Auntie, this is really witty and I love the choice of form. It's so well executed I'm breathless with admiration :D Personally I think your light shines brightly.
Best, H
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Auntie, this is really witty and I love the choice of form. It's so well executed I'm breathless with admiration :D Personally I think your light shines brightly.
Best, H
This little light of yours is incandescent. Really, Auntie, you go from strength to strength.
Aunty,
You "only lack the way to make it shine" on the eighth day of the week.
Flexibility you write with raises my approval to its peak!
Lightness of your humour vastly haloes your wisdom depth, ever meek...
Let me express my gratitude for your art by a kiss on your cheek!
Smiling - Bar
Thank you, Hawkman, Prince and Bar for these and your other flattering comments as well!
It's impersonating a villanelle.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hawkman
Were you a methodist in a previous life, Aunty? In any event, it is brilliant with emotion and wit!
Two Steps to a Healthier, Happier Poem
STEP ONE:
Take a word –
any word – then:
pound it like a fielder’s mitt,
pet it like a neighbor’s mutt,
stretch it like a braggart’s truth,
snap it like a hipster’s thumb,
slap it like a jazzman’s bass,
flatten it like a Minnesotan’s “a,”
sharpen it like a harridan’s tongue,
twist it like a trysting couple’s sheets,
tweak it like a toddler’s nose.
STEP TWO:
Repeat.
The site ought to charge people for having as much fun as you obviously do! I loved this. Thanks.
Brilliant - but I think you missed one - soothe it like a loved one's lips
On the tenth day the Almighty formed Aunty in the fulness of her being.
Your poem about one word poem:
... witty!
I repeat:
witty!
(ah, and - you'll never fall into categories whose desuetization E. Pound wished for!)
Marvellous Auntie, Your muse must have been Terpsichŏrē, for they read like dance calls :D
Best, H
I just loved the pace, the rhythm, the flow. Thanks so much.
Very good, and works well as a companion piece, or counter perhaps, to Hawk's recent poem.
I particularly enjoyed the 'twist - tryst' echo, even though the latter word isn't the most contemporary! Enjoyable stuff.
Thank you, all, incl. daffyd and Hillwalker, and dear Hawkman.
Bar, I'm making a mental note to send you a PM about your latest poem. Blank__Verse, I had started working on the next anti-poem, but after yesterday when Iread yours about the noise in the flat, I see that this next one will echo yours. Prince, please don't even mention charging fees for this site. I love it and would gladly pay for the privilege, but who's got any dough?
Now I've got to look up"desuetization." "Terpsichore" I already know, but all my life yours fooly has been known as having two left feet.
Thanks again.
Here we go with another lengthy intro, but it's my thread, so what the hell. Initially the idea for this next piece came from blank_verse's poem, "Four Floors Up" about intrusive, outside noise.
Without invitation, chaos seems to follow me wherever I go. A couple of decades ago we lived in a city whose time had already come and gone, and our particular neighborhood was well on its way to becoming run-down. Around the corner was a dive, of course, and its patrons had the habit of parking their vehicles directly beneath the upstairs flat of our rented two-family house. Late one night noise woke me up, and when I went to investigate I saw a guy and a gal engaged in loud conversation on the sidewalk right beneath our front window. I said nothing, but the couple saw me and immediately reacted as if I had intruded upon them!
In that same squalid city every Fourth of July we had to spirit our older daughter out of town because she would get extremely frightened by firecrackers --though to be truthful, kids would set off those explosions (illegal in our state) from Memorial Day in May right on through Labor Day in September. Same with those colorful girandoles that use the night sky as their canvas. Formerly confined to Independence Day, fireworks now are featured in every kind of sporting event, craft festival, supermarket opening, you name it. Fireworks are pretty, but they make an ungodly, booming noise. I read this year that a community event in our erstwhile hometown featured a professional fireworks show, but the planners apparently forgot -- or totally disregarded -- the fact that the veteran's hospital was a mere two blocks away. Some of the patients were suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, or what used to be called "shell shock."
