Vertigo.
Carolyn W.
cythera <cyt...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
cythera,
overall i like this, but have a few little picks, below.
> _________
>
> Vertigo
> _________
>
> You were a moth, beating at my back with red confusion.
this drew me in. except the narrative (which i'm just as guilty of)
seems omnipresent--which maybe you can do without. don't ask me how.
>
> Your wishes rise to scratch my back with your back.
> I pull you to a field of senselessness and owls.
> Between the anger and the lilies, I let you play with my shadow.
>
> You still don’t know me.
>
> I make you split apart, compose, and move,
> A snake of grass.
> Love and hours hang in a tree.
the juxtaposition of things works well. i especially like love and
hours.
>
> My eyes are two green nets of ruined pearl.
> I lie in the spilled grass,
> Wondering how to pull your stitches out of me.
>
> Two marble statues sink in a pool.
> The water is black,
> And these emeralds smashed as weather.
something about the last stanza seems not to do justice to the rest of
the poem. maybe it's the "marble statues" that seem cliche.
-carolyn
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Ryan Deschamps
> Vertigo
> _________
>
> You were a moth, beating at my back with red confusion.
>
> Your wishes rise to scratch my back with your back.
> I pull you to a field of senselessness and owls.
> Between the anger and the lilies, I let you play with my shadow.
you've mixed your imagery. You call 'confusion' red without giving any
hint as to why its red-- is the moth red? And the moth's 'wishes' seem
to be doing something I can't fathom. Another thing I can't fathom is
what sort of space would exist between "anger and the lillies" where a
moth and a shadow could play. Nor do I know what a "field of
senselessness" would look like.
Mixed imagery is bad because it foils the natural ability for a reader to
imagine what a poem is trying to illustrate. In a poem there are two
types of things that evoke the imagination of the reader. The first is
external logic: what, literally, happens in the poem. The other is
called internal logic: that's the _meaning_ or "theme" as hinted at by
the figurative language in the poem. When a poem is doing what it is
supposed to, we get to the internal logic through the external logic.
FOr example, (because I don't immediately have an anthology with me I'll
use my own poem):
The train
it cuts
the woodland like a skateblade
So what we have is a train cutting the woods. The image is clear-- and
the reader can juxtapose the image of a train chugging through the woods
with the image of a huge skate cutting through the woods. The reader can
imagine this image effectively and maybe relate an (internal) logic of how
industrialization has injured the environment. Now, let's fuck this image
up a bit:
The train
it cuts
the woodland like a skateblade
wearing drag
and frolicks between
lambs
and epistemological
ideology
here the imagery is mixed. A train frolicking is goofy. Frolicking
between lambs and epistemological ideology is an impossibility. THe
prior image of the train cutting the landscape is lost. FUrther, we can't
get at a theme because the logic of the earlier passage is lost-- we
can't fathom the literal happenings in the poem, so we can't fathom a
secondary, internal theme. That's why mixed imagery is bad.
> You still don’t know me.
And this comes like a rock from a prostrate. The moth doesn't know you--
do you think the reader is surprised by this?
So that's what I have to say-- fix this poem by solidifying your imagery.
Take what you want to say and express with one, solid, logical happening.
RYan. . .
Ryan Deschamps
http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~greebie/Profile.html - Personal Profile
http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~greebie/cinquain.html - Poetry Page
Redclay 6
hint as to why its red-- is the moth red? >>
you got to quibble bout the best line?
Ryan Deschamps
> In article <Pine.GSO.3.95.iB1.0.1001015164544.20277C-
> 100...@halifax.chebucto.ns.ca>,
> Ryan Deschamps <gre...@chebucto.ns.ca> wrote:
> > On Sat, 14 Oct 2000, cythera wrote:
> > > Vertigo
> Rather than explicate my poem, which I think might be boring, I want
> to suggest something to you: rather than trying to analyze each word
> or phrase, e.g., "profile" in Gary Gamble's poem, look at a poem as a
> single unit. What is your total experience of it, including the
> title. And consider that the piece may be abstract, experimental,
> surrealist, etc.; don't insist that it conform to whatever you are
> familiar with. Relax your horizons; let them fall away.
A good poem is a poem that works. I don't think this works-- mostly
because I'm having a hard time understanding what you are talking about in
it. Therefore, my experience of this is not positive. I read the
entire poem, saw it as abysmal and gave you suggestions as why I thought
it abysmal: things like mixed imagery, too many abstract words
co-mingling with silly actions. The overall effect is nothing. There's
no emotional impact on the reader, because the devices that poets use to
create emotional impact (metaphors, linebreaks, sound device etc.) are
used poorly.
