Enjoyment of poetry

I do enjoy poetry, but the problem is, with the exception to inspirational poetry (which I find very enjoyable/moreso than personal poetry), 'enjoy' is a bit too happy of a word to apply; mostly its more of the way one is drawn into tragedy, like reading a novel evoking feelings of desolation or watching a tearful movie more than once. Poetry aims at hitting emotions and states of being that cannot be accurately described in language limited to mere straightforwardness; takes me out of blunt analysis's (sp?) and places it into that which is more subtle, more elusive, and more satisfyingly accurate for things that, for eternity, no matter how hard we wish, will remain unsatisfyingly unprecise--or, depending on the poem, that which is knowable having been expressed more precisely or being turned on its head. It inspires on a different level, something psychological, philosophical, religious--without actually necessitating direct involvement with any of those 3 or other categories one would like to apply...

I will admit though, I'm not sure if I like what most poets consider good poetry--I've heard a million poets disparage Eliots' "The Wasteland" as trash; Jewel's 'A Night Without Armor' as merely okay-for-a-celeb; Robert Frost (say what you will but he had like...5? good ones... ok. maybe I agree a little there.); and any poems that shed a somewhat more positive light on love than most 'real' poets give to the subject, all things I've found at least somewhat lovely.

Maybe the bad taste was drilled into me early- The first book of poems I read that weren't written for kids/nursery rhymes/part of a Jewish prayer book (which, as a funny side note, I for years mistook to be the old testament of the bible), was Rod Mckuen's "With Love". I think I found it around when I was about 7/right after I'd moved to GA, in a pile of things belonging to the houses' previous owners my mom had cleaned out from the attic. Some of the poems do have happier edges, and I don't find it corny (though I'm sure there probably is some love poetry I would find corny [ie-anything resembling 95 % of 'pop' music], I think its nice hearing people celebrate having love rather than wanting it).

This spawned curiosity of more poetry when I was finally allowed to use the internet by myself (9/10ish)--which I found in poetry.com. Not realizing they probably accept most of what's submitted to them (since published people tend to want to buy the book their published in, and a few extra copies for relatives as well...), I started both reading thier apparently-debatably-good poetry as well as writing/submitting my own... 2 got published, one of which I got the book it was in, but then I started thinking of the probability of it being kind of scammy. Jewel was next; I always loved her music, pre-mtv days, and I remember loving a lot of her poems too, though I've since lost the book to see if that's still in my taste/don't remember much of what the subject was... (I was kind of 12 at the time...)

I continued writing poetry for a couple of years, but by the time I was in high school, things changed. Early on, increased drinking suppressed the sadness and the ability to evaluate how I was living life necessary for poetic thinking--and when I had to quit drinking, after the second round of alcohol poisoning within months of the first, there were other harder things to take its place. Being the definition of young and stupid, I moved from poetry to working on a really horrible 'novel' full of drug stories that didn't focus exactly on on particular characters but had certain points when some characters met the others... basically, it was a very confusing at one point 200-300 page pile of crap (and after I eliminated 'double stories'-ones which were mainly the same as the other pages but had been edited slightly or took the plot different places, it got down to 120. and then 72. and then 42. and as of recently, 0, because I don't see myself being anywhere close to the state of mind I was in when I wrote it...)

So, that killed a few years of possible poetry until I graduated high school. Long story short, a lot of things happened after I graduated that changed things (As I suppose probably happens with everyone around that time). I've been in some form of school since I was 2; that was gone. I filled the empty homework time by retreating to my old love, reading novels, and to something I had picked up in my scarce free time in high school, reading books on different religious faiths (in particular, I re-read John Snellings "The Buddhist Handbook" and the gospels of the bible alot...). This inspired a renewed interest in poetry.
Also about that time, I was losing faith in a relationship that had been there for 3 years; it had to disappear, for happiness true-to-oneself sake, but I still cared for his well-being, and it made me sadder than I could put into non-poetic words to have to end it. Renewance number two.

Working at Toys R Us didn't give me anything intelligent to think about on my off time, but it did show me why I hate working the only type of crappy jobs available to those without college degrees/special skills. Renewance number three, this one in bitter-angry-hate-the-system type of way.

Finally, after re-reading Kerouac's "On the Road" a couple years back/around this same time, I decided to check out "The Dharma Bums". The poetry in it is very zen, simple but indicative of reality in a beautiful way.

The poetry I enjoy writing these days tends to be on the shorter side/around 6-8 lines. Last year, amongst more relationship/financial problems, I retreated into longer emotion-driven poetry, and occasionally it does still pop up, especially once i hit despair over things going on in the general world as well as in my own life, but generally, the focus is more on spiritual issues and/or 'beyond'-statements about reality observed.

Admittedly, when it comes to wanting to achieve some sort of level of professional/good-enough-to-be-published writing, my focus is more on fiction. I don't know if its because I was exposed to so much more of that than poetry growing up, or if its just an innate-thick-brainedness that makes 'bad' poetry enjoyable and 'good' poetry sometimes confusing as hell... Or maybe, even though I fully recognize poetry to have the ability to have false narrators/played with the technique when I was young, I like being able to divide the activities I do to have purpose sacred onto itself, rather than everything just having the same purpose--

In my mind, fictional stories require one to put themselves in a mostly-if-not-completely different persona while poetry, at least when I write it, is meant to be something personal or impersonally inspirational. In both types of writing, one is showing the audience a certain effect without entirely leaving it up to direct statements.

