocturnal light was shunned a century ago, yet the lunatic mood
persists in you. Resist that urge back onto neverland's screens.
When did you last to real window steal? Once upon a frozen fall?
Dim subjects swoop into the room: the mind maps a wife, a child--
their own ghost-boards held in hand, happiness' geiger counters.
La luna llena, te espera.... but a report zooms into upper left corner:
news coming in from an iceberg sighting--LIVE ICEBERG CAM--
as a frigid voice like a slur swings by, no longer language.
She's turned on an ambient strobe, the baby wails on the patio;
time to nosh a midnight nano snack cast rudely on the keys.
No "Tranquility Sea" frees your gaze from this fractal flicker. Choose.
Shall love return, the iceman thaw, or baby take chill in our winter?
This visual poem, with its sweeping horizontal lines, expressive tone and chilling admonitory language, serves up an icy warning to the present age of video voodoo, internet idolatry and the ever-pressing urge toward Virtual. Walter presents, in sonnet form, a one-act play where you are the central figure and the setting is under a blood red moon that glows ‘with a crispness not envisioned in virtual risings ever displayed.’ Up close and personal, the narrator cautions the reader to resist the lunatic mood that wants to replace real light in favor of a transmitted image, on ‘neverland’s screens.’ The poem begins to turn on the question posed in S2, “When did you last to real window steal?” and rhetorically answered, “Once upon a frozen fall?” The icy metaphor is adroitly carried throughout the poem (iceberg sighting, iceberg cam, frigid voice, iceman thaw). We are led into a mini-vision where ‘dim subjects swoop into a room,’ and we imagine a wife, a child, with their happiness toys (ghost-boards, Geiger counters), simulating a world in miniature, focusing and displacing attention away from the present and into a phantom zone of flickering larval images and thoughts... into phantasmal light. And yet, there is still a moon that awaits you, written in Spanish, to reinforce the symbol of pristine beauty. Is the moon, an essential icon of reality in the poem, real; and better, is it lovely? The vision is interrupted with news coming from a remote camera on an iceberg; a ‘frigid voice’ communicates something ‘no longer language.’ Here is the full immersion we’ve been waiting for, the slip past surreal into the non-real, with time pixilated by an ambient strobe… inopportunely and rudely interrupted by a glimpse of reality: the baby cries, get a snack, keep it moving. Inevitably, the poem ties its own knot, as do we. There is no exit from this virtual panacea, no beautiful moon photo of a real sea on a real moon. Not in the simulacra we forge. Interestingly, Walter slips in the nudge, ‘CHOOSE’, as a stand-alone entreaty, dangling, as it were, at the very end of the penultimate line. The message is clear: it’s not too late. But change demands decision. Personally, and outwardly, to a culture ramrodding through a virtual hole in the cosmos. In the stunning couplet to end, there is a fascinating tone shift in the question, “Shall love return?” It turns out what the poet is speaking about refers as much to real love and adulation for real things, as it does in perception or consciousness. A brave new notion for a modern world distracted by the ‘fractal flickers’ of the virtual world.
Here is a quintessential ‘pre-Simulationist’ poem that addresses key notions that engage artists and writers today. Even if we think we live in a Platonic Cave, or feel left for dead by Descartes and his little demon, our common sense experience of the natural world still tells us that this amazing cosmos we take in through the senses and map our way through is infinitely superior to any 'copy' or perfectly realized simulacra we can fabricate, invent or google our way towards. While our imagination has genuine intention (it is always about real people and real things in the world), and even when we choose to mediate with symbol, word, icon, or even a 3D virtually rendering between our consciousnesses and that cosmic awareness, we never match or even awkwardly approach the Real. On the other hand, the poem seems to indicate, we more easily fall into serious dysfunctional delusion. A clever semblance, perhaps, but still virtual and fabricated. Do we want an Absolute Fake of a moon that we can grasp with phantom tentacles, or a real moon that we can contemplate in the sky, land upon, and dream our way toward the stars from? Can we hold the moon and its double in our gaze at the same time, and if so, do we remember to love all the ones under the sublunar reflection it returns? And does the apprehension of real things affect our art, our understanding, and our appreciation for the world around us? -EDN
Brief Bio
John Walter is a U.S. citizen writing in beautiful Granada, Spain, where he splits his time with his theatre productions in LA and wandering the subterranean mazes below Granada finding fodder for his novel on Al Qaeda and Sufi mysticism (ANNIHILATION). He is an accomplished poet working on his first book of poems, a noted playwright with plays produced off-Broadway, SOHO, SF and often in LA. Walter co-founded the ‘pre-Simulationist Movement,’ (along with the author of this article and several other artists/writers), an artist’s movement that is finding new ways to surpass the exhausted postmodern epoch and its errant constructions of language and thought.
.
Freezing In Phantasmal Light, by John F. Walter
Throw away mousepads, wolfman gone to snow! Blood moon glows
with a crispness not envisioned in virtual risings ever displayed.