> > Mixed imagery is bad because it foils the natural ability for a
> > reader to imagine what a poem is trying to illustrate. In a poem
> > there are two types of things that evoke the imagination of the
> > reader. The first is external logic: what, literally, happens in
> > the poem.
>
> Thanks. I assume you are unfamiliar with my writing style. But this
> does have an external logic.
Oh-no.. please do not tell me you subscribe to the
oft-subscribed-to, ever-poor "mixed metaphor" style of poetry.
> > FOr example, (because I don't immediately have an anthology with me
> > I'll use my own poem):
> >
> > The train
> >
> > it cuts
> > the woodland like a skateblade
> >
> > So what we have is a train cutting the woods. The image is clear--
> > and the reader can juxtapose the image of a train chugging through
> > the woods with the image of a huge skate cutting through the woods.
>
> Well, I imagined a skate-BLADE cutting through the woods, not a skate.
> Logically, the blade _could_ be detached from the skate. Then it
> would be more similar to a cutting implement.
ok.. a skateblade -- the image is still direct-- the train has all the
aspects of a skateblade and we can imagine these aspects juxtaposed with
the aspects of a train.
> But when I was reading I was editing you to suit my tastes: "the
> train//cuts through the woodland like smoke".
THat's called a mixed metaphor because smoke doesn't cut. Here we have a
train juxtaposed to a blade of some sort *and* smoke. The visual aspects
of the image are weakened because we have to take three images and bring
the associations together. I've seen people use mixed metaphors
effectively before-- but this case is not an example of this. Even
[good] surrealist poetry keeps their images logically consistent-- if the
surrealist wants to put something wacky (say a fanged frog, or a killer
lunchbox) in his or her poetry, its done with deliberation and
consistency.
> > The train
> >
> > it cuts
> > the woodland like a skateblade
> > wearing drag
> > and frolicks between
> > lambs
> > and epistemological
> > ideology
> >
> > here the imagery is mixed. A train frolicking is goofy.
> > Frolicking between lambs and epistemological ideology is an
> >impossibility.
>
> So what. I mean, isn't a cloud that wanders lonely an impossibility.
yes, and we have *one* use of illogic per image. A
metaphor/personification is a break
from logic-- and it works for a number of reasons (we can visualize the
imagery better, it replaces long set of modifying words/phrases, it gives
us an extra set of connotations to associate with the cloud etc). A
mixed metaphor for this phrase would be "this cloud is a chair-- it
wanders lonely." Chairs do not wander, therefore, all those things about
visualization and connotation are lost.
> > THe prior image of the train cutting the landscape is lost.
> I disagree. Look at your first two lines above. You plainly state
> that the train cuts the landscape.
like a skateblade; but not that the train cuts the landscape like smoke--
Still, it was poor form to use my own poem-- I had nothing else on hand--
But, now that we have your example of a metaphor:
"I wandered lonely as a cloud"
I hope we can come to an understanding between effectiveness of a
consistent set of imagery/metaphor and the ineffectiveness of
mixed/inconsistent imagery/metaphor. Clouds can be perceived as
wandering, and so can individuals-- therefore the image works.
> Thanks for the critique, Ryan. It was interesting and fun to respond
> to.
>
> cythera.
Kevin Taylor
<gre...@chebucto.ns.ca> wrote:
>> > The train
>> >
>> > it cuts
>> > the woodland like a skateblade
>> >
>> > So what we have is a train cutting the woods. The image is clear--
>> > and the reader can juxtapose the image of a train chugging through
>> > the woods with the image of a huge skate cutting through the woods.
>>
>> Well, I imagined a skate-BLADE cutting through the woods, not a skate.
>> Logically, the blade _could_ be detached from the skate. Then it
>> would be more similar to a cutting implement.
>
>ok.. a skateblade -- the image is still direct-- the train has all the
>aspects of a skateblade and we can imagine these aspects juxtaposed with
>the aspects of a train.
>
>> But when I was reading I was editing you to suit my tastes: "the
>> train//cuts through the woodland like smoke".
>
>THat's called a mixed metaphor because smoke doesn't cut.
I believe that the expression or idiom is "cut through"
But "cut" is not so limited as you seem to indicate. It has
definitions that may work here such as "To pass through or across"
http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=cut
Anyway, it is a similie.
Ryan Deschamps
> In article <Pine.GSO.3.95.iB1.0.1001018150918.14030A-
> It's Wordsworth's example, and it's a simile, not a metaphor.
with the exception of a simile including "like" or "as", metaphors and
similes are the same thing.
> Anyway... thank you for your comments on my poem. I do not agree with
> you that it is "abysmal", so I see no reason to string out this
> conversation. It occurs to me that you haven't read enough to be of
> much help (to me at least). I know this probably sounds rude but
> there it is.