I like leaving it at fiction when it comes to being someone else--its enjoyable to be completely out of ones element/own way of thinking sometimes (though often this doesn't come into play until after editing process), but poetry provides the other half of necessity-the need to be ones self/have a way to work things out without going into a rant-rave-straight-up-complaining-style (more simply, emotions without being emo).

Anyways, you get the point. I enjoy poetry because 90% of the time, writing it involves dropping the pretense/being 'true' in a more ultimate sense of the word, yet keeping a way to disguise the subject matter enough to allow some skillful ambiguity which can allow anyone reading it to make it their own/relatable OR which, when straightforward enough, brings people to some form of awareness previously neglected before.

Eurydice & Orpheus by Mark Iwin

Though all mythology is fairly interesting, I can' t claim much knowledge/study into it. So, admittedly, I had to google up the names. Upon seeing a brief retelling of the story, I instantly recognized the tale, if not the specifics.

When I clicked on the link for this poem, I expected it to go more in detail about the events in the story/be the 'whole' story. (Basically, a man faces the world of the dead to find his departed love, but disobeys the rules of getting her out by looking at her before they've reached the light of the upper/our world.)

I think in the poems narrow focus on just his craving for his love, how he couldn't not look/speak her name being that close, finally having her back after waiting so long... it worked very well, actually exceeding my first expectations.

I love the way it starts, with the comparison of his wish to turn his head the seed, in his mind, of all the things seeing her will bring, his uncertainty that if he looks back she'll even be there...and what the seed turns into, the beginning of his downfall. It fits in easily that he is trying to tell himself to wait, to remove the insecurity/have faith it'll happen...which is the hardest thing to do when singing loves name is the thing one has to avoid, even though he knows that "every time we speak we stun the word". The build up is well played out too--the reader can feel it as the wise logical words of wait start to fail for him as he becomes more and more enraptured in the humming-almost-speaking auditory feeling of her name on his lips. What lover could be that strong? --And then, the 'dismantling sound' it made when it actually came out, when he actually gave in and turned his head--to find how terrible it is, to free himself of the self-control trapping him away from his desire, and then have his desire turned away from him just for him having been so bold. A crushing defeat, to be 'watching, no longer waiting'--the thing he's wanted all along finally in front of him--to just disappear, 'like a shovel' (a second death, though this retelling doesn't go into detail of the first...)

Eurydice & Orpheus by Mark Iwin

Long her darkness there, his turning head
a seed, his longing the imagined foliage not
come, his uncertainty the yellow
leaves. "The here is her," he said, over and over

without turning round. Wait he kept
thinking, and he waited in that waiting
and knew every time we speak we stun
the word, so he hummed, but the humming

grew, each bee'd syllable toward
a name, and as he turned
almost surprised to read its sign—Eurydice
Eurydice—now the radio of his voice

dismantling sound. How terrible and free
he stood, watching, no longer
waiting, then she picked her beauty up
like a shovel and was gone.

Copyright © 2009 Mark Iwin All rights reserved
from Tall If
Western Michigan University
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission

Writer's Blog 2/16

I think the articles' saying something along the lines of "Don't avoid unconventional/taboo ways of expression if it encourages the making of something new" (the shit part) but I then I also think it could be totally making fun of that (since it brings up parodies right before...) or that maybe its making fun of what poetry is and saying we need to shit on those old definitions to allow poetry to expand into a less definable, more inclusive concept, though what the terms of such still remain unclear...

Then it goes onto manifestos, which there are many of in the world and almost always stand to be at conflict when one feels their manifesto to be the 'only truth'. Once again, I think this is making fun of this concept that there can be only one or that it could just be saying that we all need to make a manifesto to bind us to a new personalized/subjective definition of poetry...

But since I'm obviously unsure, forgive me if I'm totally off base...

Writer's Blog 2/11

So, for this first half of the semester in my fiction class, we have to do these creative exercises that are all mostly between 200-650 words. But I have a tendency to overwrite (to between 1100-2000). And then I have to downsize.
And my teacher had some good suggestions on how to eliminate stuff. But its methodical/could take forever, so I have to eye it up sometimes. And then, somehow…eek.

My last exercise was on an ‘absent’ character, that is, other characters had to give an impression of a character who does not appear in the story through dialogue, body language, communication, thoughts, etc. I originally wrote 1400 words. It had to be 400 words. It began as a story of mourning, a return to a gravesite on the dead friends birthday and the reactions it elicited more with the other characters and a certain amount of interpersonal conflicts between them and I was contemplating the possibility of making it trippy so the characters somehow had the experience of blinking in one place to find themselves in another of the past that infiltrates/confuses the present. It ended, after being edited, into being not much more then a lame cliché drug story, with people reminiscing about experiences of doing drugs and encountering police and gangs with said dead person--something that may be made interesting in a present tense if countered with some other kind of underlying/additional plot but in retrospect is just…dull, overdone, heard a million times, reminiscent in itself of a naïve time years ago when getting high was the most exciting thing rather than the same old thing that helps enhance more interesting/unique experiences that life has to offer…

Writer's Blog 2/9

Originally was just going to review a book of poetry I was familiar with, but since we can't do compilations of various poets (for reasoning I can't quibble with), that category may apply to only a few choices (Jewel, Rod McKuen, Shel Silverstein).