Nocturnal light was shunned a century ago, yet the lunatic mood
persists in you. Resist that urge back onto neverland's screens.
When did you last to real window steal? Once upon a frozen fall?
Dim subjects swoop into the room: the mind maps a wife, a child--
their own ghost-boards held in hand, happiness' geiger counters.
La luna llena, te espera.... but a report zooms into upper left corner:
news coming in from an iceberg sighting--LIVE ICEBERG CAM--
as a frigid voice like a slur swings by, no longer language.
She's turned on an ambient strobe, the baby wails on the patio;
time to nosh a midnight nano snack cast rudely on the keys.
No "Tranquility Sea" frees your gaze from this fractal flicker. Choose.
Shall love return, the iceman thaw, or baby take chill in our winter?
This visual poem, with its sweeping horizontal lines, expressive tone and chilling admonitory language, serves up an icy warning to the present age of video voodoo, internet idolatry and the ever-pressing urge toward Virtual. Walter presents, in sonnet form, a one-act play where you are the central figure and the setting is under a blood red moon that glows ‘with a crispness not envisioned in virtual risings ever displayed.’ Up close and personal, the narrator cautions the reader to resist the lunatic mood that wants to replace real light in favor of a transmitted image, on ‘neverland’s screens.’ The poem begins to turn on the question posed in S2, “When did you last to real window steal?” and rhetorically answered, “Once upon a frozen fall?” The icy metaphor is adroitly carried throughout the poem (iceberg sighting, iceberg cam, frigid voice, iceman thaw). We are led into a mini-vision where ‘dim subjects swoop into a room,’ and we imagine a wife, a child, with their happiness toys (ghost-boards, Geiger counters), simulating a world in miniature, focusing and displacing attention away from the present and into a phantom zone of flickering larval images and thoughts... into phantasmal light. And yet, there is still a moon that awaits you, written in Spanish, to reinforce the symbol of pristine beauty. Is the moon, an essential icon of reality in the poem, real; and better, is it lovely? The vision is interrupted with news coming from a remote camera on an iceberg; a ‘frigid voice’ communicates something ‘no longer language.’ Here is the full immersion we’ve been waiting for, the slip past surreal into the non-real, with time pixilated by an ambient strobe… inopportunely and rudely interrupted by a glimpse of reality: the baby cries, get a snack, keep it moving. Inevitably, the poem ties its own knot, as do we. There is no exit from this virtual panacea, no beautiful moon photo of a real sea on a real moon. Not in the simulacra we forge. Interestingly, Walter slips in the nudge, ‘CHOOSE’, as a stand-alone entreaty, dangling, as it were, at the very end of the penultimate line. The message is clear: it’s not too late. But change demands decision. Personally, and outwardly, to a culture ramrodding through a virtual hole in the cosmos. In the stunning couplet to end, there is a fascinating tone shift in the question, “Shall love return?” It turns out what the poet is speaking about refers as much to real love and adulation for real things, as it does in perception or consciousness. A brave new notion for a modern world distracted by the ‘fractal flickers’ of the virtual world.
Here is a quintessential ‘pre-Simulationist’ poem that addresses key notions that engage artists and writers today. Even if we think we live in a Platonic Cave, or feel left for dead by Descartes and his little demon, our common sense experience of the natural world still tells us that this amazing cosmos we take in through the senses and map our way through is infinitely superior to any 'copy' or perfectly realized simulacra we can fabricate, invent or google our way towards. While our imagination has genuine intention (it is always about real people and real things in the world), and even when we choose to mediate with symbol, word, icon, or even a 3D virtually rendering between our consciousnesses and that cosmic awareness, we never match or even awkwardly approach the Real. On the other hand, the poem seems to indicate, we more easily fall into serious dysfunctional delusion. A clever semblance, perhaps, but still virtual and fabricated. Do we want an Absolute Fake of a moon that we can grasp with phantom tentacles, or a real moon that we can contemplate in the sky, land upon, and dream our way toward the stars from? Can we hold the moon and its double in our gaze at the same time, and if so, do we remember to love all the ones under the sublunar reflection it returns? And does the apprehension of real things affect our art, our understanding, and our appreciation for the world around us? -EDN
Brief Bio
John Walter is a U.S. citizen writing in beautiful Granada, Spain, where he splits his time with his theatre productions in LA and wandering the subterranean mazes below Granada finding fodder for his novel on Al Qaeda and Sufi mysticism (ANNIHILATION). He is an accomplished poet working on his first book of poems, a noted playwright with plays produced off-Broadway, SOHO, SF and often in LA. Walter co-founded the ‘pre-Simulationist Movement,’ (along with the author of this article and several other artists/writers), an artist’s movement that is finding new ways to surpass the exhausted postmodern epoch and its errant constructions of language and thought.
.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Winner, Poem of the Month for May
.