That's a joke. Want to know my gpa and courses I've taken in the past
three years? I've read plenty of criticism (particularly that of Northrop
Frye, but others as well) and have written lots of poetry. Not to
mention that I've been a member on poetry newsgroups for more than 7 years
now.
> > I hope we can come to an understanding between effectiveness of a
> > consistent set of imagery/metaphor and the ineffectiveness of
> > mixed/inconsistent imagery/metaphor. Clouds can be perceived as
> > wandering, and so can individuals-- therefore the image works.
>
> God, no kidding man. _This_ was the point: the poet imagined a cloud
> as wandering "lonely". You were talking about one of my images
> ("between the anger and the lilies") being (and I quote), "an
> impossibility". I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that you meant a
> physical impossibility.
anger is too abstract to give it a where-- and its even more confusing
when you put something between "anger" and "lillies." Yes, its a
physical impossibility and pointless. But never mind-- you keep
continuing on with your "mixed metaphor" style; your poetry will remain
abysmal until you talk to someone you think has qualities to correct you
on this one.
> And I gave you two examples of such "impossibilities" utilized to great
> effect in famous English-language poems: the first is from "Daffodils"
> by William Wordsworth; the second, from "Kubla Khan" by Samuel Taylor
> Coleridge.
Kubla Kahn is Kipling. I know your Daffodils reference from Wordsworth;
i parodied it in the 7th grade. Note that both these poets are pre-1940,
and much of what they talk about has lost its relevance. Note also that
despite their loss of relevance, they still _lack_ mixed metaphor in
their poetry-- and have reason to.
Ryan Deschamps
"if you're fond of sand dunes and salty air
quaint little villages here and there
you're gonna fall in love with
old, cape cod" --- Cole Porter
eddie_...@my-deja.com
> Kubla Kahn is Kipling.....
Note that both these poets are pre-1940, and much of what they talk
about has lost its relevance.
> Ryan Deschamps
I would've left your name off this post, buddy. Get a grip.
Eddie
Kevin Taylor
<gre...@chebucto.ns.ca> wrote:
>On Wed, 18 Oct 2000, cythera wrote:
>
>> In article <Pine.GSO.3.95.iB1.0.1001018150918.14030A-
>> It's Wordsworth's example, and it's a simile, not a metaphor.
>
>with the exception of a simile including "like" or "as", metaphors and
>similes are the same thing.
>
Both from The American Heritage:
simile : A figure of speech in which two essentially unlike things are
compared, often in a phrase introduced by like or as
metaphor: A figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily
designates one thing is used to designate another, thus making an
implicit comparison
Sometimes a metaphor is called a compressed simile which has all the
likeness of a compression fracture to a common one.
>> And I gave you two examples of such "impossibilities" utilized to great
>> effect in famous English-language poems: the first is from "Daffodils"
>> by William Wordsworth; the second, from "Kubla Khan" by Samuel Taylor
>> Coleridge.
>
>Kubla Kahn is Kipling. I know your Daffodils reference from Wordsworth;
>i parodied it in the 7th grade. Note that both these poets are pre-1940,
>and much of what they talk about has lost its relevance. Note also that
>despite their loss of relevance, they still _lack_ mixed metaphor in
>their poetry-- and have reason to.
>
Don't be obtuse. The poem Kubla Khan is exactly by Coleridge. I have
it open on my desk. And it has lost it's relevance? OK. Describe it's
relevance then and now noting differences etc.
Ryan Deschamps
> On Thu, 19 Oct 2000 13:31:24 -0300, Ryan Deschamps
> <gre...@chebucto.ns.ca> wrote:
<snip definitions of metaphor and simile; which are the same thing except
the latter uses "like" or "as.">
> >> And I gave you two examples of such "impossibilities" utilized to great
> >> effect in famous English-language poems: the first is from "Daffodils"
> >> by William Wordsworth; the second, from "Kubla Khan" by Samuel Taylor
> >> Coleridge.
> >
> >Kubla Kahn is Kipling. I know your Daffodils reference from Wordsworth;
> >i parodied it in the 7th grade. Note that both these poets are pre-1940,
> >and much of what they talk about has lost its relevance. Note also that
> >despite their loss of relevance, they still _lack_ mixed metaphor in
> >their poetry-- and have reason to.
> Don't be obtuse. The poem Kubla Khan is exactly by Coleridge.
Realized my mistake after I wrote it-- I was thinking of Gunga Din. One
of the big problems with these 18th/19th century poets is that they're
always going on about "great" or "bad" people, never just a regular human
beings that we know that all people truly are.
