I forgot to post the address for my new blog:

http://playgroundtwist.blogspot.com/

so....

read that one instead

Everyone's blog has one of those things where you can't comment unless you have the same kinda blog.  I don't know if that makes any sense, but the point is: I can't comment on anyone else's writing.

My apartment building caught on fire a couple days ago.  It was very distracting.  My stuff still smells like smoke.

    Reading Zukofsky's writing was a little difficult, as it was entirely to dense for me (or perhaps I'm too dense for him).  He appears to be saying that poetry should be distilled down to its true essence.  That poetry should be precise, and have only as many words as can accurately leave their desired impression.  He seems to believe that pure poetry should be nothing more than a sketch, or a skeleton of an idea.
    Using this logic, metaphors should be excluded from poetry as tend to dilute the essence of the poet's ideas.  Rather than use metaphors to imply objects, Zukofsky argues that we should use objects to imply a metaphor.  I'm not exactly sure that I agree with this.  I don't believe that precision has to be the essence of poetry.  It almost seems like Zukofsky wants poetry to be a sort of science.  This is fundamentally impossible, as science is (one would hope) always striving to be objective.  Poetry, on the other hand, is extremely subjective.  Still, perhaps Zukofsky is telling us to avoid metaphors that have been overused.  This is a good piece of advice, although I don't really know why he is picking on metaphors in particular.  Even non-metaphorical phrases can be overused to the point that they become meaningless.  Stringing together words that are already too comfortable with each other can easily undermine a good poem, regardless of whether or not they form a metaphor.
    Maybe the sincerest form of poetry is that which is always trying to reinvent the way we see words.  Perhaps the poet's "true" goal should be in finding new ways in which objects can relate to each other.  Is this what he's trying to say?  If we try too hard to make our poetry completely novel, doesn't it run the risk of sounding too contrived?  How can poetry be completely sincere if we are trying to impose such strict rules about what can and can't be considered poetic?  I would like to think of poetry as something a little more organic.  Am I being too naive?

one.

Skinless fingers
Stone soldiers
Rip my
Flaps and fringes
Alchemy and
Taxidermy
Turn lungs
To lead
Picking at my stitches
Loosening my neck-bolts
Gravity had won
Again.

 

2.

Consolation prizes flicker
Shouting
Sprouting
Blinking
Gifts
Glitter-stained
A silver horse
A fleshy, russet smog.

III.

Fluorescent lightning
Strikes twice
Abracadabra!
And now my
Seventh life.
The first three
Were too heavy
The rest
Too unwieldy
'Round these parts
They call me
Mrs. Frankenstein

 

Spring Cleaning

My sins
Have been
Thoroughly washed,
Scrubbed clean
With a damp rag
And some soapy water,
Polished glassy-new

They are ready
To be traded,
Pawned,
Given away as
Hand-Me-Downs
Or perhaps donated
To some worthy cause 

Do you want one?

I've gathered them all up
Like strawberries
In a sort of
Wicker basket
Where they nestle
Coquettishly
In valleys of gingham,
Coy smiles flashing neon

This is a poem I'm working on, but I got kinda stuck.  I don't really know where I'm going with this, but i like what I have so far.  That's the problem.  I don't really want to abandon this, but I can't seem to finish it.  I keep writing endings, and then deleting them because they all seemed sorta cliche.  I want it to be about the mystery and uncertainty of the future, but I can't quite phrase it in a way that suits me.  I wrote a particularly horrid ending about a path leading up to a dark, wild jungle, and I suddenly felt like I was channeling the ghost of Robert Frost.

I think that the main trouble I faced with this essay is that I couldn't completely follow it.  I'm willing to admit that.  Perhaps this is mostly due to his overuse of long, compound sentences.  Is he trying to rally against proper grammar?  Maybe.  Well, that's not really important.  Also, there were too many metaphors for my liking.  Especially since they seemed to change (often mid-sentence) so I had some trouble trying to remember what he was discussing in the first place.  His writing style doesn't really suit my taste, but I think perhaps I should discuss the contents (at least what I was able to decipher) of the piece.