Flying, by Susan Budig
Tu ne seras pas oublié.
You were not ready when you flew from earth,
snatched, like a bird in a storm.
Now I sit at your desk writing the last words in your journal.
I pour out your shampoo, sudsing my hair twice a day
until there is nothing left.
I paint my nails mismatched colors while emptying your chic bottles
of Le Rouge Foncé and Rose Scintillant.
Birds feast on your half-eaten bag of Cheetos that I shake,
salting the wind.
I burn your cinnamon candle down to a nub,
leave on your night-light until the bulb burns out,
open to your bookmark, finishing Baudelaire’s final verses.
Then I lay my head on your pillow,
inhaling your lilac memory,
pull up the yellow cotton sheet,
and dream your last dream.
My aching heart hears you whisper
Allez à Paris.
When I land at Charles de Gaulle
every face I see is yours—
the blue-gray eyes
the chestnut hair
fair face dotted with freckles.
And then I see him:
the Frenchman in your dream.
He smiles at me, steps forward.
His cheeks press mine,
right and left.
I feel the rasp of his peppered beard.
But I know you want more.
Standing on tiptoe, my arms wrapped around his neck,
I look into his brown eyes, pleading
Une fois plus pour Jacqueline?
I hold my breath.
“Avec le plaisir,” he replies.
And we kiss like old lovers,
lingering on
until the taste of his lips cannot be forgotten.
Susan gives the following short bio and addendum to the poem:
I decided when I was eleven years old after winning a Scholastic Writing Contest that I wanted to be a writer. I can't remember when I didn't write poetry, but for the past five years I've written as a journalist and music journalist, freelancing for two newspapers (Mshale and Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder). A couple of years ago I was included as a finalist for Minneapolis' Loft Literary Center's poetry mentorship program, but haven't made much more headway into the world of poetry than that. This poem, Flying, began in my head in January, 2003, but wasn't finished, as if that's ever possible, until I actually went to France early in May, 2008. I stood in the airport for over an hour, people streaming by me, and simply envisioned the scene in the dream segment of my poem. I revised that section while flying over the Atlantic ocean.
Explication by Edward Nudelman
This free-verse narrative poem is very nearly two poems melded into one. Seamlessly. Flying is a poem of loss evincing a strong depth of love which the narrator emphasizes in the cataloguing of objects left behind from a very close and recently deceased female friend or relative, named Jacqueline. Using emblems that jog the memory, objects that were shared by both individuals, the narrator reminds herself (and us) what must be lost to lessen the anguish of loss. The narrator affirms her anguish in the untimely passing (‘you were not ready’) by over-stressing what must be jettisoned from sight and sense in order to assuage the grief: shampoo, chic bottles of nail enamel, a half-eaten bag of Cheetos, cinnamon candle, and even her night light. So much of working through grief is taking action; and conversely, so much of love is clinging to every last vestige of love- even when it is physically impossible.
There is a brilliant transition into the second section of the poem in the quartet,
Then I lay my head on your pillow,
inhaling your lilac memory,
pull up the yellow cotton sheet,
and dream your last dream.
which helps build energy and anticipation into the middle and ending sections of the poem. At this point of transition, the poem changes palpably in tone and we are introduced to an intimate and chance meeting as the dream of a dream unfolds: to visit Paris. It is true, the narrator cannot extricate herself from the memory of her loved-one, even after clearing the house of every reminder. ‘Going to Paris’ (perhaps an alternate suggestion for the title), is her dream, and one obviously never realized due to her early death. So the narrator must go there for her; and once there, the delineation between dream and reality become a little fogged. We find a reference to 'the Frenchman in your dream,' a clever construct to further magnify the illusory tone. The two phrases following consecutively, 'I feel the rasp of his peppered beard,' and, 'but I know you want more,' join the displaced lovers together in place and time with only imagination left as the final barrier. Cleverly, though we know the narrator is the stand-in, the scene is evocative of much more, a kind of transference of passion. We understand and see the meeting that could never occur, now fully realized. She melts into his arms, pleading, 'once more, for Jacqueline?' 'With pleasure,' he responds, and they 'kiss like old lovers.' Time has been erased from the equation. Finally, two lovers meet in the body of a poem, that were prevented from meeting by an early passing. The poem is an emotional release, but more than mere catharsis, it creatively describes an illusory representation of love that enacts a service of ultimate value, the resolution of a life-long dream.
.
Flying, by Susan Budig
Tu ne seras pas oublié.
You were not ready when you flew from earth,
snatched, like a bird in a storm.
Now I sit at your desk writing the last words in your journal.
I pour out your shampoo, sudsing my hair twice a day
until there is nothing left.
I paint my nails mismatched colors while emptying your chic bottles
of Le Rouge Foncé and Rose Scintillant.
Birds feast on your half-eaten bag of Cheetos that I shake,
salting the wind.