Characters in
romantic poetry do silly things for love and all that crap-- take for
instance the Canadian Metis Poet Pauline Johnson: she wrote a poem about
how a huron took an Mohawk woman, the Mohawk woman was so loyal to
the Mohawk, but says she likes the Huron instead-- once she gets her
chance, she stabs the huron with her knife.
Now, from the poem, we would infer all those romantic ideals about how
people fall from listening to all those evil carnal tendancies we have
inside us-- for example, the Huron wanted to fuck the Mohawk woman, and
paid the price for his lusty ways. The truth, as historians know it,
is that *both* the Iroquois tribes (of which the Mohawk) and the
Huron were in the practise of stealing members of other tribes from
warfare. If anything, the Iroquois were better at this practise than the
Huron. Further, the poem fails to mention that the Huron were probably
more interested in replacing members of their tribe lost to the many
epidemics that the Huron people suffered. In other words, the Mohawk
woman was desired more for her ability to mend moccassins and have babies
than she was for the great thrill she might be in bed.
Pauline Johnson was loved for her poetry in her time. Now she reads like
a sick, lying fiend.
I take the same stance with poems like "If," "Pied Beauty" and "The Rhyme
of the Ancient Mariner." I remember being quite pissed at a teacher
assigning a student I tutored the latter: the student was Asian, having
no idea of
Christian imagery, it was a serious impossibility trying to explain all
the allusions and western imagery to her-- funny how the poem begins to
pale if you remove all those "significant" Biblical truths that the
Romantics believed so much about.
The contemporary world is a world that recognizes change and
differences in perception as being significant to "truth." Philosophers
like William James and Jean-Paul Sartre had, in the twentieth century,
developed philosophies that discounted the monistic worlds that these
Romantic poets believed in. That's not to say that people shouldn't read
the romantics--- its merely to say that, if the person is being serious
in any way, they probably see the world as quite different.
Still, this is all besides the point. If you asked Wordsworth what he
thought of the "mixed-metaphor style" he'd tell you that you were nuts.
Ryan. . .
Ryan Deschamps
> On Wed, 18 Oct 2000, cythera wrote:
> > And I gave you two examples of such "impossibilities" utilized to great
> > effect in famous English-language poems: the first is from "Daffodils"
> > by William Wordsworth; the second, from "Kubla Khan" by Samuel Taylor
> > Coleridge.
>
> Kubla Kahn is Kipling.
Damn-- I was thinking about Gunga Din. I just know this mistake is
going to get picked on-- has there ever been a newsgroup that would
ever think of sticking to my on-topic comments?
Oh well-- my g.p.a. really *is* 4.20. I swear it.
eddie_...@my-deja.com
cythera <cyt...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> In article <8sndt9$cd9$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> eddie_...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > Want to know my gpa and courses I've taken in the past three years?
> >
> > > Kubla Kahn is Kipling.....
> >
> > about has lost its relevance.
> >
> > I would've left your name off this post, buddy. Get a grip.
> >
> > Eddie
> >
>
> I've been enjoying your poems for some time now, by the way.
>
> cythera.
> >
Thank you cythera, that means a lot to me. You keep up the good work,
too.
Ron S
kevin...@cheerful.com (Kevin Taylor) wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Oct 2000 13:31:24 -0300, Ryan Deschamps
> <gre...@chebucto.ns.ca> wrote:
>
> >On Wed, 18 Oct 2000, cythera wrote:
> >
> >> In article <Pine.GSO.3.95.iB1.0.1001018150918.14030A-
> >
> >with the exception of a simile including "like" or "as", metaphors
and
> >similes are the same thing.
> >
> Both from The American Heritage:
>
> simile : A figure of speech in which two essentially unlike things are
> compared, often in a phrase introduced by like or as
>
> metaphor: A figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily
> designates one thing is used to designate another, thus making an
> implicit comparison
>
> Sometimes a metaphor is called a compressed simile which has all the
> likeness of a compression fracture to a common one.
>
great
> >> effect in famous English-language poems: the first is
from "Daffodils"
> >> by William Wordsworth; the second, from "Kubla Khan" by Samuel
Taylor
> >> Coleridge.
> >
Wordsworth;
1940,
> >and much of what they talk about has lost its relevance. Note also
that
> >despite their loss of relevance, they still _lack_ mixed metaphor in
> >their poetry-- and have reason to.
> >
>
> it open on my desk. And it has lost it's relevance? OK. Describe it's
> relevance then and now noting differences etc.
>
Ron S
Elizabeth Dibenedetto
Ryan Deschamps
> In article <Pine.GSO.3.95.iB1.0.1001019152642.23899A-
> cythera wrote:
> 100...@halifax.chebucto.ns.ca>,
> Ryan Deschamps <gre...@chebucto.ns.ca> wrote:
> > On Thu, 19 Oct 2000, Kevin Taylor wrote:
> >
> > > On Thu, 19 Oct 2000 13:31:24 -0300, Ryan Deschamps
> > > <gre...@chebucto.ns.ca> wrote:
> > Characters in
> > romantic poetry do silly things for love and all that crap--
>
> ? Unlike real people?