Speaking of hospitals, early last month I went to one to visit my stricken sister. On that horrible, tear-filled day, I managed to find something to make me laugh. Apparently this hospital supplements its medical insurance income through parking fees. But instead of hiring
human attendants, the hospital handles the transactions with a vending machine that uses audio instructions. The computerized voice that tells the visitors to "insert your ticket" and to "press one if you need a receipt" is exactly the same as that of a famous astrophysicist's voice synthesizer. "Gee, the economy must be worse than I thought," I told my younger daughter. "Even Steven Hawking has to supplement his income."
But seriously, doesn't life seem greedier, ruder, and especially louder now? Maybe those things are mere symptoms of our rapidly deteriorating society, the cultural equivalent of Gresham's Law. That notion hounding me for weeks put me into full "Shine, Perishing Republic" mode and resulted in the following ditty, which we like to call
Miss Communication
There’s little matter in the universe.
What’s there can't squeak its presence in the dark
where silence penetrates through gas and rocks.
Our lens sees stars but hears no harmony.
Yet down here, blessed with an atmosphere, sound thrives:
the sweep of air through trees, the gurgles and swirls
of gentle waters, the triumph of a child’s
first garbled words: such melodies must yield
to alien strains of invading noise–-
attacking, digging in, aligned to squelch
the quiet space of unsuspecting homes.
A raging army occupies our world.
The useful wheels which merely used to turn
all squeal as if some animal’s been trapped.
Cars once contented with an internal hum
now throb with anger through the neighborhood.
When harsh, unruly shouts usurp the streets,
how can a tender whisper co-exist?
A cry for quiet will escape each ear
taken over by the overlords of din.
Seek sanctuary in some other world
hiding behind an aloof and neutral star?
Defying count, they're far and far apart,
and life (for now) is here, and here alone.
“We're not alone,” the physicist has said,
his faith more tuned to beings less supreme
than God. (Easier to explain black holes.)
Loud vacuums suck up reason and real art.
The empty mind in the existing room,
the Cyclops whose blaring bellows crack the walls,
bites off the heads of men of former sense
and belches back their undigested truth.
The gloomy gyre of Yeats grows wider still.
Such discord! I cannot grasp a single word,
and words I make will not be understood.
Where’s Emily’s new letter to the world?
What solace rests in measured syllables,
the honest bounce of bygone peppy songs,
the glimpse of silent sparkles in the sky,
with people talking loudly late at night?
Oh, Aunty! Your poems make me want to be a better man! (Or if not, at least a better poet.) "the overlords of din"! - oh yes, but on the other hand, the pleasure of using language as if it - and almost it alone - were God's gift to us; or ours to Him!
(P.S. Case I overlooked saying so in my effort to be fancy, I loved this poem!)
And P.p.s. Not that this applies to you but I love this saying:
"Say it simple, forget your Dixie grammar." Jack Teagarden
I am a tiny Ant
blind without my 'i"
I wander through Lit-Net
and hope I will get by
:lol::lol:
Well Auntie, you’ve no idea how much this poem resonates with me. How I crave the absence of intrusive, man-made sound. The blare of exhaust from boy-racer’s chariots, the screamed, abusive conversations of intoxicated humanity as it staggers home at 2am. I would far rather listen to the sounds of wind and rain, or a nice, soothing thunderstorm.
I like the rhythm of the this piece. With so much of it in iambic pentameter spurious syllables stand out a bit. For example, I feel L1 of S2 is a little ungainly. There are too many stressed syllables adjoining in the line. My preference would be to tighten it up a bit:
“But here, sound thrives within our atmosphere.”
L2, “The sweep of air through trees, the gurgling swirls”
while in S3 I feel L1 is missing a beat:
“to alien strains of (cruel) invading noise–-“
In S5 I’m not sure about, “taken over by the overlords.” I can see why you’d want to use it, it has an element of assonance and symmetry, but it does force an awkwardness in the meter.
S6, L2 might be better as: “that hides behind aloof and neutral stars?” Not only is this better for the metre but ties in with the plural ‘they’, which defy count in the next line. I also feel you need a comma in this line, “…they are far, and far apart,”
I’m not sure I get, “The gloomy gyre of Yeats…” Is this a reference to a specific poem? Likewise, who’s Emily? the same question, vis. specific poem applies.