I burn your cinnamon candle down to a nub,
leave on your night-light until the bulb burns out,
open to your bookmark, finishing Baudelaire’s final verses.
Then I lay my head on your pillow,
inhaling your lilac memory,
pull up the yellow cotton sheet,
and dream your last dream.
My aching heart hears you whisper
Allez à Paris.
When I land at Charles de Gaulle
every face I see is yours—
the blue-gray eyes
the chestnut hair
fair face dotted with freckles.
And then I see him:
the Frenchman in your dream.
He smiles at me, steps forward.
His cheeks press mine,
right and left.
I feel the rasp of his peppered beard.
But I know you want more.
Standing on tiptoe, my arms wrapped around his neck,
I look into his brown eyes, pleading
Une fois plus pour Jacqueline?
I hold my breath.
“Avec le plaisir,” he replies.
And we kiss like old lovers,
lingering on
until the taste of his lips cannot be forgotten.
Susan gives the following short bio and addendum to the poem:
I decided when I was eleven years old after winning a Scholastic Writing Contest that I wanted to be a writer. I can't remember when I didn't write poetry, but for the past five years I've written as a journalist and music journalist, freelancing for two newspapers (Mshale and Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder). A couple of years ago I was included as a finalist for Minneapolis' Loft Literary Center's poetry mentorship program, but haven't made much more headway into the world of poetry than that. This poem, Flying, began in my head in January, 2003, but wasn't finished, as if that's ever possible, until I actually went to France early in May, 2008. I stood in the airport for over an hour, people streaming by me, and simply envisioned the scene in the dream segment of my poem. I revised that section while flying over the Atlantic ocean.
Explication by Edward Nudelman
This free-verse narrative poem is very nearly two poems melded into one. Seamlessly. Flying is a poem of loss evincing a strong depth of love which the narrator emphasizes in the cataloguing of objects left behind from a very close and recently deceased female friend or relative, named Jacqueline. Using emblems that jog the memory, objects that were shared by both individuals, the narrator reminds herself (and us) what must be lost to lessen the anguish of loss. The narrator affirms her anguish in the untimely passing (‘you were not ready’) by over-stressing what must be jettisoned from sight and sense in order to assuage the grief: shampoo, chic bottles of nail enamel, a half-eaten bag of Cheetos, cinnamon candle, and even her night light. So much of working through grief is taking action; and conversely, so much of love is clinging to every last vestige of love- even when it is physically impossible.
There is a brilliant transition into the second section of the poem in the quartet,
Then I lay my head on your pillow,
inhaling your lilac memory,
pull up the yellow cotton sheet,
and dream your last dream.
which helps build energy and anticipation into the middle and ending sections of the poem. At this point of transition, the poem changes palpably in tone and we are introduced to an intimate and chance meeting as the dream of a dream unfolds: to visit Paris. It is true, the narrator cannot extricate herself from the memory of her loved-one, even after clearing the house of every reminder. ‘Going to Paris’ (perhaps an alternate suggestion for the title), is her dream, and one obviously never realized due to her early death. So the narrator must go there for her; and once there, the delineation between dream and reality become a little fogged. We find a reference to 'the Frenchman in your dream,' a clever construct to further magnify the illusory tone. The two phrases following consecutively, 'I feel the rasp of his peppered beard,' and, 'but I know you want more,' join the displaced lovers together in place and time with only imagination left as the final barrier. Cleverly, though we know the narrator is the stand-in, the scene is evocative of much more, a kind of transference of passion. We understand and see the meeting that could never occur, now fully realized. She melts into his arms, pleading, 'once more, for Jacqueline?' 'With pleasure,' he responds, and they 'kiss like old lovers.' Time has been erased from the equation. Finally, two lovers meet in the body of a poem, that were prevented from meeting by an early passing. The poem is an emotional release, but more than mere catharsis, it creatively describes an illusory representation of love that enacts a service of ultimate value, the resolution of a life-long dream.
.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
American Poet Portraits, by Didi Menendez
.
I am very proud to be included in a one-of-a-kind series of portraits of contemporary poets, an idea crafted and executed by Didi Menendez, poet, founder of MiPOesias Poetry Magazine, Oranges and Sardines, and many other ground-breaking forums for poetry both online and in printed form (Menendez Publishing).
You can find the complete set of paintings hosted by Didi on her blog here:
link to American Poet Portraits.
I hope you'll have a look; to my knowledge, this is the first series of such portraits for contemporary poets and one that will, in my humble estimation, find its way into the annals of art and poetry history.
.
I am very proud to be included in a one-of-a-kind series of portraits of contemporary poets, an idea crafted and executed by Didi Menendez, poet, founder of MiPOesias Poetry Magazine, Oranges and Sardines, and many other ground-breaking forums for poetry both online and in printed form (Menendez Publishing).
You can find the complete set of paintings hosted by Didi on her blog here:
link to American Poet Portraits.