Yes-- unlike real people. Social historians have made lots of essays in
the area of history I'm talking about-- usually social and economic
factors more heavily in our lives than "love." It's very unlikely that a
huron male would have fallen for the "I love you I really do" and end up
with a knife in his back. Anyway-- my comments further:
> > take for instance the Canadian Metis Poet Pauline Johnson: she wrote
> > a poem abouhow a huron took an Mohawk woman, the Mohawk woman was so
> > loyal tthe Mohawk, but says she likes the Huron instead-- once she
> > gets her chance, she stabs the huron with her knife.
> >
> > Now, from the poem, we would infer all those romantic ideals about
> > how people fall from listening to all those evil carnal tendancies we
> > have inside us-- for example, the Huron wanted to fuck the Mohawk
> > woman, and paid the price for his lusty ways.
>
> Maybe the Huron "fell" because he stole the woman's freedom from her,
> and for a variety of reasons that wasn't okay with her.
read the poem first-- its very unlikely that our odd notions of freedom
would apply to a Mohawk woman in the seventeenth century-- although
neither of us would really know for sure.
> Who is to say that the woman "fell"?
I don't know what you mean by this.
> > The truth, as historians know it,
> > is that *both* the Iroquois tribes (of which the Mohawk) and the
> > Huron were in the practise of stealing members of other tribes from
> > warfare. If anything, the Iroquois were better at this practise
> than the
> > Huron. Further, the poem fails to mention that the Huron were
> probably
> > more interested in replacing members of their tribe lost to the many
> > epidemics that the Huron people suffered.
>
> > In other words, the Mohawk woman was desired more for her ability to
> > mend moccassins and have babies than she was for the great thrill
> > she might be in bed.
>
> Does Johnson's text support this assertion? If not, then you are
> incorrect in this particular instance. It's a mistake to read outside
> of a given poem, which is a self-contained entity.
> I'm unfamiliar
> with this poem but it may have been written from the kidnapped woman's
> P.O.V. There are lots of reasons other than deviousness for why the
> author wrote her work as she did.
The author was writing about ahistorical time-period (the seventeenth
century) where the Iroquois destroyed the Huron tribe-- mostly by
assimilating them.
Now here's the point I'm trying to get across: In "Ojistoh" (I
found the poem finally-- ) Pauline Johnson (who
wrote in the 19th century) misrepresented a culture for nationalistic
purposes. In the romantic era, this was all hunky-dory-- the nineteenth
century public was all for putting down one culture in favor of the
other-- because, of course, everyone had to have god on their side.
Here in the twentieth century, with all the changes of attitudes towards
differences of cultures, tolerance, and diversity, writing this way is
just not acceptible. Although romanticism is not entirely gone-- it's
certainly transformed-- (Leonard Cohen has been called a "Bloack
Romantic" for instance). Still, although I thikn we can learn something
from *reading* the romantics, I would not try to emulate them in my
writing necessarily-- especially when there are so many modern poets who
are better.
> > Pauline Johnson was loved for her poetry in her time. Now she reads
> > like a sick, lying fiend.
> > I take the same stance with poems like "If," "Pied Beauty" and "The
> Rhyme
> > of the Ancient Mariner."
>
> > I remember being quite pissed at a teacher assigning a student I
> > tutored the latter: the student was Asian, having no idea of
> > Christian imagery,
>
> Really? There are Asian Christians all over the world.
Ok. But this was an Asian Buddhist.
> > it was a serious impossibility trying to explain all the allusions
> > and western imagery to her--
>
> Rubbish; there are many, many critical essays on "The Rime of the
> Ancient Mariner". There is probably at least one annotated edition.
> They are possibly even available in various Asian languages.
Criticism of poetry and *appreciation* of poetry are two entirely
different things. Seriously, try explaining something like the Christian
trinity to someone who has never grown up with that sort of thing-- you
will honestly get lots of "hunhs?" and "that's just stupid!"
Things that I just took for granted read like they were ridiculous to this
particular student.
Poetry and "meaning" has a lot to do with the cultures we live in;
therefore, it also has a lot of ties to the time periods we live in.
> Because I am non-Asian, can I not keep up when I read _The Tales of
> Genji_ by Lady Murasaki? How really ignorant.