On the whole I like it, there is ironic humour here which winks at me as I read it, and as I said before, I’m sympathetic to it’s message. So thanks for posting it, Auntie.
Live and be well, H
Thanks for your comments re: post #134 above.
I have to admit that I'm a little surprised that no one nailed me on the fact that the subject matter-- ambient noise -- is an item fairly far down on the list of evils. In certain countries of the world in which warfare and violence are a daily threat, the least of their problems is noise, which is more often than not the bellwether of imminent danger.
On the other hand, maybe noise can serve as a symbol or as just one of the symptoms of an eroding culture as is often displayed in the good old U. S. A.
Did anybody get the joke in "existing" room?
I also thought that some would question the structure and/ or meter of these lines.
In the case of this line,
all squeal as if some animal’s been trapped
after having posted the "down and dirty" punctuation guide, I thought somebody would question the apostrophe in "animal's". I intended it as a contraction for "some animal has been trapped." Kosher or nay?
Is the meter all right in this one?
taken over by the overlords of din.
It starts with a headless iamb, and a prepositional phrase that's an automatic anapest, but I believe that the line still retains 5 stresses:
Taken over by the overlords of din
[I]In this one, a paraphrase of a line by Yeats,
The gloomy gyre of Yeats grows wider still.
the meter is more or less okay since "gyre" is not pronounced as two syllables with a long "y" but as one stressed syllable--"jir." (I had to look that one up.)
{Added 10/14/10: The previous sentence reads like gibberish, but, try as I may, every time I try to pronounce a one-syllable word ending in "r," it comes out like two syllables: "fire" as "fi-er," "gyre," as "gi-er." It's almost as hard as pronouncing "luxury" correctly. Maybe I have really idiosyncratic speech patterns.}
Speaking of looking things up, maybe I should provide links to the three allusions, one from the prose intro and
two in the verse itself:
"Shine, Perishing Republic"
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/arch...html?id=176411
"This is My Letter to the World"
http://www.online-literature.com/dickinson/834/
"The Second Coming"
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/arch...html?id=172062
Speaking of quotations from "real" poets, if you describe to
"Poem-A-Day" you might have enjoyed this line by
Ana Bozicevic:
[. . .]There's the kind of angel that when I say
Someone please push me out of the way
Of this bad poem like it was a bus-
Thanks again for your comments.
That's it for today. Over and out.
Before I forget, I have to say that I posted the reply above before reading the response that preceded it.Thank you, Hawkman for your thoughtful, reasonable, and well-expressed reply #138.) It is everything a response to a posting in the Personal Poetry should be.
Now, in case some of you are wondering why I am posting another poem so soon after the previous one. It usually takes me days, sometimes weeks to crank out a new piece of verse. Well, this one's not new. I wrote the original version way back in December of Ought Seven. Revising one's own work is always difficult, but it's really surprising how much easier it is if you put the piece away for a couple of weeks or years.
Anyway, here's the revised version:
Samuel Beckett once attended an outdoor function during which an official said to him, “Isn't this a beautiful day? Doesn't it make you feel happy to be alive?” “Well,” Beckett replied, “I wouldn't go that far.”
Actuarial
Toss the stats.
Forget expectancy.
Those are the breaks:
bad brakes, or after running
on eight, stopping
to open the black hood
and seeing just six;
farmers who know the scythe
on sight and the scythe-man
by the thick treads of tractors;
drummers who one night rock
and the next day ruffle their last roll;
Keats, Bunny Berigan, Hart Crane, Bix–
-and Clifford Brown, a mere 25;
sickly heirs to irrelevant thrones;
gangsters sentenced to do hard time
in harder neighborhoods;
self-medicating melancholiacs
and sloe-eyed romantics
in one-sided affairs with a bottle;
neglected spinsters hoarding cats;
the oddly-hunched loner in 9-B,
spindly-armed toddlers
whose fly-infested faces
take in the sparseness of trees
and question the Future;
guileless little guys with epicanthic
lids and constant chromosomal smiles
and chests conceal a hob-nailed
boot poised to kick;
strings of souls stuck
as if by ancient amber
in somebody else’s battle
saints targeted
for martyrdom,
and The Good:
fruit flies hovering
for a trifling second
‘round the apple
of the world.
