Caducus
on End by Sasha
12 Oct 2004, 2:32 AM
I've been reading Larkin lately and this one reminded me a bit of toads revisited. The whole poem to me is very polished and focused. One of the best seasonal poems I've read in a while.
Not your best. Too many words. Good thought though.
Hywel, -=Dark_Angel=-, P.I. and anyone interested in thoughts on multi-interpretations,
I read a very short poem once that seemed to come from the same kind of thinking that had gone into some of my writing. I liked it because I felt a kinship with a man known for his heavy drinking and living part of his life as a bum. I was touched that two of us humans so different could come together on this poem of his.
ART by Charles Bukowski
“At the spirit wanes, the form appears.”
I thought how my own spirit wanes after work, relaxing with a glass of wine and the appearance of forms that find expression in written words. It seemed he had caught the notion that the cares of life and business inhibit the creation of art, the very notion I was feeling. The poem inspired me because it expressed something I had thought, but had never been able to say as succinctly as his brief poem.
A year or so later I learned what the poet was thinking. He said that he wrote the poem because as the spirit wanes and becomes like a dead thing, a poet turns to forms such as sonnets, villanelles and the like to cover his lack and give the impression of having something to say. It was a slur on poets becoming erudite.
What Bukowski meant and what I interpreted were entirely different. I do not say that this is how all poems should come across, only that it’s a way they can. He had his meaning and I interpreted mine. I still think it’s a good poem.
I appreciate all your comments and agree that my poem is lacking in the expression of something that to me was a very significant.
I'm a pinched hitter.
I loved the beginning, by the end though? I was like good christ. Women are so fucking co-dependant, blah.
Dude, you are fucking too cool. You crack me up like no other, love it.
I meant the "barrier" as being an emotional shield, and it being torn apart as a target is. Now that I look at it though, you're right, it doesn't make much sense how I worded it...Maybe you have some suggestions as to how I could fix it? That is if you understand what I was trying to say now? Thank you.
So vivid I can smell the saltwater.
The crab looked alive, but was actually dead.
The lifelike floating legs and protruding passive eyes surveying all - kind of creepy, yet thought provoking!
Its about PArkinsons disease so i doubt the son deserved the rejection
Dovina, why do you write poetry. The only reason I can think of for writing poetry is to communicate something you think valuable. If you have something valuable to say surely it is important that the reader understands it as it was meant. To suggest that people interpreting it wrongly is a good thing is absurd. Hence my comment about confusion. Who would be the author of confusion?
The most important thing a poet can express in my opinion is an uncertainty or an excitement over a coming together of images. In that sense the reader does not need to know what the poem means as such, rather grasp some kind of imaginary order. The Dylan Thomas poem 'the force that through the green fuse lights the flower' for instance communicates a sexual excitement understood through water on rock, quicksand stirring etc.
As for the poem I believe zodiac's anger is driven by your lack of care. It is full of cliches - eyes meet, true, hope etc and seems unbothered that lines go by without offering anything ('directly in front of me the one I call husband' makes up a whole verse, it could easily make up one or two words, directly in front being redundant as it is presumed the narrator is paying attention).
People make different interpretations of certain poems because the lack of depth allows them to, not because it is a good poem.
A gorgeous moment. The gendering of the crab is intersting. Are you making a personal statement or merely recounting an event?
I think it'd be a more effective metaphor than similie. I could visualize it though.
to be found out that your love means nothing, unable to stop the tears from rocking down from her eyes, you deserve this rejection
Oh goodness, your swear has sent shivers of naughtiness up and down my spine. Did you know that Hobos have a top speed of four miles per hour?
Ah, Wilfred Owen. How many times since year 10 have we laughed at your melodramatic poetry? At least 5. Probably more.
Sometimes you produce the most awful bungling bogstanton.
Honest question of the day: Is a target - presumably a shooting target - really ever intended as a shield? By whom?
I've found that effectively parodying this poem requires changing fewer than ten words. The last line, especially, should be changed to:
with brine-shrimp tearing at my eyes.
I do hope someone gives it a shot.
I don't think it's always a "great thing" that readers interpret your work in different ways. In most cases, that happens because you have inadequately conveyed what you were trying to convey. John Keats said that poetry "...should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost as a remembrance". Most of the poemes I like touch a nerve, and by skillful use of language they really capture the essence of what they're trying to say. They communicate it so well, that it seems like your own remembrance, rather than something someone else thinks. One example is Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et decorum est". Here is a dumpling:
"GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning."
I was far too old to serve in the trenches of WWI, but the poeme made me feel as if I was ACTUALLY there, and it had been one of MY comrades who had broken wind. Food for thought? Thanks for listening.