Poem of the Week

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bodica

Extracts from DH Lawrence: The Life of an Outsider
by John Worthen

My sentiments exactly...

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bodica - This thread is for analysis of the poem of the week. Your post seems to belong in the Review A Book thread or as a new thread in the D.H. Lawrence section.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Scheherazade

A new poem for the new week. I haven't read Atwood's poems before so thought it would be interesting to have a look at one of them with you:


You Begin

You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
that is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye.
This is your mouth, this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like. This is yellow.

Outside the window
is the rain, green
because it is summer, and beyond that
the trees and then the world,
which is round and has only
the colors of these nine crayons.

This is the world, which is fuller
and more difficult to learn than I have said.
You are right to smudge it that way
with the red and then
the orange: the world burns.

Once you have learned these words
you will learn that there are more
words than you can ever learn.
The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
your hand to this table,
your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.

This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,
which is round but not flat and has more colors
than we can see.

It begins, it has an end,
this is what you will
come back to, this is your hand.

by Margaret Atwood

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I'm intrigued with this poem. I don't know Magaret Atwood and I've certainly never seen this poem before. It seems like someone talking to a young child. Teaching the shapes in the world, words of the world, aesthetics perhaps? Teaching of life and death ("It begins, it has an end") perhaps.

I agree with you Virgil that this is a poem of aesthetics. I also think that this poem underlines the fact that all meaning/significance is arbitrary.

You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
that is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye.
This is your mouth, this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like. This is yellow.[/QUOTE]

The speaker first teaches the student about parts of themself (hand, eye), then leads them to associations with elements of the outside world (fish) that resemble parts of self (eye) and uses aesthetics (blue, flat) to create difference between the self and the other (world). The student next learns about the mouth (speech), the written word (O), and the world outside of self (moon). The lines "This is your mouth, this is an O/or a moon, whichever/you like. . . " seems to hint at the arbitrariness of language and meaning (sign/signified/signifier) while also subtly teaching metaphor.

Note: must go home now, will continue tomorrow

My only Atwood experience is The Handmaid's Tale and I am very intrigued by this poem as well.

I am not sure if the first stanza is as complicated as Hyacinth makes out; I don't hear the conscious efforts of a teacher to teach about aesthetics, metaphors, language and so on. To me, it is the very natural act of a parent talking to his/her child as they spend time together drawing and the fact that the child is not able to conceive depth yet also tells me that s/he is too young to be at school.

I think the persona in the poem is talking to a very young child (even a toddler) because the first stanza echoes a conversation with a child as they draw. His/her first impression of the world is rather simple: hand, eye, a fish which looks like an eye and flat (which emphasises the fact that the child has not yet developed a sense of depth yet and drawing things two dimensionally - the same idea is later repeated again: 'this is the world/which is round but not flat').

From a child's perspective, everything in the world is two dimensional and the nine colours in his/her crayon set are enough to colour/ draw everything. However, later on, as s/he grows up, the child will realise that there is a third dimension (depth) and that there are more colours in the world; things are not as simple as they once seemed.

Really liked the lines 'You are right to smudge it that way/with the red and then/the orange: the world burns'. The adult view interjects. And I also like the fact that the poem ends with a hopeful tone: 'this is what you will/come back to, this is your hand.'


I cannot say I am comfortable with these lines and would like to hear your views:

The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
your hand to this table,
your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Scheherazade

I cannot say I am comfortable with these lines and would like to hear your views:

The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
your hand to this table,
your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.

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I have read a couple books of Atwood's, but had no idea she wrote poetry. After sifting through some of her poetry online, I am impressed.

I did not understand the portion Scheherazade picked out, but I found this poem and felt that it shed some light on the significance of words for Ms. Atwood.

Spelling

My daughter plays on the floor
with plastic letters,
red, blue & hard yellow,
learning how to spell,
spelling,
how to make spells.

I wonder how many women
denied themselves daughters,
closed themselves in rooms,
drew the curtains
so they could mainline words.

A child is not a poem,
a poem is not a child.
there is no either/or.
However.

I return to the story
of the woman caught in the war
& in labour, her thighs tied
together by the enemy
so she could not give birth.

Ancestress: the burning witch,
her mouth covered by leather
to strangle words.

A word after a word
after a word is power.

At the point where language falls away
from the hot bones, at the point
where the rock breaks open and darkness
flows out of it like blood, at
the melting point of granite
when the bones know
they are hollow & the word
splits & doubles & speaks
the truth & the body
itself becomes a mouth.

This is a metaphor.

How do you learn to spell?
Blood, sky & the sun,
your own name first,
your first naming, your first name,
your first word.

Margaret Atwood

A very interesting poem. I love the sound of it. I've never read anything by Atwood, though I have The Handmaid's Tale on my ever increasing list of things to read. Apart from the actual sound of the poem, I like the way it transitions between multiple levels of understanding. I think Scher's right about the way it can be understood on the purely intuitive level of a parent explaining things to a child. Actually, one of the first things that popped into my head when reading this was the image of the child's hand drawing with crayons in the opening credits of the film To Kill a Mockingbird. I think aesthetically the poem has something of the quality of that opening sequence which begins with the simple act of a child drawing but leads into the larger project of a film dealing with complex adult issues and growing up and understanding the world.