We, of course, are luckier,
aren't we,
Godot?
fruit flies hovering
for a trifling sec around
the apple of the world.
We of course
are luckier, aren't we,
Godot?
Good work. I enjoyed this thread.
If (heaven forfend) I had to puck just one thing out of this melancholy poem, it would be:
Brava!Quote:
gangsters sentenced to do hard time
in harder neighborhoods;
I'm pretty sure this writer has enough talent to have her work read by more than just the few around here.
Some of the best stuff I've read in a while, and I used to read a lot of poetry, being a Lit major and all that.
I didn't want to "bump" this cavalierly, but I do want to thank you both of you for your comments.
And jajdude, in an unofficial capacity I'd like to say, welcome to the LitNet. As to your flattering comment, I hasten to add that whatever is posted in this particular thread is less the effect of "talent" than it is the result of four decades of practice and learning everything I can about the craft of verse-writing. I'm still an amateur, and still learning.
Incidentally, the theme of poem (#140) is pretty obvious, but whether we're conscious of the fact or not, ultimately that's behind every piece of verse we write, including and especially between the lines of lyrics that rhapsodize the "preciousness" and fragility of life.
The constant possibility that death can strike anywhere and anyone --including those who are too young, a few of whom are listed in "Actuarial"-- is why we make any kind of art: painting, sculpture, fiction, movies. That's why I am so impressed by the following poem by 33-year-old Croatian poet, Ana Bozicevic. I don't understand the comma in the title, but the colloquial language and the sustained "angel" metaphor of this piece are superb. Please read it, Prince and jajdude, if you have time:
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/21911
Hi Auntie,
If I may quote:
“[I]In this one, a paraphrase of a line by Yeats,
The gloomy gyre of Yeats grows wider still.
the meter is more or less okay since "gyre" is not pronounced as two syllables with a long "y" but as one stressed syllable--"jir." (I had to look that one up.)
{Added 10/14/10: The previous sentence reads like gibberish, but, try as I may, every time I try to pronounce a one-syllable word ending in "r," it comes out like two syllables: "fire" as "fi-er," "gyre," as "gi-er." It's almost as hard as pronouncing "luxury" correctly. Maybe I have really idiosyncratic speech patterns.}”
I should have got this reference, although it is a little oblique, as I do actually know this poem but alas, it sneaked under my radar. With regard to your discussion of the pronunciation of gyre: I don’t know if Yeats was a falconer, but I think it likely that he may have known something of the art.
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;”
There is the distinct possibility of a falconry related pun with gyre and gyr (gyrfalcon). Gyrs are notorious for “straight-lining” when not served with game quickly enough. They are tricky birds to fly and there is a school of thought that believes that their migratory habit may be responsible for this. I know several falconers who fly them, and late in the season, they often take it into their heads to disappear over the horizon which results in a frantic telemetry chase!
“but I believe that the line still retains 5 stresses:
Taken over by the overlords of din”
Agreed Auntie, but you still end up with an 11 syllable line :D
Vis. Actuarial: this is a very good poem which has a lot to say and for the most part says it well. I get the message about life expectancy. However, there are a couple of allusions I find puzzling.
“farmers who know the scythe
on sight and the scythe-man
by the thick treads of tractors;”
I take it the scythe-man is our old friend the reaper, but “thick treads of tractors?” Do US farmer run themselves over with their own machinery? :D
“guileless little guys with epicanthic
lids and constant chromosomal smiles
and chests(,) conceal a hob-nailed
boot poised to kick;”
Am I right in thinking the hob nailed boot poised to kick is a reference to heart failure? I do think that this line needs a comma though.
Also, I’m not sure that the rhetorical device of repeating the question is necessary. I understand why you’ve done it, but I don’t think it works.
However, There are some stunning lines in this poem.
“sickly heirs to irrelevant thrones;
gangsters sentenced to do hard time
in harder neighborhoods;”
“self-medicating melancholiacs
and sloe-eyed romantics
in one-sided affairs with a bottle;”
Just some of the many goodies which pack this piece.
Well worth the effort of reading what you slaved over writing.
