Can someone please critique my interpretation of this poem?

[chrashmoo]

Please help. I have interpreted this poem and I need some to tell me if I am on the right track. Here it is.

In the poem, he is trying to get people to take a look at all the things in life that we take for granted by asking questions that make us think about what we are doing.
In Stanza 1, he is asking us if we do what we want to do over and over and over again will that makes us not want to do it anymore or make us not like it as much just because we do it so much?
In Stanza 2, he's asking us if we are doing something we love to do or are fascinated with, will we become so in love and so fascinated with it that it will go away?
In Stanza 3, he is asking us if we are in love with something or someone, will our love for that thing become less at any point in our live or will our love for that person become any more less than that person’s love for us?
In Stanza 4, he is asking us that if we start something if at any point it needs to stop for whatever reason will we be able to? Or will we be trapped with no way out?
In Stanza 5, he is asking us if we knew then what we know now would we ever know what the future holds for us?
In Stanza 6, he is asking us if we really know anyone or are we just all alone? Do we really even care to know anyone? Do we just move from thing to thing or person to person as if they were never there?
In Stanza 7, he is asking us if we have all these choices to make in life, would we always have to analyze it and work at it to know exactly what it is we want out of life for ourselves?

[chrashmoo]

Oops I forgot to post the poem. Sorry. Here it is.

Do You Think... By Robert Creeley

Do you think that if
you once do what you want
to do you will want not to do it.

Do you think that if
there’s an apple on the table
and somebody eats it, it
won’t be there anymore.

Do you think that if
two people are in love with one another,
one or the other has got to be
less in love than the other at
some point in the otherwise happy relationship.

Do you think that if
you once took a breath, you're by
that committed to taking the next one
and so on until the very process of
breathing's an endlessly expanding need
almost of its own necessity forever.

Do you think that if
no one knows then whatever
it is, no one will know and
that will be the case, like
they say, for an indefinite
period of time if such time
can have a qualification of such time.

Do you know anyone
really. Have you been, really,
much alone. Are you lonely,
now for example. Does anything
really matter to you, really, or
has anything mattered. Does each
thing tend to be there, and then not
to be there, just as if that were it.

Do you think that if
I said, I love you, or anyone
said it, or you did. Do you
think that if you had all
such decisions to make and could
make them. Do you think that
if you did. That you really
would have to think it all into
reality, that world, each time, new.

[Logos]

oops nevermind I was posting while you were posting the poem :)

[chrashmoo]

That's ok. So can you help me? That would be great if you could.

[subterranean]

This is a very good poem and I want to thank you for sharing it. I'd like to share my personal intepreation instead of critisizing yours, if that's ok with you...:)

As I read this poem, I noticed that the first few parts are quite straight forwards. The questions/probabilities are not too hard to understand. For example, I think these parts:
Do you think that if
you once do what you want
to do you will want not to do it.
Do you think that if
there’s an apple on the table
and somebody eats it, it
won’t be there anymore.

are talking about consequences. Simple actions that you do, may result in simple effects and sometimes complicated effects.

As we continue, the contents are getting harder to be be understood. I don't know, maybe the center point of this poem is the human characters and ego, in regards to himself and also towards other people. Like in this part, perhaps it tells about interactions in human relationship and how one person's less commitment will affect the whole things in the relationship.
Do you think that if
two people are in love with one another,
one or the other has got to be
less in love than the other at
some point in the otherwise happy relationship.

And the poemt also tells about human actions, which are taken based on personal needs/considerations; a simple action (breathing) which actually a form of great dependency of human nature (you stop breathing you'd be death):
Do you think that if
you once took a breath, you're by
that committed to taking the next one
and so on until the very process of
breathing's an endlessly expanding need
almost of its own necessity forever

And from this part:
Do you know anyone
really. Have you been, really,
much alone. Are you lonely,
now for example. Does anything
really matter to you, really, or
has anything mattered. Does each
thing tend to be there, and then not
to be there, just as if that were it.

we can see that the poet is talking about loneliness and in the extreme form of loneliness, isolation. The situation can be the result of personal ego, for instance in this part:
Does anything
really matter to you, really


Well, the above things are just my personal intepretation about the poems. Perhaps Overall, I just love the conversational type of this poem..

[chrashmoo]

Thanks for the help. But what I really wanted was for someone to tell me what they thought about my interpretation. But that is fine.

[jon1jt]

Please consider this what it is, constructive criticism. You provide little to no support for your interpretations. Your writing style is limited, hampered by the fact you also frame your interpretation in the form of questions, a series of them, which are disjointed and off kilter, lacking the analytic depth and nuance indispensible to teasing out some major themes of the poem. Your description is too wooden and ultimately fails to provide anything intriguing, original, or thought-provoking, at least I don't see it.

[chrashmoo]

Please consider this what it is, constructive criticism. You provide little to no support for your interpretations. Your writing style is limited, hampered by the fact you also frame your interpretation in the form of questions, a series of them, which are disjointed and off kilter, lacking the analytic depth and nuance indispensible to teasing out some major themes of the poem. Your description is too wooden and ultimately fails to provide anything intriguing, original, or thought-provoking, at least I don't see it.

Thanks for your constructive criticism. Interpreting poetry is not one of my strong points. Ok so could you maybe help me with it. Not necessarily do it for but help me get started. Please.

