The Ritual of Bathing

[miyako73]

Naked like a newborn,
the floor tiles cold
beneath my feet,
my fingers in the water
making swirls, bubbles,
and tiny tornadoes,
I let go
the thought my mind restrains
then my nerves and bones
dying to rest
into the liquid warmth
of the porcelain tub,
a mimicry of an ocean
of spring blue and waves,
while the sprinkle above
imitates the rain
I dream of every night
in snowy February.

[Aperta Verbum]

Simon Armitage once told me that being a poet you can just say that what you have written is a poem and people have to accept it. This evokes nothing more than that sentiment.

[miyako73]

Before making your readers accept or reject your poem whether it is a piece of poetry, as a poet, you ought to make your poem readable and comprehensible. I cannot really say that a certain poem is not a poem if I cannot understand it in the first place. I just give up reading it.

There was a poet here before whose poetic vocabulary revolved around hairy balls and stinky vagina. I didn't think of his work as poetry. I came up with that conclusion after reading and understanding his works.

In the case of your poem in the other thread, I simply gave up--that means I have no energy to continue reading and finding out if it is a piece of poetry. You have to forgive my mental laziness. Tanka and haiku have been my interests lately.

As to the poem above, do you think I should protest because a reader says it's not a poem? If it's not a poem after you read and understand it, I should not care anymore, I think. I think Barthes is correct in that authorial and reception issue.

[Aperta Verbum]

You seem to have taken this ad hom, when in reality this poem is just one of those glorifications of the mundane that may indulge people like Shklovsky but i find to be poetically tedious.

[miyako73]

What ad hom? didn't you imply that I posted this poem with an intent to force a reader to accept it as a piece of poetry, and you as a reader should accept this? I think your comment is your reaction to my honest comment on your poem that I can neither appreciate nor reject as not a poem. I think I should stop before you misconstrue my honesty as an attack against your work.

I'm no longer that sensitive. Besides, I don't have the intent to force readers to accept my poem as poetic. You can even say it sucks, and that won't affect me. As long as you understand the poem, that is enough for me as its writer.

[Aperta Verbum]

'argumentum ad hominem' means argument against a person, which you seem to have taken it as. My critique is this, I don't like the artistic modality that has led to something like Tracy Emin winning the Turner prize for a messed up bed. Its about time this fad of bringing art to the boring moves on and we revive something more involving from symbolism and defmiliarisation. After calling my work mental torture i thought i should read what you consider poetry to be, and in my honest opinion I'm bored of poets like you, its an uninspiring topic filled with uninspiring stock poetic vernacular and evokes no emotion or thought. C'eci n'est pas un poéme (-René Magritte).

Try to understand the comment, i didn't imply that you intended to force the reader to accept that its a poem, if you think it is a poem then my point is valid.

[Aperta Verbum]

After calling my work mental torture i thought i should read what you consider poetry to be, and in my honest opinion I'm bored of poets like you, its an uninspiring topic filled with uninspiring stock poetic vernacular and evokes no emotion or thought.

for clarification that is an example of argumentum ad hominem

[miyako73]

What ad hominem are you talking about? here's what I wrote: "I don't think poetry is a verbiage invented to mentally torture and verbally confuse." Even if it is about your poem, is your poem a person? Come on. That's a basic Latin phrase.

Why don't we discuss your poem in your thread? By the way, here's your poem:

I fear for my sanity

Rationalistic determinism is logical analysis
all things appear the way celestial mechanics is
The logistics and specifics of a universe in motion
complex dynamics of fluids through the ocean
A pragmatic pendulum providing constant evolution
and yet as man we have found no solution

Because it all falls apart the deeper that we go
As our knowledge of the quantum is only so-so
Epistemological empiricism creates an odd reality
where everything that happens remains superficiality
A conundrum of states both positive and parallels
create ecumenical futuristic parables

Regard your world with question and contempt
as ethical moralities through power circumvent
But remember one thing inescapable and true
that order is to chaos perfection through and through


Yes, this line "in my honest opinion I'm bored of poets like you" is ad hominem. You wrote that. Why don't you ask other readers to critique your poem? If you don't like my poem because it sucks, that won't bother me. Just don't preface your comment with your rant that my intent is to write a sh!tty poem and force its readers to consider it a poem. That's not my intent. I'm done marketing sh!t as gold for the sake of argument. My poetic intent nowadays is symmetry in text, image, and meaning. If you don't like my poem, I'll accept that. You can hate any poem without making up its writer's intent.