I hope you'll have a look; to my knowledge, this is the first series of such portraits for contemporary poets and one that will, in my humble estimation, find its way into the annals of art and poetry history.
.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Winner, Poem of the Month Competition
.
Intrinsic Differences, by Laura Tattoo
You are adamant, you want answers!
You rally reason from wreck, put out inchy
feelers, scrutinize pharmacologic text,
then proffer cures like colored seeds to birds.
I'm intransigent; I swear I've tried it, all of it!
I've spent thousands on gels, mincemeats and frills
and still I'm sexless; I peck among the rhetoric,
swallow limpid jewels, rise a shadow of myself.
Spilling over this thirsty landscape, we're all
dry as dinosaurs and old as hills;
we've got loser libidos and sinewy sloughs,
we've got what we paid for and we're thirsty still.
You are a maestro of bird song with all that hope,
singer of Ode to Joy in the cafe dawn, you thrill:
I'm torn down in the book of Psalms, I sin,
for I can't wait for a god to call me home
And end this senseless race for cure,
another muck-muck run of luck
that seeps into deep caverns of my skin,
absorbed in the big pores of my nihilism.
This poem dramatically contrasts, with an attitude, the salutary and optimistic outlook of an unnamed individual with that of the narrator’s bitter, if not hopeless sense of futility, apparently due to an incurable ailment. Near the middle of the poem, a single stanza serves to universalize (almost parenthetically) this perceived futility in human suffering. The poem then quickly reverts back to its sardonic rant against a person who is characterized as one with hope and joy, and possessing some measure of faith. This contrasting imagery forms the basis for a poem illustrating the depth of suffering, in part, by its contrast to its opposite.
Composed of five fairly uniform quatrains, the poem has an unusual rhyming structure with an emphasis on a repeating end-rhyme: 'frills', 'hills', 'still', 'thrill', in addition to the quirky paired rhyme, 'muck-muck run of luck'. As well, an additional end-rhyme occurs (sin/skin) separated by three unrhymed lines. These uneven rhythms provide an order and otherwise structured tone to a poem which, without them, might have become heavy with its hard tone. Interestingly, the poem ends on a fascinating near rhyme couplet of skin/nihilism.
These rhymes add a lyrical quality to a fairly heavy-handed and deliberate poem. The poem is also lifted out of an otherwise negative tone by some excellent alliteration: ‘rally reason from wreck,’ ‘dry as dinosaurs,’ ‘loser libidos,’ and ‘sinewy sloughs.’
The poem opens declaratively, addressing a person the speaker obviously knows well, in an accusatory tone, “You are adamant, you want answers!” This sets the tone for the poem and ushers in the notion of certainty and the speaker’s frustration with an individual who may not understand or have a basis for empathy in their experience. This person who rallies ‘reason from wreck,’ is obviously aware of the speaker’s problems, which appear to be rooted in some serious physical impairment or disease (reference to 'pharmacologic text', 'proffer cures'). However, the speaker has heard all of this and declares herself intransigent, unable to change (or be changed). It is clear, early on in the poem, that there is a history of suffering and striving, of failing to get better in the face of injurious therapeutic regimes (‘I've spent thousands on gels, mincemeats and frills,; ‘I’m still sexless,’ and, ‘swallow limpid jewels, rise a shadow of myself’).
The third stanza brings the reader into the fray. No more is this is solely an argument between the speaker and another party. “We're all dry as dinosaurs and old as hills/ We've got loser libidos and sinewy sloughs/ We've got what we paid for and we're thirsty still.” This appears to be a reference to possible side-effects of some drugs (i.e., drastically affecting libido). In addition, in declaring we get what we pay for and are still thirsty, the speaker implies there is little comfort in costly protocols whose side effects are worse than the curative benefits.
The fourth and fifth stanzas contrast the speaker's despair with the apparent opposite nature of the subject addressed, whose hope sings like a bird, a ‘singer of Ode to Joy,’ in a café: a reference that lets the reader know there is a history here, and brings attention to perhaps a specific encounter or discussion that may have formed a basis for the inspiration of the poem. Further, the biblical reference to the Psalms serves to illustrate the depth of the speaker’s suffering (‘I'm torn down in the book of Psalms, I sin') and the the phraseology continues the tone of sarcasm here, pointing out a perceived hypocrisy in a person who is a “maestro of bird song.”
The poem ends by drawing the reader back to the central issue at hand: the speaker’s hopelessness in the face of a disease or condition that apparently has no cure (‘end this senseless race for cure’). Although the speaker makes a reference here to a ‘run of bad luck,’ it is clear that there is a subtext here which remains unresolved. In the face of such devastating effects of physical (and no doubt emotional) exhaustion, the speaker finally withdraws away from a tirade and looks inward, avowing a kind of bleak resignation, if not complicity with her own suffering, which becomes ‘absorbed in the big pores of my nihilism.”