Many thanks, H
Thank you Hawkman for the comments above. You were absolutely correct about both the farmers and the children with Down's syndrome. In the U.S. farming is in the list of the top three most dangerous occupations, because of accidents involving machinery, and heart disease affects many children who have Down's Syndrome.
I did not know that it was a hard-and-fast rule that every line of pentameter must never veer from 10 syllables. Doesn't it go by feet rather than syllables? An imabic foot has two syllables, but an anapestic foot has three. The most important aspect of a metric foot (in English) is the stressed syllable. Just like unhittable pitches tossed by a major league ace, and --real estate -- it's location, location, location.
Another ditty follows. Thanks again.
Auntie
The "back story" of this next piece appears in the blog.
http://www.online-literature.com/for...d=1#post966973
This posting represents a revision of an earlier version, first written circa January 2008. The metric structure of the original was, to steal Sam Seder's title, "FUBAR," but apart from a couple of trochees and the occasional anapest imbedded in prepositional phrases, it more-or-less attempts to follow a 4-stress, iambic pattern. The rhyme scheme may appear bizarre, but the irregular appearance of end rhymes were intentionally designed to depict a sense of dislocation.
Losing My Place
Mere rent receipts belonged to me,
in my own home a refugee,
though no force occupied our town.
The agent stated real command;
she clicked her heels on hardwood floors
while rifling closets, slamming doors.
A warm salute, an offered hand
for live ones, not the tenant --
not trespassing, but still present,
so very inconveniently–
as that front elm’s effrontery
defies its peeling bark to stand.
I loved the thickness of its trunk
and how its leaves held back the wind
that felt the touch of hope in its crown.
Oh, how I wish I still lived there,
back in that old and scruffy chair,
its angle bent like no man’s land.
(Evicting rage, despair would flee)
With books, I used to mark the page
with flowers that I pressed and saved
from gardens I recall and crave --
no doubt by now they’re plowed and paved,
or like an unkempt lawn, mowed down.
Hi Auntie,
A line of iambic pentameter should contain five stressed, and five unstressed, syllables. the definition may be found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iambic_pentameter
As for, "Losing my Place", well, I consider it a sound and evocative poem describing a plight which has affected many in recent times. I like the way it reads. The only line which I might take issue with is S4 L3, where the syntactical wrenching does stand out.
Best, H
What a fine poem Aunty. I'm glad you directed me to it.Quote:
Originally Posted by AuntShecky
As to the stanza in "LMP":Quote:
Originally Posted by Hawkman
so very inconveniently–
as that front elm’s effrontery
defies its peeling bark to stand.
I parse it thusly: the subject of the clause is "effrontery" the verb, "defies," and "its peeling bark to stand" the object. So the syntax is off how?
Quibbles aside, I will be eternally grateful for the
well-thought-out analysis you've given my work.
Frankly, I'm humbled by it.
Hi Auntie, well I was taught to keep iambic pentameter to ten syllable lines, but I accept that the rule may not be universal. I did check with a few classic examples from Shakespeare (and others) but the examples I chose were all deccasyllabic. It certainly makes writing blank verse easier if you don't have to work in a straightjacket :D
Re. syntactical wrenching: well ok, but it's not common usage and does sound a little archaic. Strangely, it would have appeared less so if the sentence had continued beyond stand. e.g. "defies its peeling bark to stand unaided" otherwise contemporary useage would be to say, "...still stood, despite its peeling bark." but it's a minor quibble.
Best, H
Well, I'm afraid I disagree and still believe that the structure is a standard simple declarative sentence:Quote:
Originally Posted by Hawkman
S + V + O.
Also, "unaided" wouldn't fit the crazy-quilt rhyme scheme.
But seriously, thanks again.
Here's a ditty already posted long ago in the "Parodies" thread, but I felt like digging it up in order to change the title and the arrangements of the stanzas. Now, as at its premiere in 2008, Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan are undoubtedly rockin' and rollin' in their graves.
“H.M.S. Tin Ear”
I'm no damned good at symmetry
and versifying gimmickry.
The wrenching rhymes that I've thus wrought
are often fraught with limerick-ry.
In track-wide doubt I ever can
train a wretchéd line to scan,
I am the very model
of a swayback poet also-ran.
