PoemoftheWeek

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

No, it isn’t. The meaning does change. Meanings are always dependent on context. Look at this sentence:

“I enjoyed having my neighbour for lunch.”

Does it only mean one thing, regardless of context? What if the context is that it’s a cannibal who makes the statement? Now it means something very different. Poetry isn’t literal and denotative – it depends on connotations. As tn2743 says, “Their environment and their purpose have changed”. It’s not that Wachtel has replaced the meanings with wholly different ones but that he has invited us to generate meanings other than the ones intended by the original context. I assume that ‘turning blue’ in the original context refers to someone not getting enough oxygen – within the context of a poem that uses coldness as a sort of motif, it also suggests a less literal coldness.

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Does this mean I get partial credit? Because the original meaning of the sentences is still there in the context of the Wachter poem even though a new meaning may have been generated.

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

Okay – and what does that mean? Given that the context is a series of comments about TV and media, is it so unlikely that the sentence could relate to televisions?

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I'm just saying in the Wachter poem it states 'we control the horizontal' not 'we control every degree,' so maybe this lends some control to us(non-media) in whatever capacity it is.

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

It would be if I based it entirely upon that one phrase in this particular poem. The ‘claim ownership of our souls’ bit is the way I see it but it is consistent with the Media as represented in the poem.

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But the title talks about these several sentences leaving 'an impression' on his memory, not soul.

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Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love

I wonder though, if others find that it's a poem that they still find it as interesting on the second read, or if, like the quickly shifting, disposable soundbytes it's made of, it fails to keep our attention in any meaningful way? I wonder, because I've run across similar ideas before, and while I've found it the sort of thing that momentarily makes you stop and think about the connections between the random phrases etc., it's seldom anything that I feel compelled to come back to and read over again. After all, much of the allure really lies in its uniqueness. I don't know that the work itself is as interesting as much as the idea behind it of stringing random phrases together. If many poets started using the same form and it lost its originality I feel as though such a poem would also lose most of its edge. I'd be interested to hear if there are differences of opinion though. I'm not trying to claim it's "bad" poetry, just trying to see if people find it to be poetry of lasting interest. Maybe I just need to read through it again and see if it speaks to me more. ;)

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I'm in agreement with you, Petrarch. I like the idea of the poem, but ultimately the language is dull. Like I said somewhere else, the only poetic charge (other than what's in the title) is the dislocation between the phrases. Otherwise it's too prosaic, and i'm sure that's part of the point. Perhaps the aesthetics match the meaning well and that's a good thing. [BTW, from my profile this is the reason why I think Dante's Divine Comedy is the most perfect work of art; form and aesthetics match perfectly with theme and world view.] But Dante has interesting language, he's a great poet. Perhaps Wachtel is a great poet too, but this work doesn't show it. There is a technique that some poets play with, called "found" poetry. They will take lines written somewhere/elsewhere and rearrange them so that they get shaped into a poem. I don't know if this meets the definition of found poetry, but it's along those lines. It's in wiki, btw: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Found_poetry

But the "find" is usually interesting language not dull.

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Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love

After all, much of the allure really lies in its uniqueness. I don't know that the work itself is as interesting as much as the idea behind it of stringing random phrases together.

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I totally understand what you mean. In my very humble opinion, I think that in art, especially modern art, uniqueness and originality is essential. And it is easy to underestimate or overlook meanings. Though isn't that why it's art? An original idea would be philosophy, wouldn't it? (I have not thought this last point through, please don't prey on my weakness :D ).

Anyway, if I have learnt anything in my 3 'long' :) years of University (besides the horrific economic models which I have now completely forgotten) it is that I don't have the luxury of choosing what I want to dedicate all my attention to. I have to put the same effort into all assignments regardless of how I rate the wisdom of the question... That way my grade isn't affected by the quality of the book that I'm reading. (I'm sorry if it seems like I'm trying to sound smart)

I guess my point is: whilst the contents, meanings, or 'ideas' of this poem might not be what makes it interesting; that should not get in the way of me trying to understand them throroughly nontheless.