This poem dramatizes the speaker’s highly personal, candid and visceral response to an apparently incurable physical ailment showing profound frustration with an unnamed individual who obviously possesses quite divergent views on the subject. Intimate and ‘intrinsic differences’ in ways of thinking (and feeling) between the speaker and another individual are used to juxtapose the universal struggle against the physical realm, against forces which are resistant to change (i.e. for the better). Though sardonic and intentionally dark, the poem amplifies the speaker’s travail by vividly comparing her own plight with the seemingly joyous (though perhaps callous) temperament of an unnamed individual. It is a poem of despair in which the speaker unabashedly amplifies a kind of intractable anguish (and angst) and finally accepts blame, after a fashion, in the personal recognition of nihilistic hopelessness. While this may be a poem easily panned by those without a context for years of suffering, it will, conversely, find resonance for many who find identification in their experience for the bleak harsh realities of human suffering.
Laura Tattoo was inspired, early on, to write poetry by the likes of Dr. Seuss, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Shakespeare, but feels she discovered it much more by simply living it. In her twenties she studied English and French at Portland State University where she won the Nina Mae Kellogg award for best senior student in English. Between then and now, she has written several volumes of poetry in both English and French, and at 51 is seeking to publish and share her work. Originally from New York and Massachusetts, Laura now divides her time between her home in Astoria, Oregon, and long sojourns in Paris, France.
.
Intrinsic Differences, by Laura Tattoo
You are adamant, you want answers!
You rally reason from wreck, put out inchy
feelers, scrutinize pharmacologic text,
then proffer cures like colored seeds to birds.
I'm intransigent; I swear I've tried it, all of it!
I've spent thousands on gels, mincemeats and frills
and still I'm sexless; I peck among the rhetoric,
swallow limpid jewels, rise a shadow of myself.
Spilling over this thirsty landscape, we're all
dry as dinosaurs and old as hills;
we've got loser libidos and sinewy sloughs,
we've got what we paid for and we're thirsty still.
You are a maestro of bird song with all that hope,
singer of Ode to Joy in the cafe dawn, you thrill:
I'm torn down in the book of Psalms, I sin,
for I can't wait for a god to call me home
And end this senseless race for cure,
another muck-muck run of luck
that seeps into deep caverns of my skin,
absorbed in the big pores of my nihilism.
This poem dramatically contrasts, with an attitude, the salutary and optimistic outlook of an unnamed individual with that of the narrator’s bitter, if not hopeless sense of futility, apparently due to an incurable ailment. Near the middle of the poem, a single stanza serves to universalize (almost parenthetically) this perceived futility in human suffering. The poem then quickly reverts back to its sardonic rant against a person who is characterized as one with hope and joy, and possessing some measure of faith. This contrasting imagery forms the basis for a poem illustrating the depth of suffering, in part, by its contrast to its opposite.
Composed of five fairly uniform quatrains, the poem has an unusual rhyming structure with an emphasis on a repeating end-rhyme: 'frills', 'hills', 'still', 'thrill', in addition to the quirky paired rhyme, 'muck-muck run of luck'. As well, an additional end-rhyme occurs (sin/skin) separated by three unrhymed lines. These uneven rhythms provide an order and otherwise structured tone to a poem which, without them, might have become heavy with its hard tone. Interestingly, the poem ends on a fascinating near rhyme couplet of skin/nihilism.
These rhymes add a lyrical quality to a fairly heavy-handed and deliberate poem. The poem is also lifted out of an otherwise negative tone by some excellent alliteration: ‘rally reason from wreck,’ ‘dry as dinosaurs,’ ‘loser libidos,’ and ‘sinewy sloughs.’
The poem opens declaratively, addressing a person the speaker obviously knows well, in an accusatory tone, “You are adamant, you want answers!” This sets the tone for the poem and ushers in the notion of certainty and the speaker’s frustration with an individual who may not understand or have a basis for empathy in their experience. This person who rallies ‘reason from wreck,’ is obviously aware of the speaker’s problems, which appear to be rooted in some serious physical impairment or disease (reference to 'pharmacologic text', 'proffer cures'). However, the speaker has heard all of this and declares herself intransigent, unable to change (or be changed). It is clear, early on in the poem, that there is a history of suffering and striving, of failing to get better in the face of injurious therapeutic regimes (‘I've spent thousands on gels, mincemeats and frills,; ‘I’m still sexless,’ and, ‘swallow limpid jewels, rise a shadow of myself’).
The third stanza brings the reader into the fray. No more is this is solely an argument between the speaker and another party. “We're all dry as dinosaurs and old as hills/ We've got loser libidos and sinewy sloughs/ We've got what we paid for and we're thirsty still.” This appears to be a reference to possible side-effects of some drugs (i.e., drastically affecting libido). In addition, in declaring we get what we pay for and are still thirsty, the speaker implies there is little comfort in costly protocols whose side effects are worse than the curative benefits.