I slice my bread before the wise,
and the sharp advice they live to give
says even the wriest loaf is stale,
très trite, if not derivative,
referring to my alluding skill
as swill from a cut-and-paster-er.
I am the moldy model
of a post-modern poet-taster-er.
The Greats whom I strain to parody
and flatter with temerity
I take more seriously than myself,
which “I say with all sincerity.”
No tears will drip,
but laughs may trip
out of my rash and leaky pen.
I am a photocopy
of a poet-slash-comedienne.
the Miss Communication one about noise is one of the most enjoyable poems I have read on this part of the forum! I love it's originality and the direction you take with it...though you say the subject matter is maybe not the biggest evil there is in the world I think it is a significant feeling of modern times. Saving that one!
Wonderfully funny! And all the more reason why you ought to rent Mike Leigh's "Topsy-Turvy"!
This is both clever and funny and I take it from the subject (and the title) that the extraneous beats are therefore deliberate :D
Live and be well. H
In my opinion --which becomes more and more aware of its inherent humility with every passing day -- "free" verse can be just as difficult to compose as metered verse. If she wants a piece of free verse to be effective, the writer has to invent a brand-new form to embody the particular subject matter.
Well, the chance of discovering an appropriate pattern in this next one is pretty slim. Whatever you do, don't attempt to scan the lines. It is an example of "free" verse, though, in the sense that it won't cost you anything to read the following, which we like to call
"No Soliciting"
At the table in a mismatched chair
you sat picking at your plate
to push away the lima beans,
like little bags of gravel
strewn about the buds of truth.
From the other room The News
announced the alarming change
in the– “Cost of Living”? What succotash!
Never in your life did you have to pay
to breathe, to live. You expected
no one, but the pounding came.
Your mother never stirred nor wiped
her ruddy hands on the faded apron front. Still,
the sudden sound had sped to a staccato,
opportunity this time
requiring more than one knock.
“Tell them,” she said, “we have no money.”
It could have been a drummer
clad in a blaring sports coat with a clashing
tie above which his Adam’s apple throbbed
to exclaim, “My, what an impressive-
looking lad you are!” through a de rigueur
smile designed to go with
a different set of eyes.
There might have been brushes in his bag: coarse
bristles arranged in neat rows across a block
of rough wood – and delicate handles of fine ones
For The Hair. He'd be more than happy to show
you a sample volume, with A-Ar
stamped in gold on its spine,
or a free demonstration
of the very Latest in Vacuums,
hungry – ravenous!– to devour
all the dirt in the world.
“We have no money.”
It wasn't until later that the kids would come,
college students in sandals or beat-up
sneakers, with idealism in their eyes
and in their sun-brushed hands a slim
pen and a thick binder, as they sought
sponsors for a week from next Saturday’s
Fun Run, or valid signatures for their petitions,
subscribers for moribund magazines –
long-shot wagers strategically placed,
a shot-in-the-dark manuscript
slinging itself over the transom, like a knife-
in-the-mouth ragtag soldier, scaling the enemy wall.
All over the world handshakes are offered
and heads are shaken and doors are slammed
and fortresses are rushed but seldom breached,
where arms stretch outward and upward
with an empty bowl for alms,
for a sale, for praise – everywhere, everyone
seeking, begging, asking.
I really like this one Auntie. It resonates on my sounding board. I have certainly felt that life is a gauntlet of demanding, threatening, grasping pleaders whose sole aim is to take what I've got, because they think they have a better right to it than me. Wouldn't it be nice if someone approached you out of the blue just to give you whaqt you need instead of relieve you of it!
However, back to the poem :D My only observation would be to perhapse cut the seventh strophe. it isn't that it's bad, but it feels like a digression from the rest of the poem. I think you could lose it and the overall effect would be to tighten it up. and l3 of the last strophe i would put a line break after breached.
Good poem. H
Thanks for reading and commenting, Hawk.
The seventh strophe was included for two reasons: military images, as well as the "unsolicited" label for
the typescripts of aspiring writers.
I will put the line break in.
Very topical - and perhaps 'free verse' is the only free thing that's left us.
I enjoyed the progression from door-to-door salesmen to the legion of doorsteppers all after our money, or at least a little respect and sympathy.
H