[miyako73]

Sorry, I cannot judge this poem whether it's a piece of poetry or not because it is incomprehensible to me. Sorry if I'm not intellectually ready for such poem. Rhyming alone ruins it.



I fear for my sanity

Rationalistic determinism is logical analysis
all things appear the way celestial mechanics is
The logistics and specifics of a universe in motion
complex dynamics of fluids through the ocean
A pragmatic pendulum providing constant evolution
and yet as man we have found no solution

Because it all falls apart the deeper that we go
As our knowledge of the quantum is only so-so
Epistemological empiricism creates an odd reality
where everything that happens remains superficiality
A conundrum of states both positive and parallels
create ecumenical futuristic parables

Regard your world with question and contempt
as ethical moralities through power circumvent
But remember one thing inescapable and true
that order is to chaos perfection through and through

[Aperta Verbum]

I struggle to see how you are so confused but after engaging in a brief talk I can see that the understanding of words must be very difficult for you. You seem to interpret a sentence with great difficulty. When I first said ad hom it was in response to your post in this thread and had nothing to do with your post on mine.

Also, I did not say that you wrote a poem and are attempting to force the reader to accept its a poem, its quite vexing trying to discuss something with someone who cannot understand a simple correlation of intent and action. To simplify, you write words, you say is poem, words are just words until you say it is poem, hence it is a poem only because a poet has said it is, otherwise it is only words.

It is a notion contradictory to the death of the author because one aspect of authorial intent is always known, the intent of whether it is poem or prose, you have attempted poetic techniques, you have written to you what is a poem. However you feel in retrospect, to write a something you would call a poem was your aim, you have labelled it and posted it in the personal poetry forum and you still say you're not trying to have the reader accept that it is a poem?

My point was best illustrated by Magritte, it may look like a poem but it is not, just as the pipe is not a pipe. It is words that you call a poem. Though I feel this may be futile to continue, you're a little too sensitive about things.

[miyako73]

You already accepted in this thread that your comment was your reaction to my comment on your poem in the other thread.

you wrote this:

"After calling my work mental torture i thought i should read what you consider poetry to be, and in my honest opinion I'm bored of poets like you, its an uninspiring topic filled with uninspiring stock poetic vernacular and evokes no emotion or thought. C'eci n'est pas un poéme (-René Magritte)."

That's ad hominem. You should critique the poem not the poet. I think you are new here. You are lucky I am no longer obnoxious. Do you want the truth? Your poem sucks big time and is not even worth reading. You are lucky Hillwalker is no longer here to dissect your poem for your education in poetry.

You can ask Hawkman and Auntshecky, our known literary critics here, about your poem.

I'm done.

[Aperta Verbum]

That was my third comment on this thread by which point i had decided to critique you as a poet, if you read the first post it is a critique only of the poetry, as is the second post. I appreciate your attempts to contextualise to your own benefit, its how arguments are won, however with time stamped chronological posts it seems more desperate than wise.

I'm gratified to think you need other people to critique poems, because you seems to lack the vocabulary and sentience to rationalise things beyond "The words are confusing, It sucks". It fills me with hope that poets like you are unable to form their own critical opinions of things, God forbid your opinions became the new critical reading style of "Ignorantism". Let them critique and know that it is as fulfilling as critiquing a lymerick by Milligan. As I said and remain saying the fun is with the rhythm, the flow of the words and the dance of the tongue. Read into that what you will, but if you can't read the words then its lost on you, and you have my pity.

