a good poem....

[cacian]

was thinking how you might complete the sentence. I have plenty in mind what is/are yours?


you may post one you think it is to illustrate. no more then 10 LINES to make it easy to read because some of us cannot take epic or dense. ;)

[MorpheusSandman]

More than 10 lines is epic and dense? What is this... I don't even...

[cacian]

More than 10 lines is epic and dense? What is this... I don't even...

LOL I said no more then 10 Lines because some of us cannot take long/epic/dense :)
I would like to be able to read a piece no more then ten lines. a poem that you think represents 'good' :)

[MorpheusSandman]

Errr, yeah, your comment implies that any poem more than 10 lines is "epic and dense." Firstly, I don't know what length has to do with density, and, secondly, all "epics" are many thousands of lines, not anything over 10. I don't know what the point of this thread is. Good poems come in all shapes, sizes, and kinds. Here's a short one I read a few days ago I really liked:


This Room
By John Ashbery (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/182860)

The room I entered was a dream of this room.
Surely all those feet on the sofa were mine.
The oval portrait
of a dog was me at an early age.
Something shimmers, something is hushed up.

We had macaroni for lunch every day
except Sunday, when a small quail was induced
to be served to us. Why do I tell you these things?
You are not even here.

[qimissung]

Oh, I love it! A good poem is one that causes me to see the world in an unexpected way.

[cacian]

Errr, yeah, your comment implies that any poem more than 10 lines is "epic and dense." Firstly, I don't know what length has to do with density, and, secondly, all "epics" are many thousands of lines, not anything over 10. I don't know what the point of this thread is. Good poems come in all shapes, sizes, and kinds. Here's a short one I read a few days ago I really liked:


This Room
By John Ashbery (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/182860)

The room I entered was a dream of this room.
Surely all those feet on the sofa were mine.
The oval portrait
of a dog was me at an early age.
Something shimmers, something is hushed up.

We had macaroni for lunch every day
except Sunday, when a small quail was induced
to be served to us. Why do I tell you these things?
You are not even here.

Hi Morpheus why do you like this one?

[MorpheusSandman]

Hi Morpheus why do you like this one?I think I was struck most by the first and last lines, and how banally oneiric it is. The first line asks its reader to think about the difference between an object and a dream/conception of that object. EG, what's the difference between "this room" and "a dream of this room"? I like how the subsequent lines project the speaker into everything withing the room: the feet on the couch, even, humorously, the portrait of the dog on the wall. The first stanza's last line seems to obliquely express how we react to art, life, and dreams, where some things are illuminated and understood, and others remain silent and not understood, noticed, or even forcibly silenced. I love the ending that simultaneously addresses the reader while denying their existence, turning the whole poem into a poem about the solipsism of human nature, dreams, and the imagination. One can also see it as an allegory for art, being a product of our dreams, reflections, and conceptions of reality. As with all Ashbery, there are also those lovely surrealistic touches, such as the macaroni and the quail.

I guess you could say I like it because one does not often find all (or any) of those qualities in poetry.

[cacian]

The first line asks its reader to think about the difference between an object and a dream/conception of that object.
that is an impossible. it is a difficult parameter to reach if one does not dream ever or even one has to be particular about this.
i had a dream that i dreamed a dream. i understand this because it happened to me. what about those who have not? how do they cope with this idea? in otherwords how do you personally imagine it had you not dreamt it?


feet on the couch?
does he mean feet on the floor?
feet on the sofa means people's head are on the floor and their feet up on the sofa.
does he mean that the dream is an upside down reality?
hence the dog reference.
''and early age'' the idea of going back into time.


The oval portrait
of a dog was me at an early age.
what do you make of this?
first it is oval
then it is a dog
then it is him at an early age.

doe she mean the dog is oval portrayed or is it the frame that is oval?
at an early age could mean metamorphosis from dog to man. ie that he dreamed he was a dog at an early age and now he is an adult person/human?!
there is a snipet of red riding hood influence i reckon. wolf to person.


Something shimmers, something is hushed up.
i am confused about the stance here.
something shimmers
then shouldn't be
something hushes up?
or something is shimmered, something is hushed up?


when a small quail was induced
do you understand this?


Why do I tell you these things?
You are not even here.
does he mean to say that because it is a dream therefore whilst he is retelling the dream, in the dream, there is no one with him because one dreams on their own.
that is what i understood. he is dreaming and of course telling one a dream whilst they are dreaming is not going to be possible.
hence you are not even here. meaning you are not in the dream with him.
that is how i understood it :)

[MorpheusSandman]

how do you personally imagine it had you not dreamt it?Well, I think that's one point of the poem. We readers "are not there" in the dreams of others, so we cannot imagine what it's like. This could be said to be Ashbery's response to the constant criticisms that his poems are impenetrably surreal. He's saying "this room" (this poem/life) "is a dream" (my dream/conception) "of this room" (my poems/life). We can't tell the difference because we are not there, but it also suggests that our lives are much the same. Others can't really understand us because they are not in our head, our dreams, our conceptions/perceptions of life, art, reality, etc. What's more, there is always a difference between the object in reality ("this room") and how we perceive that object ("a dream of this room").


does he mean feet on the floor?
feet on the sofa means people's head are on the floor and their feet up on the sofa.
does he mean that the dream is an upside down reality?I like what you say about the dream being an upside down reality. Personally, I just pictured people reclining on the sofa, rather than people with their head on the floor and feet on the sofa.