I know that you never actually said anything to contradict this. I just felt like contributing to this point, which was also on my mind. :)

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There is a technique that some poets play with, called "found" poetry. They will take lines written somewhere/elsewhere and rearrange them so that they get shaped into a poem. I don't know if this meets the definition of found poetry, but it's along those lines. It's in wiki, btw: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Found_poetry

But the "find" is usually interesting language not dull.

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Thanks Virg., I couldn't remember what it was called. I've had a lot of fun writing "found" poetry myself (no claims to anything profound, just fun). It's a nice brainstorming excercise since it encourages finding unexpected connections between seemingly seperate or unrelated ideas, or words, or sounds of words. I was thinking of one such experiment during our discussions here last week:

The time of the singing of the birds is come
And smale fowles maken melodye
The Phoenix and the Turtle
Singest of summer in full-throated ease,
Those dying generations at their song.

Is there any significance to this?

"..Named from the Greek meaning fire-lizards, salamanders have a long mythological history of holding the power to thwart fire. Thomas Bulfinch, of Mythology fame, notes that "...the authority of numerous sage philosophers, at the head of whom are Aristotle and Pliny, affirms this power of the salamander. According to them, the animal not only resists fire, but extinguishes it, and when he sees the flame charges it as an enemy which he well knows how to vanquish." Some attributed these powers to the salamander's cold-bloodedness, others to fire-proof skin, while still others say the myth began when salamanders were seen emerging from the charred remnants of fire logs."

Excerpt from AN ALCHEMIST'S POEM:
A SALAMANDER LIVES IN THE FIRE, WHICH IMPARTS TO IT A MOST GLORIOUS HUE.

...In all fables we are told
That the Salamander is born in the fire;
In the fire it has that food and life
Which Nature herself has assigned to it.
It dwells in a great mountain
Which is encompassed by many flames,
And one of these is ever smaller than another -
Herein the Salamander bathes.
The third is greater, the fourth brighter than the rest -
In all these the Salamander washes, and is purified.
Then he hies him to his cave,
But on the way is caught and pierced
So that it dies, and yields up its life with its blood.
But this, too, happens for its good:
For from its blood it wins immortal life,
And then death has no more power over it. ...

- From: BOOK OF LAMBSPRING

http://www.geocities.com/alandwpeters/lambspring.html

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Originally Posted by Shanna

Is there any significance to this?

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Interesting. I was wondering if we might have to go back to the title for more clues. Do you mind having a go at answering this question first Shanna? It seems like you're trying to suggest something.

A Paragraph Made Up of
Seven Sentences Which Have
Entered My Memory Via Hearing Them
or Reading Them and Have Each
Left an Impression There Like the
Slender Scar Left by a Salamander
in a Piece of Rapidly Cooling
Igneous Rock

1. Its a title.
2. With it, he writes of a Paragraph.
3. He indicates that seven sentences 'have entered' his memory.

There is no evidence here that he set the paragraph out. Could be, it was presented to him as a paragraph. We can assume it is a collection that has been selected somewhere and by someone, its not random in this sense.
He also writes, 'Which Have Entered', which only indicates they are familiar to him.

He now presents this 'Paragraph' to us.

Because we can derive an infinite number of conclusions from these seven (or not??), I wonder if he is simply presenting to us a collection of salamanders that he discovered somewhere, somehow.

What do you think?

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Originally Posted by Shanna

Is there any significance to this?

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There is definitely something in the Salamanders. Whether he is simply applying that analogy as a theme or there is something else going on here is hard to pin down. I think its in the next para.

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Originally Posted by tn2743

Interesting. I was wondering if we might have to go back to the title for more clues. Do you mind having a go at answering this question first Shanna? It seems like you're trying to suggest something.

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Yes, its like we chase and chase the lady till she catches us. The title holds the key.

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Originally Posted by jackyyyy

Because we can derive an infinite number of conclusions from these seven (or not??), I wonder if he is simply presenting to us a collection of salamanders that he discovered somewhere, somehow.

What do you think?