The fourth and fifth stanzas contrast the speaker's despair with the apparent opposite nature of the subject addressed, whose hope sings like a bird, a ‘singer of Ode to Joy,’ in a café: a reference that lets the reader know there is a history here, and brings attention to perhaps a specific encounter or discussion that may have formed a basis for the inspiration of the poem. Further, the biblical reference to the Psalms serves to illustrate the depth of the speaker’s suffering (‘I'm torn down in the book of Psalms, I sin') and the the phraseology continues the tone of sarcasm here, pointing out a perceived hypocrisy in a person who is a “maestro of bird song.”
The poem ends by drawing the reader back to the central issue at hand: the speaker’s hopelessness in the face of a disease or condition that apparently has no cure (‘end this senseless race for cure’). Although the speaker makes a reference here to a ‘run of bad luck,’ it is clear that there is a subtext here which remains unresolved. In the face of such devastating effects of physical (and no doubt emotional) exhaustion, the speaker finally withdraws away from a tirade and looks inward, avowing a kind of bleak resignation, if not complicity with her own suffering, which becomes ‘absorbed in the big pores of my nihilism.”
This poem dramatizes the speaker’s highly personal, candid and visceral response to an apparently incurable physical ailment showing profound frustration with an unnamed individual who obviously possesses quite divergent views on the subject. Intimate and ‘intrinsic differences’ in ways of thinking (and feeling) between the speaker and another individual are used to juxtapose the universal struggle against the physical realm, against forces which are resistant to change (i.e. for the better). Though sardonic and intentionally dark, the poem amplifies the speaker’s travail by vividly comparing her own plight with the seemingly joyous (though perhaps callous) temperament of an unnamed individual. It is a poem of despair in which the speaker unabashedly amplifies a kind of intractable anguish (and angst) and finally accepts blame, after a fashion, in the personal recognition of nihilistic hopelessness. While this may be a poem easily panned by those without a context for years of suffering, it will, conversely, find resonance for many who find identification in their experience for the bleak harsh realities of human suffering.
Laura Tattoo was inspired, early on, to write poetry by the likes of Dr. Seuss, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Shakespeare, but feels she discovered it much more by simply living it. In her twenties she studied English and French at Portland State University where she won the Nina Mae Kellogg award for best senior student in English. Between then and now, she has written several volumes of poetry in both English and French, and at 51 is seeking to publish and share her work. Originally from New York and Massachusetts, Laura now divides her time between her home in Astoria, Oregon, and long sojourns in Paris, France.
.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Art and Science and A Robin
.
All art presupposes some degree of scientific method. All science begins with the art of ideas. Looking out my kitchen window I see a robin. I am aware, as I watch it gently tamp the grass with both feet while at the same time making the most pleasant, airy chirps a bird can make- that I'm writing a poem of a painting.
I try to imagine this painting of a robin in its own poem, with its own premise. The robin's premise, in my poem, is sound. The breezy refrain in her song, the lack of sound in her gliding footfall across my lawn. I jot down a few lines. My words, together with their syntactic foundation, form a premise whenever I assemble them together to say something. They always aim at something, however grandiose or base, however monumental or trivial; and they always bear the subtle fruit of some kind of methodological approach, however unclear it may be to either me or the reader.
The robin must know, better than I, what she is about. But since she can't tell me in words, I have to rely on other senses to inform. And when I want to write of death, or global warming, or a disquieting conversation with a neighbor (in a poem, for example), I get to remember the sound the robin made through its tiny beak, or its silent, frustrating foray through my grass, finding no worms.
This word picture may reasonably find its way into my thinking at any moment, without ever using diagnostic words relating to the robin. Importantly, however, while pleasing to the psyche and sometimes to the heart, this approach can fall short in providing absolute information. I may speak much of a robin, but I may say less of Robin. I may describe her demeanor and talk about her successes and failures, and relate them to my own, and you may find something in the delineation of my robin that you hadn't seen in your robin. Still, we may widely disagree. This amounts to a kind of Wikipedia entry for a robin. If enough of us write robin poems and enough of us interact with each others work, we may come to understand more and more about the robin. This is beginning to sound like science.
In fact, this is about all that science purports to accomplish. It aims to observe, to write about those observations, and to make conclusions based on these observations. It aims to submit these findings to some sort of Wikipedia, some bulletin board of review, so that others can comment, agree, admire, disagree and, yes, denigrate (in a civil sort of academic way, of course!).
These methods, whether of art or science, have their own peculiar aspects of inquiry, observation, examination, discussion, conclusion and/or qualia of experience. Whether describing atmospheric pressure in a balloon, or the circular perambulations of a robin in a poem, it is necessary to make assumptions and reason your way through them toward a semblance of conclusion. Even in absurdist poetry, one is clearly making a statement based on random or nonsensical premises.