what do you make of this?
first it is oval
then it is a dog
then it is him at an early age.No, no, it's an "oval portrait," meaning the frame is oval. The idea that it's a dog that's him at an early age feeds into the idea about how we transfigure reality in our minds/dreams. This is a rather humorous way to suggest that (even "portraits of dogs" become "me at an early age"), but that's what I think it means.

i am confused about the stance here.
something shimmers
then shouldn't be
something hushes up?
or something is shimmered, something is hushed up?I suppose there's an ambiguity about whether or not the "something" in both statements are the same "something" or different "somethings." I took them to be different "somethings," and to mean that some aspect of the dream/reality/art "shimmers" (ie, is illuminated, understood, connects emotionally, etc.) and others are "hushed up" (ignored, misunderstood, not focused on, etc.). IE, we can never conceive of the whole at once, there are always light and shade in our understanding of ourselves, others, reality, art, etc.


do you understand this?It strikes me as conventionally surreal, meaning it's just there because it's strange, not because it means anything. Again, one of those things that's "hushed up" because it doesn't make sense, rather than "shimmers" because it adds meaning.


d
oes he mean to say that because it is a dream therefore whilst he is retelling the dream, in the dream, there is no one with him because one dreams on their own.
that is what i understood. he is dreaming and of course telling one a dream whilst they are dreaming is not going to be possible.
hence you are not even here. meaning you are not in the dream with him.
that is how i understood it :)That's how I understood it as well. :)

[YesNo]

The small quail being "induced" to be served as dinner meant to me that they had to ask the quail's permission to eat it. That was the part I found most unexpected about the Ashbury poem that MorpheusSandman quoted.

[cacian]

i understood it to say that they were induced quail for dinner ie forced it.

[Nick Capozzoli]

Interesting comments. The poem seems both oblique and obscurely personal. I guess Ashbury intends it to convey some sense of mystery. It does have Ashbury's voice: reticient and somewhat indirect, while at the same time conversationally taking the reader into his thoughts and confidence by sharing apparently banal personal details. The lines flow nicely. despite this, I a left with the feeling that I have been cheated. The poem's tone seems to promise a shared glimpse at some profound experiential mystery, and it did suggest to me that Ashbury was trying to relate something he felt was profoundly important.

In the end I am left completely out of his experience, and maybe that was what he meant by the last 1 1/2 lines: ...Why do I tell you these things?/
You are not even here. If that was his point, then you could say he succeeded, though as a reader I still feel cheated.

A couple of comments about specific images:
The oval portrait
of a dog was me at an early age.

This does mean an oval-framed portrait (probably a photo). A nice banal domestic parlor image, made somewhat
mysterious by what follows.

We had macaroni for lunch every day
except Sunday...

The same sort of thing.

Surely all those feet on the sofa were mine.

I think Ashbury was playing on the meaning of "feet" as regards sofas, i.e. the "feet" or "legs" of that
piece of furniture. Or maybe he was referring to "footprints" on the sofa cushions, as perhaps in the
footprints of the dog in the oval portrait (or maybe the child/dog). that's certainly my favorite line in
the poem.

We could suppose that this room is something out of the poet's memory, his recollection of some room
from his childhood, which is associated with other memories mentioned in the poem.

[Nick Capozzoli]

This could be said to be Ashbery's response to the constant criticisms that his poems are impenetrably surreal. He's saying "this room" (this poem/life) "is a dream" (my dream/conception) "of this room" (my poems/life). We can't tell the difference because we are not there, but it also suggests that our lives are much the same. Others can't really understand us because they are not in our head, our dreams, our conceptions/perceptions of life, art, reality, etc. What's more, there is always a difference between the object in reality ("this room") and how we perceive that object ("a dream of this room").

Morpheus,

I missed your comment about this. It does offer one way to understand the obscurity (or what Yvor Winters would have called "obscurantism") in the poem.

Wallace Stevens (whom Ashbury seems to have admired) wrote some fine poems with this "surreal" quality. One of my favorites is the section in Auroras of Autumn beginning with "The mother's face, the purpose of the poem." I like that poem a lot more than Ashbury's.

[MorpheusSandman]

Nick, just fyi, it's "AshbEry" and not "AshbUry." I wouldn't question that Auroras of Autumn is a much better poem than This Room, but cacian asked for a SHORT poem we thought was good. AoA is hardly short! Helen Vendler wrote wonderfully about this poem in her book On Extended Wings. Anyway, if you're going to compare AoA to an Ashbery piece, a more sensible comparison would be to Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse/124/5#!/20596528). That's one Ashbery piece with the density and complexity of Stevens. I probably prefer Stevens as a poet overall, but Ashbery at his best is, IMO, just as good.

[Nick Capozzoli]

Oops! Sorry about the spelling error...I must have been thinking of an old town name. In any case the AoA section beginning with "The mother's face..." stands on its own as a short poem. It has very striking surrealistic and even spooky imagery that is way more powerful than anything in the AshbEry poem.

[MorpheusSandman]

Fair enough, I'm just not sure it makes much sense to compare them. Two very different poems (or fragments) doing two very different things. The Asbhery isn't really even representative of his best work, it just happened to be a short poem I recently read and happened to like. I wasn't claiming it was a masterpiece or anything. It's just Ashbery doing what he does quite well. Not terribly profound, but good. The Stevens' is, on a whole, perhaps his grandest work, so it's apples and oranges.