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You might be on to something there. However, I still don't feel that they are randomly picked. I think there is order to it, but I haven't found anyone's (including mine) logic convincing. Perhaps these are just salamanders that have crept into his consciousness, ordered by what might have been on his mind at the moment of conceptualization, frozen in the rock of his brain, but is incapable of truely communicating to future archeologists (us!) the theme or idea from some pre-historical epoch?

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Originally Posted by Virgil

You might be on to something there. However, I still don't feel that they are randomly picked. I think there is order to it, but I haven't found anyone's (including mine) logic convincing. Perhaps these are just salamanders that have crept into his consciousness, ordered by what might have been on his mind at the moment of conceptualization, frozen in the rock of his brain, but is incapable of truely communicating to future archeologists (us!) the theme or idea from some pre-historical epoch?

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I don't think they are random either (they stook to the stone, when others didn't). Yes, I agree there is a theme he is alluding to, but there is insufficient information in the content to fix on the target, which leads me to suppose its in the subsequent para, which he is not giving us, teasing us.

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Originally Posted by jackyyyy

He also writes, 'Which Have Entered', which only indicates they are familiar to him.

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Sorry, I'm not quite sure what you mean here.

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Originally Posted by jackyyyy

I wonder if he is simply presenting to us a collection of salamanders that he discovered somewhere, somehow.

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Do you mean he has an actual collection of salamanders??? I don't think this can be. He indicates very clearly that the sentences are to his memory like salamanders to a rock. Sorry if I misunderstood you.

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I think that if there is an overriding theme or 'logic' in this poem, it is the human sexual nature. Every sentense including the title can relate to this theme heavily.

I'm not sure either as to why he has arranged them the way he did. It's not that no one has come up with anything convincing; I don't think that anyone has attempted to explain his arrangement. Though I thought some of the attempts to explain the meanings and impact of each sentences and the connections between them were quite convincing. But why in that order? :confused:

If I may comment here, having read several of your posts on this poem: I cannot lay claim to being an expert on the poem's style, although I have used it with some success as a poet myself, but salamanders are a different story. You see, my home state of Virginia is said to have more species of salamanders living here than anywhere in the world. My wife and I, and my three children often go on salamander hunts. There is one species here, and throughout the Blue Ridge Mountains, that has that fire-charged "glorious hue", that this poem reminds me of so strongly. We call it a "ruber". It is actually a Pseudotritin ruber ruber or Northern Red Salamander.

This is it. Does it not have the "glorious hue"?
http://biodiversity.wku.edu/salamand...Salamander.jpg

I am still not convinced of a totally conscious arrangement and selection of these sentences. I can appreciate most of the arguments regarding sexual and mortal concerns but I don't agree that these are the whole picture (or even necessarily a part of it.)

These phrases stuck in Wachtel's memory, carved themselves into it as he says in the title. Isn't it a possibility that the choice of the sentences is down to nothing more than the type of sentence that the poet is prone to remember? Perhaps he has a preoccupation with sex and death, most of us do to some degree or other. Perhaps that is why these phrases stuck.

I like the idea that the Unnameable presented of the language of the sentences replacing that of the title. That I do agree with. There is a deliberate contrast between the two parts. I consider the title just as important a part of the whole as the supposed text of the work and I consider the dichotomy between the two to be far more important than which phrases were used.

I also appreciate TU's comments regarding the 'alternative' phrases that I proposed. They weren't well chosen perhaps to fit with the style of the actual ones in the poem, being randomly chosen scars from my own lump of rock which is more sedimentary than igneous, layered over years rather than fired by the first flash of youth. I still maintain that it is the linguistic style of the individual sentences that is important, the way in which 'the media' says things and the implied subtexts, rather than any particular phrase. Perhaps these examples would fit better - "MP in Vicarage Sex Romp", "Up 12 Big BBC Top 40 Places This Week!", "L'Oreal, because you're worth it." Compared with my previous suggestions, these carry a larger burden of implications, more in keeping with the ones used in Wachtel's piece.

