I can agree with that. I guess what I define as "poetry" is a little too rigid. I do appreciate the beauty of the simplicity used to convey a strong emotion. I guess I prefer things that allow me to see more the more I look. The piece written by member here My Father's Big Toe is equal to the Plum poem. They both capture a certain mood and feeling we are all familiar with yet we do not possess a singular word to functionally describe it. I guess I would place it in my own personal class of poetry whicb I'll call "feeling observation". I goingto try and come up with half a dozen to see how difficult it really is.
Big Toe is mine, and I'll take your words as a huge compliment, so thank you I'll be very interested to read your experiments.
I always find them kind of poems kind of strange; you can't see much but you're pretty sure there something there.
Another thing that always has me frowning with many poems, is the ambiguity in certain lines. In many ways this irritates me, but I fear this irritation stems from my lack of understanding. Are we supposed to understand what the writer is saying? Or is the fact that we don't the whole point? I'm going to give just one of many examples in which the meaning escapes me entirely. The Lines by Andrew Motion November, and the Sunday twilight fallen dark at four - its hard unbroken rain battering the garden. Vacantly I fill this first weekend alone with anything - So far, so clear. Lost love - it's a Sunday in November, it's dark at four, raining and he's wondering what to do with himself. But then we get the second stanza: the radio, a paperback you never read: In 1845 200,000 navvies, 3,000 miles of line. Lost faces lift - a mania, a human alligator, shovels clinking under high midsummer sun. What?? What does any of this mean?? Third stanza for context: The heat-haze dances meadowsweet and may, whole cliffs collapse, and line by line I bring your death to lonely villages, red-tiled farms, helpless women and timid men. Again, what am I being told here?? And why are certain lines in the last two stanzas in italics??
The second stanza is saying what he's desperately trying to fill his weekend with: listening to the radio and reading books the ex-lover never read. Empty nothings that can distract him, that have no tie to the ex-lover. What follows I assumed were bits from the radio broadcast and bits from the book
Okay, I can just about get my head around that - maybe a news report on the radio, and the 'human alligator' was from some trashy horror novel. But what about the third stanza; the bringing of death and collapsing cliffs? It's stuff like this that makes my own attempts feel woefully inadequate, because I can't help but think it's my own fault I don't understand, and that the meaning and purpose behind poems like this are perfectly clear to everyone but me.
Let me say first, this was not a simple poem (a lot of poems aren't). It's one that requires reading, reflection, and reading again. I may not have it correct, but I believe the italics are lines from the radio broadcast and the non-italized (after the second stanza colon) are the book. I no longer believer the speaker in the poem is articulating in the third stanza—because you'll notice it switches seasons—November (autumn) from before the colon, and then midsummer after the colon. I think the poem's speaker is letting the two solaces or distractions bleed into one another, hearing bits of the radio break in & interrupt the train of the novel.
I've only skimmed the replies, so apologies if I'm repeating something. As mentioned before, it's done for several reasons, including to create tension, emphasize or draw attention to a certain word, or preserve rhyme scheme. In Williams' case, I'd say it's to create tension (eaten what?, in where?, etc.) and emphasize words. It's also a fairly popular poem because I've come across in an anthology. My general impression of it is that it's a very subjective poem. On the surface, yes, he's talking about eating plums, but one can also interpret it as the narrator succumbing to physical pleasures. The great thing about poetry, and creative writing in general, is that it's open to interpretation. Taking the poem by Andrew Motion as an example, I interpreted it differently each time I read it. Part of it depends on the experiences you, the reader, bring to the table. For example, someone who has only read 18th century literature will most likely interpret it differently than someone who has only read 20th literature.
I think, as a genuine experiment, I'm going to write a nonsense poem, and see if it could pass as something that isn't in fact nonsense, but needs careful consideration and interpretation. Of course, now that I've divulged this it won't fool anyone here, but I'll only post it if I think I've been successful.