>
> Furthermore, the job of a tutor, like that of any other teacher, isn't
> to "explain all" (this is in fact a huge disservice to yourself and
> your students). A good teacher or tutor _leads_ the student on a
> voyage of mutual discovery, imagination and understanding, part of
> which necessitates that we teach him or her how to find and use
> reference materials; most importantly, we need to let him or her do
> their own thinking. The omnipresence of professors' submission to
> their own opinions and egos is what sent me running out of graduate
> school. Your insistence that you are right and that everyone who
> disagrees is wrong reminds me of some of them-- men who probably
> haven't written a new lesson plan in twenty years.
That's a pedantic, hypocritical, and sexist thing to say. Further, you
know nothing of how or who I was tutoring at the time. Seriously-- take
the time to explain "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" to a non-Christian or
new immigrant.
Remember-- we are only in this conversation because you
come how asserted that I hadn't read enough to be able to criticize your
poem properly. Now, here I stand with all the credentials I can throw at
you, and all you can say is "you just have to be right." I don't care if
you don't agree with me-- you don't have to agree with me. Still, I
feel the need to clear up things you've said that assume alot. Also, I
have opinions on the topics of which you speak-- if your opinions can't
hold up against what I say, then perhaps you have to relook at your
opinions. Right now, I just happen to know something about that which
we speak--
> > funny how the poem begins to pale if you remove all those
> >"significant" Biblical truths that the Romantics believed so much
> >about.
>
> I'm not a particular fan of the poem, but then again I haven't read it
> in years.
> But, using your logic, what do you think of "The Canterbury Tales"?
> Is it also "irrelevant"?
> Is "Paradise Lost", or Emily Dickinson? How about T.S. Eliot: he was
> a theist...
I think you are taking my statements too far-- but, yes, in some ways
"The Canterbury Tales" does lose its relevance to the contemporary ear.
When we read it, it's relevance depends alot upon our understanding that
it is an old story. Take the "Miller's Tale" for instance-- the
fabliau as a form has not been used succesfuly in years-- notice also how
badly my poem "plumbing" got flamed because it was known as "potty
humour." Also-- in today's society, it's not so easy to convince an
audience that someone would be so gullible as to think Noah's flood is
going to happen again-- take again all those references to Christian
imagery.
Still-- if a poet came up to me and wanted to know what he or she should
read in order to becaome a good modern poet, I would tell them to look to
people like Dennis Lee, Margaret Atwood, Sharon Olds, Seamus Heaney, or
Derek Walcott more than TS Eliot, Emily Dickenson or Samuel Coleridge.
No-- that doesn't mean people should not read the greats-- just that
those "greats" as we know them were great in a time that's different from
o9ur-- the cultrue, habits, needs, technology etc. etc. etc. are all
different from us-- therefore, if we choose to write like them, we are
probably not being true to our own experience.
> > The contemporary world is a world that recognizes change and
> > differences in perception as being significant to "truth."
> > Philosophers like William James and Jean-Paul Sartre had, in the
> > twentieth century, developed philosophies that discounted the
> > monistic worlds that these Romantic poets believed in.
>
> Aristophanes and Euripides discounted the same.
Aristophanies and Euripides also believed in gods like "zeus" and "hera"
which would not apply to our worlds either.
> > That's not to say that people shouldn't read
> > the romantics--- its merely to say that, if the person is being
> > serious in any way, they probably see the world as quite different.
>
> Seriously, what is your point? That I am a Romantic with an irrelevant
> world-view, and am not "being serious in any way"?
My point was that you used a mixed-metaphor and used Wordsworth to
rationalize it. If you told me that (say) bp nichol uses mixed metaphor
in a way that you were trying to emulate you might hold some credibility--
there can be ways to use a mixed metaphor that works, but in your poem it
didn't-- why? because there was nothing showing the reader that that
the mixed metaphors were deployed seriously. You mixed your metaphors
because you wanted to appear like you were saying something, when in fact,
you weren't saying anything at all. Saying that something is between
"anger and the lillies" is like saying lots of nothing. Good poems, in
my experience give me lots of something-- they are sayinging something
directly and acutely.
> What would _you_ say to the surrealist poet Aime Cesaire?
>
> ---
> From "High Noon", translated from the French by Clayton Eshleman and
> Annette Smith.
>
> I toss about
> Throat stretched amidst the mysterious rettings the coiled atolls
> the mastiff-faced tadpoles the reticent yeasts and the deliriums of
> low thunder
> [...]
> Throat stretched amidst the patiences
> [...]
>
> Tepidity.
> Noxious breath Bites bloody bulbil amidst the neuroses...
> [...]
> Under the machetes and in the disorder
> Stems of raw light fall
> ---
>
> Last night I opened a book I hadn't looked at yet, _Aime Cesaire. The
> Collected Poetry_, at page 139 and my eyes rested on the first passage
> above.