I also think that Hyacinth's remarks very concisely hone in on the complex way the poem is contemplating the "arbitrariness of language and meaning." I don't know if that arbitrary aspect of language is something that the person speaking to the child is necessarily supposed to be consciously teaching, but I think it's certainly something the poet is consciously teaching the reader, and something central to the poem itself. I think perspective seems like a key word in talking about this poem. Not only the perspective of drawing, which makes a flat world seem round, but the perspective of child, of adult, of the Almighty, etc. Perspectives are constantly shifting in this poem.

And thanks for providing the second poem, Psycheinaboat. I don't know that I like it as well as the one we're discussing this week, but it's interesting in its own way.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love

I also think that Hyacinth's remarks very concisely hone in on the complex way the poem is contemplating the "arbitrariness of language and meaning." I don't know if that arbitrary aspect of language is something that the person speaking to the child is necessarily supposed to be consciously teaching, but I think it's certainly something the poet is consciously teaching the reader, and something central to the poem itself.

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Thank you, PL, for clarifying the thought that the person speaking to the child is not necessarily consciously teaching the child such concepts as aesthetics and arbitrariness of meaning and language, but the reader. That was what I was trying to point out - I think you're right Scher, in that the person speaking to the child is not trying to teach them such abstract concepts. That's why I like this poem. . . the speaker is not directly addressing the reader, nor ruminating upon the abstract themself. Instead the author creates a tableaux of learning in which the speaker, while teaching a child (whose presence is implicit as opposed to the daughter in "Spellings") something simple, "teaches" the reader/viewer as well on a more complex scale if they choose to identify themself with the "you" in the poem.

Quote:

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The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
your hand to this table,
your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.

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Scher, I think this part can be read on two levels (surprise, surprise!):D
I read "The word hand floats above your hand/like a small cloud over a lake" as the speaker imagining the word "hand" spoken by her earlier in the poem hovering over the written word "hand" and the drawing of a hand on a sheet of paper on the table. The speaker also takes this opportunity to make a lovely simile for the child/reader. The next lines "The word hand anchors your hand to this table" I read as the word "hand" written on that piece of paper next to an outline of a hand that the child has done. The speaker then moves into imagining the physical hand of the child as a stone, held between words instead of hands (the speaker is probably sandwiching the child's hand between hers). The "hand" is a "stone" simply by naming it such, and in doing so the speaker seems to be moving into the second layering of the poem - the arbitrariness of language/meaning as directed to the reader. On a more simplistic level, this is probably understood as a joke or flight of imagination by the child, similar to that of the first stanza in which the mouth can be an O or a moon as well.
I think this same preoccupation with language, meaning, and self permeates the poem "Spelling" that Psycheinaboat posted as well. (Thanks! :banana: ) The same theme also recurs in The Handmaid's Tale if I remember correctly - there is no more "reading" of words, but symbols in the Handmaid's world, leading to a forgetting of self. (Or I could be really delusional and am remembering an entirely different book by an entirely different author) :lol:

Very good analysis Hyacinth. Yes, I think the power this poem genrates is due to the various levels that one can read the little, innocuous drama. The speaker keeps returning to hands, as Hyacinth points out, and so I'm wondering if there is a symbolic meaning to them. I'm speculating here: hands are what separates us from other animals, their dexterity. They are the means of artistic creation, an almost direct link to our brains. I say that as my hands are clicking away at this keyboard. ;) Hands are how a child learns of the world and then the means of representing the world. I can't quite articulate it, but there is something profound here.

Well, it is Friday here.
[Whine]Mind you, we dislike it how the forum changes many spaces into one. It ruins some things - for example, in the following poem, originally there were just more than one spaces in where we put the /-signs, but since we couldn't put them here, we put those marks, since at least then the rhytm of the poem remains.[/whine]







and only one question remains

by fs





when sun is burning white cars/ when sun is burning red cars
when sun is burning black cars/ with which death is transported
over a metal bridge / over an abyss
and the trains and railroads / and oily seawaves
and the smoking factory chimneys / and stunted grey grass
grey surface of asphalt / grey face of city
and its clodded creases /where tortured cats skulk
and homeless children fight / and some of them aren’t sick yet
then only one question remains

when all around there is just dampness and decay/ and numbness and disease and death
when behind you is just emptiness / emptiness and treachery
when fingers are frozen round the gun/ and there is nothing certain
when between high dim houses / amid hostility and garbage
is a little useless murderer / and it is you
then only one question remains