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Originally Posted by tn2743

Sorry, I'm not quite sure what you mean here.

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I am suggesting the author is presenting to us a paragraph, that he or someone else built, which comprises these sentences. It also happens to be, that the seven have entered his memory (at some point in time). I can derive they are familiar. This does not imply randomness, because the paragraph was chosen for it's content.

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Do you mean he has an actual collection of salamanders??? I don't think this can be. He indicates very clearly that the sentences are to his memory like salamanders to a rock. Sorry if I misunderstood you.

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No, the salamanders are the sentences.

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I think that if there is an overriding theme or 'logic' in this poem, it is the human sexual nature. Every sentense including the title can relate to this theme heavily.

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Sex again?

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I'm not sure either as to why he has arranged them the way he did. It's not that no one has come up with anything convincing; I don't think that anyone has attempted to explain his arrangement. Though I thought some of the attempts to explain the meanings and impact of each sentences and the connections between them were quite convincing. But why in that order? :confused:

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I don't think there is anything in the order of the sentences, But, there does exist a consistency in the content.

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

I think the significant connection is that they all tell us something about the nature of the world we’ve constructed for ourselves through the discourses of modern media. I said earlier that they have a cumulative effect but this isn’t quite right – it’s more that they interact with one another and cumulatively produce a rather disturbing picture of the modern, media-saturated world.

Is Wachtel therefore suggesting that there are two linguistic realms – that of the past world of elevated literary expression and the rather debased and inane expression that saturates the world around us today? they then serve as a comment on the difference between the world as it is described through Art and the one in which we live.

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When I first read this poem I immediately assumed that this poem was criticising the modern media in some way. It has just occured to me that Wachtel could, just as easily, be criticising the past artistic ways. Someone suggested to me that it matters more to a poet to observe spring and its flowers than to follow world politics. Maybe Wachtel, through this paragraph, wants to show us that if poets actually follow the news and use it as inspiration, this is what they might come up with: quite unflattering, though more relevant. Maybe he is suggesting that poetry should merge with reality.

Just a thought.

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"..Named from the Greek meaning fire-lizards, salamanders have a long mythological history of holding the power to thwart fire. Thomas Bulfinch, of Mythology fame, notes that "...the authority of numerous sage philosophers, at the head of whom are Aristotle and Pliny, affirms this power of the salamander. According to them, the animal not only resists fire, but extinguishes it, and when he sees the flame charges it as an enemy which he well knows how to vanquish." Some attributed these powers to the salamander's cold-bloodedness, others to fire-proof skin, while still others say the myth began when salamanders were seen emerging from the charred remnants of fire logs."

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I'm glad someone brought this up. As a Renaissance scholar the association with the salamander and fire naturally came to mind, since salamanders in hot situations are all over the iconography of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. They were often represented in emblems, and several famous people took the salamander reclining in fire as their device (rather like the personal version of a coat of arms), among them Francois I, 16th century king of France. As Shanna's post says, the salamander was believed to be able to both survive in fire and to extinguish fire with the coldness of its skin. Because of this they were thought to symbolize the justice of God in having the power to withstand and snuff out fire. Francois I's motto, (nutrisco et extinguo, I nourish and extinguish) which accompanied his Salamander device attributes such power to the king. Here's a 16th century (possibly 17th century copy) royal emblem of a salamander (which like many stylized representations of the period, looks a bit like a little dragon):

http://www.mnemosyne.org/emb/pix/ful...615_pic026.jpg

And here's the municipal flag of Vitry-le-Francois in France, with Francois I's salamander device and motto:

http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/images/f/fr-51-vf.gif

I wonder if this was in the back of Wachtel's mind in the image of the salamander making its mark on the hot lava. If, as someone suggested, the sentences that follow are, in a sense, seven Salamanders, this association with the salamander as it is represented in traditional European iconography would suggest a connection between the power of the salamander to nourish and extinguish and the power of the media to nourish and extinguish our thoughts. Even if it wasn't really at all in Wachtel's thoughts as he penned this, it strikes me as a musing that is somehow appropriate to the poem's intent.