As part of my continued efforts to better understand poetry - or more precisely what makes poetry poetry - I'd like to ask for views and opinions on the following. I'm not going to reveal its source as I don't want to influence people's views, and I ask anyone who does happen to know, to keep it to themselves for now. All I ask is that you give your opinion just as you would any other critique. Love Poem We have plenty of matches in our house We keep them on hand always Currently our favourite brand Is Ohio Blue Tip Though we used to prefer Diamond Brand That was before we discovered Ohio Blue Tip matches They are excellently packaged Sturdy little boxes With dark and light blue and white labels With words lettered In the shape of a megaphone As if to say even louder to the world Here is the most beautiful match in the world It’s one-and-a-half-inch soft pine stem Capped by a grainy dark purple head So sober and furious and stubbornly ready To burst into flame Lighting, perhaps the cigarette of the woman you love For the first time And it was never really the same after that All this will we give you That is what you gave me I become the cigarette and you the match Or I the match and you the cigarette Blazing with kisses that smoulder towards heaven Spoiler: Source: Taken from the new Jim Jarmusch film, Paterson
I feel it's my duty (even though I've posted about it in the 'What are you reading?' thread) to mention this book again. I'm only a few pages into chapter one, but the preamble that comes before was fascinating and gives me a really good feel about this book and how it will aid me in my poetry endeavours. Might sound a silly thing to say when I've only just started reading, but I already feel justified in saying I can't recommend it enough. The Ode Less Travelled
May I ask, for those of you who write your poetry in a notebook (especially pocket ones for when you're out and about) do you have a method of indicating where the line brakes come? I'm discovering - even in the slighter larger notebooks - that there often isn't enough room for the whole line, so it ends up spilling onto the next, even though it's meant to be the same line. I've started using a '|' to remind me where the true line breaks should come, but I was just wondering how others deal with it.
Really? Can you give more detail as this surprises me. What size notebook do you use? Do all your poems feature particularly short lines?
It depends on my mood. Sometimes I write like this: The symbolic ways ...................That move along From here sprung and rang out loud ..............................and then it fell and gone again OR I just write until the line runs out and continue onto next line ... thinking about it I guess I would tend to do the above if the line in my head was long?
But that's my point. Let's say years later you're reading those poems, how do you know if the new line is there because you ran out of room or becuase you actually wanted a line break there?
Because I know. This is because I always write with a rhythm. I can distinguish how it should be read because I wrote it. I don't understand how I could possibly make such a mistake? I have recently posted a few poems I wrote around three years ago. I had no problem.
I turn the notepad long ways and write like that. Plenty of room. My line lengths are usually from 3-10 words. Hard to measure actual average line-length. I typically stick between 6-12 syllables per line though.
I samba way, a limber way, A running around to dancingly play in among, and round-a-bout, Somewhere there we fall about. And we scurry on Hurry on Move with swift ways that mirror upon the steps we take In fall of foot upon some rut, a rut to be broken, and a new pattern to be found and we tap, tap, tap our feet aloud, allowed to move freely to turn and spin and vault about To laugh and cry and stumble with a shout We dance, we dance, we romance life we dance, we dance, all structure away we build, we build, with mirrored movements, elegant and delicate strong and forgiving We dance limberly on and on That is an example of something I just made up now. If written on a page it would look different, but the space would not confine how I would have written it. If I was to present this on this forum as a written piece I would unlikely present it like this and I'd edit this too because I put little thought into it because it is just an example of how I lay down the lines in my head.
But of course it would because some of the longer lines would have had to spill over before the intended end stops and/or enjambments.
I was trying to show it does matter to me. The stop-start nature of how I write something down just shows where I paused briefly to think, not where I wish to put in an actual pause. Like I said, I tend to write with a certain rhythm and I can discern it where it is written as one continual stream of words or something more broken up. The way it should be read is like this: I samba away, A limber way, A running around To dancingly play In among, and round-a-bout, Somewhere there we fall about. And we scurry on, hurry on Move with swift ways that mirror upon the steps we take In fall of foot upon some rut, A rut to be broken, And a new pattern to be found And we tap, tap, tap our feet aloud, Allowed to move freely, to turn and spin and vault about To laugh and cry and stumble With a shout We dance, we dance, We romance life We dance, we dance, All structure away We build, we build, With mirrored movements, elegant and delicate Strong and forgiving We dance limberly On and on If I wrote without any kind of rhythm I may find it more difficult? I don't write like that though. I like the way words sound and I adore playing around with them and creating certain "feelings" within the pace. My way of writing is as if it is to be spoken not read ... if you know what I mean? If you want to make a poem in the shape of a tree why not simply paint a picture of a tree to accompany the poem rather than force the mere shape of words into some farce of visual art.
Moved. Yes, subforums in the Workshop are solely for the posting of one's personal writing for the purpose of critique.