I liked how he described the poetic process as having a sort of kinetic energy; almost as if it were a living organism.  When writing, I feel some sort of energy that pushes the poem along, gaining momentum.  I don't exactly know how to describe it.  However, I see this transfer of energy going in the opposite direction than that which he describes.  I find that the energy of the poem is transferred to me.  It's as if the poem is trying to write itself, and I, scrawling illegibly, am barely able to keep up.  Sometimes it feels like a poem is thrust into my brain, demanding to be solidified in ink.  That's not to say that I don't edit my work.  I can't let poetry call all the shots.  Ok, wow.  This is beginning to sound way too metaphysical.  The idea of weird energy coming into my brain from someplace outside doesn't make any logical sense.  I can't really believe that. Therefore, I must conclude that I am slightly insane.  This isn't the first time I've come to this conclusion, but I digress.  I do believe, though, that poetry is driven by some sort of energy that may not be present in other types of writing.  Does this make any sense?

I have to disagree with the idea that the energy is transferred onto the reader. Everyone's tastes differ in regards to poetry.  Some people don't like poetry at all.  A dozen people may read the same poem and interpret it in a dozen different ways.  Even with all these different interpretations, there is a chance that no one will understand what the poet is actually trying to convey.  If you think too much about transferring poetic energy onto the reader, your poetry can become too self-conscious.  I think that this could stunt your creative process just as much as trying to fit everything into iambic pentameter.  This is why I try to think as little as possible about my audience.  I aim to write poetry for poetry’s sake.  Perhaps this is a little self-indulgent. I don’t know.

            Olson also brings up an interesting point relating to the departure from closed form.  He suggests that when someone makes the decision to write poems with out a predetermined structure, “he can go by no track than the one the poem under hand declares, for itself.”  This, I suppose, could make people uncomfortable as they must create an entirely new form with no guidelines.  Open poetry, like a newborn baby, comes with no instruction manual.  Even though you have given birth to something wonderful, you still must learn how to treat it.  Without the right form, your content will appear sickly and malnourished.  Alright, I’ve let this metaphor run on for too long.  So, is creative freedom worth the risk of losing everything due to mediocre form?  I believe so.

            Olson also said many pretty things about dancing, and fruit, and things ending in ism.  Unfortunately, I got lost in his vast forest of ambiguous metaphors, and was unable to decipher a great deal of what he was trying to describe.  Or, more likely, I just wasn’t engaged enough to try.

That would suck if you were running away from a fire, and then you were suddenly decapitated...



I'm still not sure what I think about what Olson has to say.  I think I need to read it a few more times before I come to any conclusions.  It doesn't really sit right with me, but I'm not sure why.

I'll write more about this when I've made up my mind...

i was just looking back at some of the poetry I wrote in high school.

i was seriously fucked up:

Baby,

I have one broken wing

That keeps flapping,

Frantic

Bloody stump

But I can still

Button up my slashed tires

 

Psychotic addict

On puke-stained sheets

Freakishly obscene

 

I dove 

     Face first,

            The floor 

                    Rushing to land a punch

 

I am dirty,

Pure

A gap-toothed airplane

Procrastamasterbaton

 

So, I decided to write a poem that was a bit structured.  Just, you know, too see what that would be like.  Because we were discussing romantic poets, I decided to make it an ode:


Ode to Something

We’re all waiting,

Really.

We’re all waiting for

Something

To come along with such force

That we can turn to our friends

And say:

Wow,

That was really

Something!

 

We’re all waiting for

Something

Colossal

To go:

FlashBoom

In the middle of the sky

In the middle of the night

So that we can unclose our eyes

And say:

Wow,

That was really

Something!

 

Perhaps we were

Born waiting,

Sucking our toes

With mouths too pure

To form

Words

Words

Words

Stitched into mundane phrases

Meaning nothing

 

From birth

To unbirth

We wait restlessly

Passively

Effortlessly myopic

Rarely with the chance

To say:

Wow,

That was really

Something!