Science need not be rigorous and restricted to nomenclature to be scientific inquiry, just as art need not be diffuse and metaphorical to be artistic; we fool ourselves to think we live and operate in a world where we don't commonly think, project and/or imagine, using very distinct patterns of logic and mechanistic inquiry. These patterns of thought are subject to both our own scrutiny, as well as the scrutiny of others. To say that we can approach a definition in our art, is not to deny any kind of mystical or emotional basis to that art. Quite the converse, we give more credence to our art as it touches the senses and the supra-sense, when we acknowledge that it has a basis in reason, as opposed to being on the fringe of reason, or outside of experience altogether.
Scientific method does not (nor has it ever intended to) war against art, and vice versa. But rather, the two coexist, right beside each other, benefiting in a mutual and symbiotic process of declaration, understanding and enlightenment.
.
All art presupposes some degree of scientific method. All science begins with the art of ideas. Looking out my kitchen window I see a robin. I am aware, as I watch it gently tamp the grass with both feet while at the same time making the most pleasant, airy chirps a bird can make- that I'm writing a poem of a painting.
I try to imagine this painting of a robin in its own poem, with its own premise. The robin's premise, in my poem, is sound. The breezy refrain in her song, the lack of sound in her gliding footfall across my lawn. I jot down a few lines. My words, together with their syntactic foundation, form a premise whenever I assemble them together to say something. They always aim at something, however grandiose or base, however monumental or trivial; and they always bear the subtle fruit of some kind of methodological approach, however unclear it may be to either me or the reader.
The robin must know, better than I, what she is about. But since she can't tell me in words, I have to rely on other senses to inform. And when I want to write of death, or global warming, or a disquieting conversation with a neighbor (in a poem, for example), I get to remember the sound the robin made through its tiny beak, or its silent, frustrating foray through my grass, finding no worms.
This word picture may reasonably find its way into my thinking at any moment, without ever using diagnostic words relating to the robin. Importantly, however, while pleasing to the psyche and sometimes to the heart, this approach can fall short in providing absolute information. I may speak much of a robin, but I may say less of Robin. I may describe her demeanor and talk about her successes and failures, and relate them to my own, and you may find something in the delineation of my robin that you hadn't seen in your robin. Still, we may widely disagree. This amounts to a kind of Wikipedia entry for a robin. If enough of us write robin poems and enough of us interact with each others work, we may come to understand more and more about the robin. This is beginning to sound like science.
In fact, this is about all that science purports to accomplish. It aims to observe, to write about those observations, and to make conclusions based on these observations. It aims to submit these findings to some sort of Wikipedia, some bulletin board of review, so that others can comment, agree, admire, disagree and, yes, denigrate (in a civil sort of academic way, of course!).
These methods, whether of art or science, have their own peculiar aspects of inquiry, observation, examination, discussion, conclusion and/or qualia of experience. Whether describing atmospheric pressure in a balloon, or the circular perambulations of a robin in a poem, it is necessary to make assumptions and reason your way through them toward a semblance of conclusion. Even in absurdist poetry, one is clearly making a statement based on random or nonsensical premises.
Science need not be rigorous and restricted to nomenclature to be scientific inquiry, just as art need not be diffuse and metaphorical to be artistic; we fool ourselves to think we live and operate in a world where we don't commonly think, project and/or imagine, using very distinct patterns of logic and mechanistic inquiry. These patterns of thought are subject to both our own scrutiny, as well as the scrutiny of others. To say that we can approach a definition in our art, is not to deny any kind of mystical or emotional basis to that art. Quite the converse, we give more credence to our art as it touches the senses and the supra-sense, when we acknowledge that it has a basis in reason, as opposed to being on the fringe of reason, or outside of experience altogether.
Scientific method does not (nor has it ever intended to) war against art, and vice versa. But rather, the two coexist, right beside each other, benefiting in a mutual and symbiotic process of declaration, understanding and enlightenment.
.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Poetry Competition
.
Announcing a poetry competition. Submit your poems to me personally at: enudelman@msn.com
I will review all poems and once a month I will select one to appear on this blog with an introduction about the author and a short explication (by me) of the poem. Hopefully, this will generate excitement and comments for each poem selected. I look forward to receiving your submissions.
Simply email the poem IN THE BODY OF THE EMAIL (I would prefer to not receive attachments) with the subject simply saying "poetry submission," or something similar. Please don't expect an answer to the submission by email.
Warm regards,
Edward Nudelman
.
Announcing a poetry competition. Submit your poems to me personally at: enudelman@msn.com
I will review all poems and once a month I will select one to appear on this blog with an introduction about the author and a short explication (by me) of the poem. Hopefully, this will generate excitement and comments for each poem selected. I look forward to receiving your submissions.
Simply email the poem IN THE BODY OF THE EMAIL (I would prefer to not receive attachments) with the subject simply saying "poetry submission," or something similar. Please don't expect an answer to the submission by email.
Warm regards,
Edward Nudelman
.
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