>
> You might not like Cesaire, but here is a quote from Sartre.
>
> In Aime Cesaire the great surrealist tradition [...] achieves its
> definitive meaning and is destroyed: surrealism, a European movement
> [...] is snatched from the Europeans by a black man who turns it
> against them and assigns a rigorously defined function to it... a
> Cesaire poem explodes and whirls about itself like a rocket [...].
>
> cythera.
Show me the mixed-metaphors in the above. Go ahead-- there's lots of
imagery (in the surrealist tradition) but nothing falls apart logically--
the imagery stays s pretty consistent-- jungle imagery-- machetes, blood,
delirium (as attributed to malaria). When the writer says abstract
things like "disorder" shes giving up serious descriptions of what she
means by disorder. The breath biting bilbul is a solid personification
and breath certainly exists amidst neuroses (as a course of time we can
breath and be neurotic at the same time).
What this poem does and yours does not is create a clear space for the
poet to imagine themselves in-- everything seems to be going in the same
direction-- death, chaos, madness, yet the madness is is clear to the
reader-- there's nothing mixed up or empty in the language used. We have
a jungle and the sound, imagery, and linebreaks all read jungle. Your
poem gave us moths, and anger and lilies and a space between the anger and
the lillies that must happen only when you can divide zero by zero.
Sorry, that's my opinion-- not because "I have to be right" but because
you asked me for it. You don't have to accept it, but I believe in
showing the reasons behind my opinions--
Ryan. . .
li...@my-deja.com
> > something about the last stanza seems not to do justice to the rest
> > of the poem. maybe it's the "marble statues" that seem cliche.
> >
> > -carolyn
> I agree that there is something not right about the last stanza. For
> one thing it seems too abrupt. (?)
well.......the piece abt stitches is briliant (imo)
its the one thing that grabbed me the most in this entire fabby poem.
li...@my-deja.com
Ryan Deschamps
> In article <Pine.GSO.3.95.iB1.0.1001021153954.19307B-
> 100...@halifax.chebucto.ns.ca>,
> > > > Ryan Deschamps <gre...@chebucto.ns.ca> wrote:
> > >cythera wrote:
> > Ryan Deschamps wrote:
> 2.
> I did not even quote Wordsworth in the context of a mixed metaphor;
> rather, I used the opening line of "Daffodils", "I wandered lonely as
> a cloud", as an example of a physical impossibility (you had objected
> to these in my poem. see below). And I've already told you why I used
> the quote.
> You have so much mis-information in this post.
I objected to your poem because it mixed imagery in such a way as to spoil
metaphor. You are now sidetracking the issue by talking about
"Daffodils" as being a physical impossibility. I've said many times that
Wordsworth is using a solid, single, unmixed metaphor (simile) in that
line-- your poem does not use solid, single, unmixed metaphors.
<my statement>
> you've mixed your imagery.
a statement that you haven't addressed-- you've mixed your imagery--
very important to my further statements.
> You call 'confusion' red without giving
> any hint as to why its red-- is the moth red? And the moth's 'wishes'
> seem to be doing something I can't fathom.
>
> Another thing I can't fathom is what sort of space would exist
> between "anger and the lillies" where a moth and a shadow could play.
your statement:
> (Ryan: Again, is there a literal moth -- or shadow, for that matter --
> in the poem. Do love and hours literally hang in a tree. Does the
> poem's title connote an empirical world.)
see? you have mixed your metaphors-- your moth is a real person is a
shadow is a horned toad is a chocolate bar is a mixed metaphor. I talked
about external logic-- poems don't have to founded in reality to be
effective-- but they do have to sustain some sort of logical
consistency: a moth that "symbolizes" a person yet is a shadow at the
same time is mixed-- it spoils the impact for the reader-- whereas the
surrealist imagery in the poem you present does not do the same-- the
weird mastif-faced polywogs are called dipsy-doodles and chocolate bars at
the same time.
> Show me where I told you I was giving these passages as examples of
> mixed-metaphor. Please find that part of my post and just look at it.
then maybe I have to clarify my argument.
a) you've used mixed metaphor in your poem. Mixed metaphor
spoils the reader's unconcious ability to encounter the unreality of a
poem, and believe in it.
b) the poem above, which you claim to be an effective poem in the
surrealist style, does not use mixed metaphor.
c) the problem with your poem, therefore, is not that it
subscribes to the surrealist style (which you suppose I do not understand
properly), but that it contains confusing imagery-- that is, it contains
images that react with each other in logically flawed ways.
Here is a poem with mixed metaphors:
My life is a rose,
That scales tall buildings
and hops up and down
like a collic baby.
Something that can be done to retain the logic consistency:
My life is a rose.