when on all the roads of Europe / black cars drive
columns like viscera / iron doors clanging
silencing the screams / when from many places at the same time
evil suddenly arises / from Kosovo and Buchenwald
from Berlin, Madrid and Moscow / from Tallinn, Räpina andTartu
Jõgeva Märjamaa Kohtla-Järve /and Karksi-Nuia from Polli
rises over Europe / unites in the dark sky
rolls over defenseless land / falls as rain
disembogues everywhere / flows in the gutters
soaks inside your clothes / slquelches in your shoes
entrences your skin / stalks behind your door
stares lecherously through / the window of your bedroom
grey-haired and toothless / with the face of an old woman
with black spectacle frames / with the face of a copywriter
then only one question remains



when morning smashes your face in/ and targets light into your eyes
when dry cascade falls / and you are standing under it
and you are suffocating in it/ when everything is so bloody clear
right and merciless / dusts is clogging up your nose
blades are scratching your throat / something is pressing on your lungs
heart is beating and beating / there is no more air
ears have stopped hearing /but eyes are all too clear indeed
your guilt is standing before you/ your guilt falls onto you
the guilt of you and of everyone else/ are all gathered together in you for one moment
but that moment is long / there is no escape from it
then only one question remains / simpler than anything else
simple as babys need to shi* / cruel as a joke of a child
demanding as womans labour pains / old as the circulation of excreta
that we call life / honest like death

there is nothing but that question / higher than all your thoughts
everything else is meaningless trash / eveything else is circus and sport
only that question remains / of which’ answer it depends
whether you were born or not / whether your life has any value at all

and just only one question remains


can i keep her
whom i love?

Good heavens, is it another week gone by already?! Well, after a couple quick readings I found this poem intersting but it's not really grabbing me. It's got a few moments, but I'm not caught by the sound of it. Maybe it's just too dark for my present mood and that's clouding my judgment. I'll revisit a little later and see what others have to say.

I'm afraid I have to agree with Petrarch's Love in that this is a rather dark poem for me. I find it a little more personally relevant, as an ex of mine grew up in Poland. This poem reminds me of his descriptions of his life before coming to study in the US.

The best part of the whole poem for me is the build up to the one question - an expectation is raised that the questions will be something along the lines of "does this have any meaning", but that expectation is denied and the question ponders the endurance of love instead.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Virgil

hands are what separates us from other animals, their dexterity. They are the means of artistic creation, an almost direct link to our brains. I say that as my hands are clicking away at this keyboard. ;) Hands are how a child learns of the world and then the means of representing the world. I can't quite articulate it, but there is something profound here.

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I agree that hands are symbolic in this poem. However, my take is a little different: This is a world that 'burns' and it is in our hand to make a change. The individual does matter and can make a change, which is why I believe, the poem ends with these lines: 'this is what you will/come back to, this is your hand.'


Moving onto this week's poem, 'and only one question remains'... I will repeat the sentiments of the others that it is dark... reminds me of Bukowski a little in some ways, which, I am afraid, means that it is not my cup of tea. However, its forcefulness is attention grabbing.

Oh, this is a very good poem. I like it, probably because I find dark poems more attractive. The selection of words is really good but I don't think so that the word "disembogues" really exists as I checked in Oxford Dictionary and there was no such word in there as well. Otherwise this is really a very well-written poem.

Especially, I liked the first three paragrapgh:

when sun is burning white cars/ when sun is burning red cars
when sun is burning black cars/ with which death is transported
over a metal bridge / over an abyss
and the trains and railroads / and oily seawaves
and the smoking factory chimneys / and stunted grey grass
grey surface of asphalt / grey face of city
and its clodded creases /where tortured cats skulk
and homeless children fight / and some of them aren’t sick yet
then only one question remains

when all around there is just dampness and decay/ and numbness and disease and death
when behind you is just emptiness / emptiness and treachery
when fingers are frozen round the gun/ and there is nothing certain
when between high dim houses / amid hostility and garbage
is a little useless murderer / and it is you
then only one question remains


when on all the roads of Europe / black cars drive
columns like viscera / iron doors clanging
silencing the screams / when from many places at the same time
evil suddenly arises / from Kosovo and Buchenwald
from Berlin, Madrid and Moscow / from Tallinn, Räpina andTartu
Jõgeva Märjamaa Kohtla-Järve /and Karksi-Nuia from Polli
rises over Europe / unites in the dark sky
rolls over defenseless land / falls as rain
disembogues everywhere / flows in the gutters
soaks inside your clothes / slquelches in your shoes
entrences your skin / stalks behind your door
stares lecherously through / the window of your bedroom
grey-haired and toothless / with the face of an old woman
with black spectacle frames / with the face of a copywriter
then only one question remains

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pensive

I don't think so that the word "disembogues" really exists as I checked in Oxford Dictionary and there was no such word in there as well.

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I checked in the online OED and "disembogue" evidently is a word. It is a verb meaning either "to come out of the mouth of a river, strait etc. into the open sea," or for "a river, lake etc. to flow out at the mouth; to discharge or empty itself; to flow into." It can also be used as a noun meaning "the place where a river disembogues; the mouth." Related words are "disemboguement," "disemboguing," and "disembogure." Learn something new everyday. :lol:

I have to absorb this a little more. There are things I like but there are aspects which I'm so-so on. It certainly is different in layout. Who is the author? fs?