[DATo]

miyako73, You have created an excellent poem. I thoroughly enjoyed experiencing it both for its phrasing as well as for the vicarious feelings it elicits. Thank you so much for sharing this with me.

[Delta40]

Interesting discussion. I thought the poem was similar to some stuff I've written and it resonates with me but this is not poetry that reflects your true skill imho.

[miyako73]

Thanks, Dato and Delta. Delta, I have realized that when in poetic emptiness, we should embrace it and dwell in that sparse poetic space. When in darkness, do not bring light. Dwell in the dark that can be beautiful too. Was it Oscar Wilde who said about yielding to something you cannot control?

[Delta40]

Well said Miyako. I expressed some poetic emptiness in Summer Stifle.

[virtuoso]

It is a poem that does not work on an empirical or philosophical level. The experience of the bather could be described by a child. It has no depth, and the descriptions are not artistic. The philosophical rationale is what? That we all were born into water and we long to return to its soothing, therapeutic caress. I think that it lacks depth, but it is a nice draft for a much more enticing poem.

[miyako73]

Depth, to me, is about the making of the mundane deep by reading it beyond literalism.

This tanka by Kenichi Nakamura, to me, is deep because I'm not being literal in my reading.

In the darkened fields
the very faintly burning
lights of the houses—
ah, they are more frail even
than the glowing of fireflies.

That's also the case because I am now in my literary writing where I can easily appreciate the mundane because the literary life, struggle, theme, and style I have been aspiring lately is simplicity. If that is zen or simple minimalism, so be it.

If allowed to edit that tanka by Nakamura, this one is even deeper to me even though it sounds very simple and mundane if read literally.

In the
burning
lights
are frail
fireflies.

Do I consider my poem good enough for everyone? Nope. Do I consider my poem a result of my literary goal to make the mundane deep and the simple relatable to something complex? Yeah.

My poem in this thread is an accentual verse--an exercise in patterned stresses of 2-3-2-2-3-2...

[virtuoso]

A good defense of your poetry's aims and goals, miyako. Some of my own poems lack depth, so who am I to really judge that aspect. Nevertheless, I think we all have our own tastes, and we look to get something different out of our reading exercises. I agree with the statement that a poet is not a critic and a critic is not a poet. Look forward to reading more of your poems.

[Aperta Verbum]

I fear that this sentiment will be as unwelcome as any other I have said but it is my personal experience which drives it. I am isolated in the same room day after day, the same people, the same streets and each day listlessly continues with no purpose. Art for me shouldn't be the everyday, I live the everyday, I spend a great many hours thinking about things, the way they taste, touch and smell etc. Art has moved for me, the everyday is no longer worth interest and no amount of effort will bring that back.

Art for me should be inspiring, something to remove us from the everyday and give glimpses into the wonders of imagination and dreams, these sorts of poems are photographs to me, they are the facebook statuses of art. Bring back transcendentalism, bring back an art that is something inspiring and magical, an art capable of bringing wonder into everyday not pointing out that we should appreciate everything, it is not a sustainable perception. I can still marvel at a Dali or a Picasso, something more than the 'yeah, i get what you're doing" form of art Emin is famous for.

To me defamiliarisation is an ongoing hell, the world makes no sense on a good day.

[miyako73]

Seeing something profound in the ordinariness of time or in the simplicity of space or in the prosaicness of life is neither defamiliarization nor postmodernism.

[Aperta Verbum]

That is true of things that are profound I guess.

Your mistake is that they are critical reading ideologies, they are musings on aesthetics not aesthetics themselves. Unless of course you find something profound by using those modes to understand something. In which case it is the mode of thinking that brings the profound nature and not the work itself. Hence why I find the aesthetics of interpretation more rewarding than the writing itself.