Or a hero that scales tall buildings
Or a collic baby
Hopping up and down in its crib.
See the difference?
> Many of these assumptions of yours are based on the narrow view, such
> as Aime Cesaire is female even though the Sartre quote clearly states
> that Cesaire is a man...
that's logical: I mistake someone name to be female, therefore I follow
a narrow view of poetry.
> > Go ahead-- there's lots of imagery (in the surrealist tradition)
> > but nothing falls apart logically-- the imagery stays s pretty
> > consistent-- jungle imagery-- machetes, blood,
>
> > delirium (as attributed to malaria).
>
> Where does Cesaire attribute delirium to malaria.
Cesaire doesn't-- but with the imagery-- machetes, frogs, I get that
malaria could be part of this world. Inference is allowed, and its a
good thing because it shows that the world follows some sort of internal
logic.
> > The breath biting bilbul is a solid personification
>
> Weren't you talking about _metaphor_??? Why muddy the waters by
> talking about personification-- how does that prove your point.
There's a school of poetry (see Princeton's Dictionary of Poetic Terms)
that sees personification, metaphor, metonymy, apostrophe etc as being the
same thing-- because they all involve the associating of one thing to
another.
> > and breath certainly exists amidst neuroses (as a course of time we
> > can breath and be neurotic at the same time).
>
> Here are the poet's words:
>
> "bulbil amidst the neuroses..."
>
> He is telling you that the _bulb_ is amidst the neuroses.
no-- he says that a "breath" is biting the bulb amidst the neuroses.
the personification here is consistent logically-- there's no "bulb"
amidst the neuroses-- there's action concerning the bulb between the
neuroses-- which is logically quite understandible.
> I wrote in "Vertigo":
>
> Between the anger and the lilies.
>
> Aime Cesaire wrote in "High Noon":
>
> Amidst the tadpoles and the deliriums.
you are writing a phrase that's incomplete here-- there is a throat
stretched amidst the tadpoles and the deliriums. Again, we are talking
about actions-- we can stretch our throats between the times that we
fall into a delirium-- your poem doesn't suggest the same sort of thing--
this poem is talking about time-- your poem, as I remember it, was
talking about space-- time exists between neuroses and deliriums, spaces
don't.
> > and yours does not is create a clear space for the poet to imagine
> > themselves in-- everything seems to be going in the same
> > direction--
>
> > there's nothing mixed up or empty in the language used. We have a
> > jungle
>
> This is not stated, nor necessarily implied in those statements
> above.
machetes, tadpoles, deliriums, lines of sunlight all read like rainforest
to me-- (I could be wrong, but that's what I get-- you haven't given me
the full poem here).
> We have an atoll, rettings and tadpoles. We have machetes. We also
> have "disorder", which might be in the physical environment, and not
> simply a function of the speaker's mental state: there is not enough
> evidence in the two short passages above for one to be definitive
> about the entire poem (which is hundreds of words long, by the way).
the disorder, would also suggest jungle as well.
> > Your poem gave us moths,
>
> A moth (1). (Reading comprehension problem, I guess).
>
> And it was a symbol. I either told you that or alluded to it in an
> earlier post...
a symbol amongst a whole line of mixed metaphors.
> > and anger and lilies
>
> And Cesaire gave us tadpoles and delirium
>
> (Note: the surrealist [artistic] tradition you spoke of _utilizes_
> the delirious image. The reality is distorted to express a super-
> reality.
>
> "Talking lunchboxes" and the other "wacky image" that you wrote about
> on this thread are most likely what Martijn, talking about painting,
> called "cheap surrealism".)
cheap surrealism because it contains mixed metaphor I'm sure.
> > and a space between the anger and the lillies
>
> So what. And do you know anything about lilies? What, for example,
> might they symbolize; what might a shadow symbolize; each in their
> given CONTEXT.
lillies can symbolize lots of things-- I shouldn't need to take my own
pretentions and experience into your poem without at least something
resembling a guided tour. A lilly that sits somehow beside "anger" and
that gets associated with a chair and a lunchbox simultaneously (to bring
the mixed metaphor up to an ad nauseum) symbolizes nothing.
RYan. ..
rthr...@my-deja.com
cythera <cyt...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> 2.
> Aristophanes and Euripides believed in gods.
>
> Bon chance.
>
> cythera.
Hey, that reminds me of the wealthy Greek landowner
that believed in the realty god. I think his name was
Propertes.
(Hee Hee)
r.
rthr...@my-deja.com
> And this reminds me of the ancient Greek shaman (whose name, in
> Spanish, roughly translates to "Don Juan"): A. Separate Realites.
>
> cythera.
>
Oh, cythera, that's good.
See, that's what happens when agents get their broker's license.