Critique / George Dance
George Dance
The world no longer pours in through our eyes.
We cannot speak except of what we feel.
We do not know if anything is real,
Anything, or if it's all just lies.
These minds are dungeons, and we can't break free;
Caves from which we shall not be released.
Our only hope, to beg from some new priest
Some liberty in immortality.
No God above, no ground beneath our feet,
No books or poetry to save us now,
No what, no why, no where, no when, just how,
Each still must walk what seems to be a street
At best an ape with eyes that make it blind,
Blundering through the dungeon of its mind.
---
George Dance
adamlynn
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.....
Happy New Year George, keep up the good work.
Leisha
Quickly, because I'm working today & just taking a short break to have
a bite before I get back to the grindstone . . .
I love "The world no longer pours in through our eyes." I had to read
the poem when I got the email teaser with this line and your name in
it. The world pouring into our eyes is brutal, a violation, like the
world is way too much for me, it's all bad, and I want no more of it
pouring in. It feels good that it's not pouring in, and I don't really
care to speak of what I feel because I know it's all an illusion,
"Nothing is real."
When I get to "Caves from which we shall not be released," I think
that's not quite right. After all, we'll all die and be released from
our minds some time, and what comes next? "Immortality," so the
release is acknowledged and the statement is undermined.
> No God above, no ground beneath our feet,
Here again, shades of John Lennon. I've already heard, "nothing is
real" in this poem, now I hear "No hell below us, above us only sky."
> No what, no why, no where, no when, just how,
I like the driven beat of this line with its insistent, perfect meter.
I would hate it if it weren't for the surprise of "just" how at the
end of the line. Then, though, I'm set up to learn how what? To what
does "how" relate? How to be? How to escape the cave? How to die,
maybe?
Instead I get this line, "Each still must walk what seems to be a
street," and I'm so far away from the subject of "each" that I can't
know to whom or what you are referring, but I think it's some
universal Public, and it's unexpected, unnatural, even cheap to
interrupt this Everyman during his walk down poetic streets and
suddenly make of him a blundering ape. It isn't fair! You haven't
earned him, the poem has already begun to unhinge, has already lost
its narrative thread in its slavery to form.
"Write a lot of poems," one of my teachers told me, and lately Ira
Glass gave that same advice to up-and-coming reporters. For years, he
says, we make art and we know it's not up to the standards we have for
ourselves, but we keep trying.
I'm trying, you're trying, and we're both getting closer, poem by
poem, aren't we? You're always giving it your best shot, George, which
I admire, appreciate, & try to emulate.
Here's to a Happy New Year and new decade in which we push ourselves &
each other even harder and further.
Leisha
George Dance
Thanks, Adam, and the same to you.
=z=
well like townes spoke leisha...shake the dust off of your wings and
the sleep out of your eyes...
shake the dust off your wings and the tears out of your eyes....
George Dance
Thanks for the fair comments, Leisha. You humble me: not just because
of your astute analysis, but because you found time to comment right
away during a busy day at work; while I, who have been on vacation
since you wrote, haven't even replied.
I have been enormously busy on a project (see my sig line below for
details), but that wasn't the only reason I didn't reply. I also
wanted to fix one thing you alluded to in your first paragraph: how
'the world ... pours in' sounded brutal and a violation, and its
cessation something to be desired. That wasn't at all what I meant; I
wanted that first line to sound tragic, as if the guy was blinded
(though he's not blinded literally, of course). So I had to go looking
for a better, more peaceful and natural word than 'pours.' I've been
rassling with that in one corner of my mind the last few days, and I
think I've found the one: 'flows'. So I'm making that change
forthwith.
Your Everyman comment is tougher to address. Originally I had
Each one of us must walk a lonely street
or s/t like that (I know 'lonely' isn't right). I took out the 'of us'
the day I thought of 'what seems to be a street', which to me
perfectly expressed the idea (of no longer being sure what's what in
reality). I'll work on that line a bit more and try to make it
inclusive again: I know I can do something about it without
sacrificing the meter; I just don't know what at this point.
>
> "Write a lot of poems," one of my teachers told me, and lately Ira
> Glass gave that same advice to up-and-coming reporters. For years, he
> says, we make art and we know it's not up to the standards we have for
> ourselves, but we keep trying.
>
> I'm trying, you're trying, and we're both getting closer, poem by
> poem, aren't we? You're always giving it your best shot, George, which
> I admire, appreciate, & try to emulate.
>
Thanks. My problem is that I don't write enough. I hate it when people
call certain themes or ideas 'cliches' -- that's a misuse of the word
-- but I know what they mean: it's been done before, and probably
better than I could do. I'm constantly getting stopped by that and
abandoning poems. It's something I have to get past.
> Here's to a Happy New Year and new decade in which we push ourselves &
> each other even harder and further.
>
> Leisha
A great sentiment. A Happy and successful New Year to the both of us.
Per aspera ad astra!
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"Betty" by George Dance
http://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/