I have had eternity to see the nature of my wall, the absence of anything but the wall, I have watched dried paint remain dry and postulated on the appreciation of nothing. I have cried for joy at the rain and leapt with glee at the floor, I have spent hours talking to the air and years silent in the nothingness of my mind. I have created and experienced worlds more than the ordinary. I have dreamed, dared and devoted myself to the pursuits of understanding, and in reflection I have moved from such notions.

To me Art is of 3 schools, the 'Evocative' based on Wordsworth's spontaeneous outpouring of emotion, the 'Intellectual' based on Shylovky's perception of aesthetic and the 'Atmospheric' based on the sublime. in this way, science, math, music, empathy, sympathy, hope, awe and technique are all art. Art is the offering we mortals can make to the world, and it is not something of this world, not something common, art is exception.

I do not need to be labelled by other people's definitions of art, I am capable of an opinion, it is just unfortunate that this work does not meet my criteria. Your poem on smoking Ganja is better than this. Do not feel too bad, many of my poems (if not all) suck because I have yet to find what it is i am seeking to call true Art.

[miyako73]

Just three schools? Are you kidding? Japan alone has, at least, eight classical aesthetic principles or schools of aesthetics.

Let me visually illustrate to you my understanding of defamiliarization instead.

This bowl is an example of the Japanese aesthetics called shibui or shibumi. I understand it as the beauty or complexity of the simple.

http://i1311.photobucket.com/albums/s672/miyako1973/fba620e3-bf80-46b2-b6e0-c404360bcdcb_zpsoiteqikq.jpg (http://s1311.photobucket.com/user/miyako1973/media/fba620e3-bf80-46b2-b6e0-c404360bcdcb_zpsoiteqikq.jpg.html)

The image below is of defamiliarization. It is about making the familiar unfamiliar to create something strange or different that is not ordinary or predictable.

http://i1311.photobucket.com/albums/s672/miyako1973/6d383070-6ef0-48e2-95d2-58738db1d93a_zpsilkgiril.jpg (http://s1311.photobucket.com/user/miyako1973/media/6d383070-6ef0-48e2-95d2-58738db1d93a_zpsilkgiril.jpg.html)

Now, did I use defamiliarization?

[miyako73]

You need to read our past discussions on defamiliarization, decentering, and deconstruction. We talked about them years ago. I'm a reformed postmodernist now.

Do you want a poem that uses defamiliarization? Here's one by Islandclimber. He is a member of Lit Net.

Nostalgia for Post-modern Recession on the News


Tuesday
certainly closes with the sadness
only found in laminate floors,
in unfinished townhouses
in unfinished neighborhoods,
in this city’s recently vast yet
unfinished suburbs.

and love hangs from another cherry tree
in Fred and Laura's backyard,
hangs from the neck until another
murder suicide is complete,
as the half-finished house is
repossessed
and two children resort
to convex mirrors
and semi-legal drugs
and inauthenticity
to sort things out

clocks fail, spin backwards,
and drenched in diazepam,
we –the generation of lost perspectives-
cross out rather
unpoetic lines
that mean little more than the
bones and shadows of tomorrow’s
headlines at this
point.

disembodied shoes march by,
-my feverish memories of a sidewalk-
suggestive of
a forest without trees,
a charity without a cause,
a fvck without an orgasm,
even if her skin is reminiscent
of a bottle filled
with several credit card receipts,
even if she's somewhat claustrophobic
(forget fluoxetine)
after I paint her in a dark shade
of taupe
and leave her to fellate the second-hand hours
exquisitely.

what are we?
misplaced heroes; humiliation;
the executioners of what’s
still cliché?

not life, not death,
but you and I and
so many failed histories
sprawled across a fake granite counter top,
fvcking the sorrow out of the first half
of the hour seven,
Wednesday morning.

I think you should move on. If you want literary criticism, open a thread; many will join you. Exclude me though. Like Bruno Latour, I have already realized that literary criticism or critical theory is mostly bullsh!tting.