Results 1 to 13 of 13

Thread: Gag Reflex

  1. #1
    unidentified hit record blp's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Posts
    2,436
    Blog Entries
    40

    Gag Reflex

    *****
    Last edited by blp; 10-30-2007 at 06:00 PM.

  2. #2
    Sweet farewell, Good Nite
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Posts
    2,336
    i dont know if i can offer anything constructive. let me preface by saying that i think, stylistically, your poem is contemporary, the kind intended to obscure. the others all strive for the grandiose witty flourish. i've seen many in magazines like Poetry. The obscurantism begins, not with mentioning the term twice, but with the unknown "he"---just some guy, and then the poem carries on to speak for the masses with its univeralizing "you." a tough sell from the get go. i read the poem several times. the first stanza sets the tone for what's to come, the unfolding of a very personally-inspired piece--like you're singing with your eyes closed, oblivious (or neglectful of your audience) in other words, so personal it's impersonal. it's your subject/predicament; you and you alone hold the anchor(s), and i want to believe there is one, or more. but after four/five reads i'm tired, annoyed, a bit offended even (?) by its trivialization (intended?) in S2, L1':"you learn death from movies"

    you leave the reader--me, feeling stupid for admitting i don't know what the hell the point is. maybe that's the point? and the title is another enigma.

    if i may contradict myself, i actually like the way the poem reads. it's just missing something, to pull it together, something.

    hope this helps. thanks for reading mine, blp.
    "He was nauseous with regret when he saw her face again, and when, as of yore, he pleaded and begged at her knees for the joy of her being. She understood Neal; she stroked his hair; she knew he was mad."
    ---Jack Kerouac, On The Road: The Original Scroll

  3. #3
    unidentified hit record blp's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Posts
    2,436
    Blog Entries
    40
    I didn't mean to leave anyone feeling stupid, but it is a bit of a riddle I suppose. Hope this helps too: gag (pun), joke, choke, following the form (at which point it breaks down from three line strophes to two), go out smiling (structure of a joke), banana skin (kicked away, sick punchline avoided blithely avoided by astute, serious pallbearer).

    Thanks for reading mine too.

  4. #4
    Sweet farewell, Good Nite
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Posts
    2,336
    i knew there was an impeccable structure to that poetic madness of yours. ahh, i get it, now---very cool. poetry at its finest. thanks for explaining and not calling me a dufus! i'll check out your other stuff. be well.
    "He was nauseous with regret when he saw her face again, and when, as of yore, he pleaded and begged at her knees for the joy of her being. She understood Neal; she stroked his hair; she knew he was mad."
    ---Jack Kerouac, On The Road: The Original Scroll

  5. #5
    unidentified hit record blp's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Posts
    2,436
    Blog Entries
    40
    's a pleasure.

    Anyway, too be fair, maybe it was a little 'contemporary'. It's very old and when I wrote it I was trying for something that was pretty much precisely that. It's almost a pastiche.

  6. #6
    Not politically correct Pendragon's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    Blue Ridge Mountains, SW VA
    Posts
    21,250
    Blog Entries
    133

    Exclamation

    If this be madness, there is method in it; several plays on words, you may, for example, choke on a cherry pit, slip on a banna skin, which can put you into that ambulance. Then also, both types of fruit can "bruise", which you apply to the unknown in the accident. Skin covers our "bones" but if one wants to eat a banna, one must "skin" it, a careless drop will drop you! "Embalm depression" as we do the dead, and is the "pallbearer" carring off the depression, kicking away the garabage that caused it, or the person that died from it? Neat. BLP!
    Some of us laugh
    Some of us cry
    Some of us smoke
    Some of us lie
    But it's all just the way
    that we cope with our lives...

  7. #7
    TheFairyDogMother kiz_paws's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    The Prairies, Canada
    Posts
    9,653
    Blog Entries
    188
    And I would just like to add my two cents worth -- I thought the poem was very cool, blp, and enjoyed Pendragon's insightful comments. Thanks for that aesthetic moment people!
    Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty
    ~Albert Einstein

  8. #8
    unidentified hit record blp's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Posts
    2,436
    Blog Entries
    40
    Yes, lovely post, Pendragon. Thanks, kiz, too, for the two cents. I'll save them for the interest.

  9. #9
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Posts
    2,429
    Blog Entries
    4
    A witty poem, blp. What were you saying here

    The lens of the orb
    Covers the bones of the things with skin
    (Colour is the coaxial of emotion

    And we must reward neutrality) with obscurity
    Bury it.

  10. #10
    unidentified hit record blp's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Posts
    2,436
    Blog Entries
    40
    It's something to do with the overlap between being and perceiving. The brackets allow a double reading. Perception covers structure with skin and/or obscures. We must reward neurality or we must reward it with obscurity. Do we really want to know how things work? Do we really want the mechanism of the world/the joke/the poem explained? It might nullify it's spell.

  11. #11
    Thinking...thinking! dramasnot6's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Location
    In a perpetually transitional state.
    Posts
    7,102
    Very creative blp!
    I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.


    Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

  12. #12
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Posts
    2,429
    Blog Entries
    4
    Although I can't fully wrap your description to this image in your poem, it is still very cool indeed, blp! Do you have any more poems posted? I would love to read it

  13. #13
    unidentified hit record blp's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Posts
    2,436
    Blog Entries
    40
    Camellia revived some of my old ones recently and they're only a short way down - probably on page 2. Further digging will turn up plenty more too.

Similar Threads

  1. THE REFLEX IN THE MIRROR
    By Josete Maria Vichineski in forum Personal Poetry
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 10-25-2003, 09:03 PM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •