Epitaph

[PrinceMyshkin]

My brother has been dead
longer than he lived.

He was born when the world
was 3.5 billion and forty-four
years old, when it changed,

and changed again
when he died.

[Hawkman]

I really like this Prince. It's simple elegant and moving. However, I do feel that the extension of the second stanza's sentence into the third stanza diminishes its impact. Personally, I'd prefer the last stanza to be a discrete comment, but of course, this is a subjective response.

Live and be well - H

[miyako73]

My brother has been dead
longer than he lived.

He was born when the world
was 3.5 billion and forty-four
years old, when it changed

and changed again
when he died.


I don't know if I'm being selfish with my view that as far as literary interpretation is concerned, Barthes is correct. I don't interpret any form of writings as autobiographical except autobiography. Instead, I believe all readings are autobiographical in the mind of their readers.

So here's my interpretation of this one. First, I like the shifting meanings of a word or a concept. It makes the language and the emotion fluid and pliable. In the beginning, the brother and the world are two separate subjects then in the end they merge as one- the brother is the world to someone.

I came up with this interpretation because I have the same emotional sentiment towards my baby sister, who is already in her thirties but still a baby to me.

Thanks, Prince, for stirring my emotion.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I really like this Prince. It's simple elegant and moving. However, I do feel that the extension of the second stanza's sentence into the third stanza diminishes its impact. Personally, I'd prefer the last stanza to be a discrete comment, but of course, this is a subjective response.

Live and be well - H

I'm going to add a comma to the end of the 2nd stanza in the hope that that provides the 3rd stanza something more like the discrete status you propose. Thank you.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I don't know if I'm being selfish with my view that as far as literary interpretation is concerned, Barthes is correct. I don't interpret any form of writings as autobiographical except autobiography. Instead, I believe all readings are autobiographical in the mind of their readers.

So here's my interpretation of this one. First, I like the shifting meanings of a word or a concept. It makes the language and the emotion fluid and pliable. In the beginning, the brother and the world are two separate subjects then in the end they merge as one- the brother is the world to someone.

I came up with this interpretation because I have the same emotional sentiment towards my baby sister, who is already in her thirties but still a baby to me.

Thanks, Prince, for stirring my emotion.

"the brother is the world to someone" is indeed the (hopefully) beating heart of this poem. In fact, my brother died thirty-one years ago, and it still feels like just a few minutes ago that he was stolen from my life.

Thank you.

[cogs]

it's interesting that the world still seems as if it's here, yet it's ancient... which leads to the idea that we don't completely cease to exist, as we're made out of the same ancient material.

[AuntShecky]

This one resonates with great power for me, Prince except it's been less than
2 years. I love how your epigram blends the deeply personal with the widely-
universal. As I said, powerful.

I don't think you can access it online, but if you have a chance you can try
to find a poem that has the same sensibility as this one:
"After a Brubeck Concert" by Miller Williams.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Thank you, Cogs and Aunt Shecky. And no, I couldn't Google that Miller Williams poem.

[MorpheusSandman]

I do appreciate the understated poignancy here, Prince, but your use of "when" has me positively baffled. It doesn't seem to connect logically to what came before or what comes after, and I really want to read it as "then it changed." What am I missing?

[PrinceMyshkin]

I do appreciate the understated poignancy here, Prince, but your use of "when" has me positively baffled. It doesn't seem to connect logically to what came before or what comes after, and I really want to read it as "then it changed." What am I missing?

"Then" I felt would be a mere notation as to the coincidence of these events whereas with "when" I hoped to imply that the brother's birth and death were the causes of the world changing, as my world assuredly did. "My" world but the only one I knew or know.

[MorpheusSandman]

I don't want to belabor the point, but I'm still completely unclear as to why/how you think "when" accomplishes the goal of implying that the brother's birth and death caused the world to change. I guess I'm stumbling over the grammatical aspect, because, eg, if you put "when it changed" at the beginning of the stanza it makes no sense at all, so I guess my next thought is that it's connected to the S3, but that doesn't make sense either, so then I thought that it was connected to the initial subject/verb "He was born" (Ie, he was born when the world changed, [and] when it was X old"). But then if I read it that way I can't quite make out the "and changed again" of S3, because it seems like it would need another inserted "when it". That way, the line in prose would be something like "He was born when the world was X old, when it changed, and when it changed again." But then if you do that, the last "when he died" doesn't make sense!

I don't know, I'm all flummoxed here... maybe I'm making a mountain of a molehill and should just chalk this one up to my subjective confusion, because nobody else seemed to have any trouble!

[PrinceMyshkin]

I don't want to belabor the point, but I'm still completely unclear as to why/how you think "when" accomplishes the goal of implying that the brother's birth and death caused the world to change. I guess I'm stumbling over the grammatical aspect, because, eg, if you put "when it changed" at the beginning of the stanza it makes no sense at all, so I guess my next thought is that it's connected to the S3, but that doesn't make sense either, so then I thought that it was connected to the initial subject/verb "He was born" (Ie, he was born when the world changed, [and] when it was X old"). But then if I read it that way I can't quite make out the "and changed again" of S3, because it seems like it would need another inserted "when it". That way, the line in prose would be something like "He was born when the world was X old, when it changed, and when it changed again." But then if you do that, the last "when he died" doesn't make sense!

I don't know, I'm all flummoxed here... maybe I'm making a mountain of a molehill and should just chalk this one up to my subjective confusion, because nobody else seemed to have any trouble!

Do, please, belabour the point to your heart's content. It flatters me that you take this poem as seriously as you do. I think the way it might work for you (and others) is if you focus on the alteration of the speaker's authority. To begin with one assumes he speaks with objective authority: of course he would know how old his brother was when he died and how long ago that was. But somewhere along the way the authority shifts and becomes subjective. A prose gloss on the latter part of the poem would read: my brother was born in 1944, whereupon the world changed for me, as it did again when he died...

[MorpheusSandman]

Aha! I see where I was having the problem! I was taking "forty-four" to be just an extension of the world's age and not related to the brother's! I knew it had to be something stupidly simple I wasn't getting! Now that I see that, it's actually a very clever little shift going on there, so clever that I can't help but wonder whether there will be others as confused as I was!