[chmpman]

To me your interpretation seems much to close to strict summary, without an elaborated response of your own. If you would begin simply by elaborating on what each stanza makes you feel or think, and then were to work at uniting these responses into an interpretation of the poem's whole meaning in relationship to itself, you would have a start and a much stronger essay, etc.

[jon1jt]

As to assistance with your poetry, first heed the sacred words of chmpman, whose advice gets to the essence of what it means to interpret poetry. You need to get away from the idea that poetry is unidimensional and purely logical. It's that, yes, and more. I'll try to give you some specifics in a later email. Just wanted to let you know I'm on it.

[chrashmoo]

As to assistance with your poetry, first heed the sacred words of chmpman, whose advice gets to the essence of what it means to interpret poetry. You need to get away from the idea that poetry is unidimensional and purely logical. It's that, yes, and more. I'll try to give you some specifics in a later email. Just wanted to let you know I'm on it.

Ok. Thanks.

[jon1jt]

Ok. Thanks.


If you're looking for a center in this poem, you're going to be thoroughly disappointed. The best it gets is a dispersed center, and you might have to leap over the ocean a few times to keep up! Let's phrase this slippery center in the form of a question: "What does it mean to be?" This question is by no means original --- Martin Heidegger, a famous, German 20th Century philosopher, wrote a 600-plus page book about it called 'Being and Time.' I'll try to make some connections with some of its basic ideas along the way. Greely, the poet, asks at one point, "Does each thing tend to 'be there,' and then 'not to be there'..." He just cleverly juxtaposed for us the antithetical 'being and nothingness.' The nothing is that from whence we came and to which we return. The abyss is the center we ourselves can't stand on, yet for which we endlessly search. And life itself is hovering over the abyss, searching for meaning, structure, universality, GOD?, as the poet in this poem is questioning over and over. There is something absurd, perhaps, he thinks, about this ground of "thinking" and "thought." For example, notice the fixation on thought and action in the poem, or contrarily, of no thought and action. Competing opposites (based on the conceptualizing mind, not the ebb and flow of real experience); yet Life proceeds mindless of structure, time, space. That is, we don't think about how we're going to feel about a task while being "engaged" in one, do we?. This poet is crying out that what matters -- what can only matter -- is being-in-the-world. "The apple's here," he says, "then it's gone," so it goes. But, there could be a Platonic "form" of the apple that remains eternally, or maybe it doesn't, who knows? He's trying to get us to feel the vibrations and their consequences. This circuitous thinking goes on continuously --- we're caught in the midst of being alive and being caught in a cognitive spin cycle, which is always reflective, projecting the past into the present or present into the future. Where is the stability in the poem?? Is LIFE in the pudding, in the "doing-ness" of life; for even if we're not doing, we are still "being alone," which the poet mentions. To be alone is a fundamental condition. The self is caught in the world with all this other stuff, so we never "actually" stand alone. The last stanza, in my mind, particularly the last three or so lines, is made in jest. That is, we think, but yet life is caught in the flux, and regardless of how hard we try to conceptualize ourselves outside cognition's prison walls, it may be a futile task. He sums this up wonderfully in this last stanza so as to put us on notice.

"Do you think that if you had all
such decisions to make and could
make them. Do you think that
if you did. That you really
would have to think it all into
reality, that world, each time, new."

The poet may be asking us to let go of this god-awful project of objectifying everything, from our toothbrush to thinking so much about ourselves. What is real is being alive, enjoy that. Thinking and reality are incongruous, period. Can you imagine hammering a nail and saying to yourself, "I'm hammering this nail...it is striking onto the head...there it goes again...I can feel my fingers around the hammer...."? GOD NO!!!! Yet, our mind goes into these cycles of projection, as if we have total control over everything. The poet may be telling us to "Just do it!" Or, if you want a more noteworthy source, consider Friederick Nietzsche, who proclaimed, "Amor Fati!" Love of fate! Live, live, live! Hope this rather messy reflection gives you a start. Go stanza by stanza and think about what the poet is saying...put pieces of what I said to the test and see if it holds up. REMEMBER: THIS POEM IS, LIKE MOST POEMS, NON-LINEAR. Perhaps you'll start to hear an echo of your own, and if you do, it's the poetic thread running through the poem, just never through its center! Good luck!

[chrashmoo]

What does everybody think of this.

Do you think that if
no one knows then whatever
it is, no one will know and
that will be the case, like
they say, for an indefinite
period of time if such time
can have a qualification of such time.

I think in this stanza Creeley is trying to tell us that we don't have to stress out about what is going to happen years from now. I think he wants us to realize that if we just live our lives one day at a time and it will take us far in life.

[jon1jt]

Yep...it works!

[smilingtearz]

im not very bad with poems...but im not super good either...here's how i put it...
if u try different parts of that stanza...then perhaps this is how u can put it...

if no one knows then whatever
it is, no one will know and
that will be the case
for an indefinite period of time

it might be something like...if people believe in something or some philosophy or idea for a long period of time...but have no explanation for it...or the belief is baseless...then the future generations ("indefinite period of time") will still believe the idea without actuall trying to find out a definite explanation...though the poet is not very sure about the belief in the "indefinite period"...or the days to come..

i dunno thaz juz my way of interpreting...nice poem though!