Decision - (thanks to James's help): Lucia Perillo's Dangerous Life

Writer's Blog 2/4

In attempts to avoid begging the question what 'weird' should mean here, I'm going to assume it to apply to occurences which are both not of a 'common' everyday nature and which are controversial due to partial or complete inability of one to fully explain the inner workings of what happens during the event (though I'm forced for conveniences' sake to ignore the hesitancy this begs, since one who believes in God or science may use either to explain away what otherwise would be magical or 'weird' occurences...)

Thinking this over for the past few days, I worry the weird things that have happened in my life beg the same question as above, fitting too narrowly into my worldview (meaning I can explain it based on my beliefs, so even if others might not share the same worldview or think of my explanation as reasonable, in my subjective realm I don't think it would fit the criteria of 'weird'ness this assignment commands) or delving too far into more personal spiritual experiences that don't beg broadcasting...

I suppose I just feel most things (I want to say everything but feel thats too absolute) have explanations, even if at times they are not objectively agreed on by everyone what the explanation is. So, here's my thing. Its more of a strange occurence, but I think it fits the general connotaional definition I feel is appropriate for 'weird'.

[ghost/near death/strange sight occurances (that have happened to too many other people for there, in my conclusion, not to be some reasonable explanation, though it may not be an empirical one) aside-]

Its happened on multiple occasions. I'll be walking along, getting distracted by natures beauty or the cities varying sights, and--right in the middle of putting my foot down--I'll snap out of it just in time to catch my foot before it crushes a small dead creature that somehow has found its way into the middle of the paths that people walk all day long and somehow have themselves managed to avoid--and each time I've jumped away with a "What the hell?" feeling. I've almost crushed slugs, snails, birds and once, feeling like the scariest simple should've-been-less-dramatic-event I've gone through, a dead cat that made me jump a good ten feet and had me shaken the rest of the day. And it always goes like that. no real reason that I can see, but its happened a good 7-9 (slight loss of count) times, and every time I've avoided actually stepping on the animal from sometime between right-before-the-step up to right-before-the-crushing-landing-of-foot-weight (thankfully missed. who wants dead raw animal on their boot? eww.)

Instrumental Poetry

Instrumental music (no lyrics) which comes the closest to evoking the idea/feeling of poetry: Miles Davis - Bitches Brew

Writer's Blog 1/28

Quelling ADD can be as simple sometimes as being able to focus on someones eyes as they talk. The way they scan and focus, light up or dim away in context with what their saying--the way the forhead scrunches and swells, cheeks puffing up like balloons or relaxing the face lengthwise, the chin stretching from side to side--the way hands like to clammer about in the air, toes tapping, legs twisting and stretching... Words can materialize themselves through body language (unless the muscles are frozen).

Poetry words=body language of the universe?

The abstract border where words and emotions meet?

The interweaving of fibers of physical quality with fibers of emotional quality in a way that allows the recreation of the experience on a subtler, more subconscious level of another persons psyche?

The invocation of an emotion through even the most seemingly mundane events depicted (and at the most, the invocation of an emotion through the most spectacularly intense events as well)?

A way to sketch a scene clear enough to have form but ambiguous enough to lack set/objective definition?



Maybe this is one of the many things which would remain better undefined.



Todays news, past tense

Its the Afghan Militia, armed to the teeth, our soldiers delivered their guns on time, gave proper training, we're waiting for them to kill each other--or what's left of us.

Because lava engulfed Alaska
Fire and water swallowed California

And Florida

And the Tokyo hospitals were so full injured victims were turned away

To their deaths.


Attention

We need flying Mynah birds like in Huxley's Island constantly chirping us to pay attention, to remember that we are not where we were yesterday nor have we yet reached where we may be in the sea of potential tomorrows but in the now, even if in the now just means stuck in a messy room with dull walls brightened only by the sun hitting the perfect angle in the sky to pour its warm stream of light through the small window, the faint smell of burnt green goodness lingering in the air. Poetry/lyrical depictions in fiction remind one of small but important details such as this, reminds one not to leave 'now' empty with distracted thoughts. These details reside in the present, not just as something that will serve as a pleasant memory later but as something meant to be a pleasant experience now because even in the most dull boring time there are still things around worth noting, whether they be pleasant or ugly or plain, that--like poetry--can remind one what existence is about, in a way that may be happy or sad or simply observant but is always immersed in the surrounding, aware both of the hard uncomfortable seat under ones ass and the lovely reflections of light glimmering off hair that's fallen into the warmed face, of both the startling loud noise of the train blowing its harsh horn, the sweet soft burbling of water in a nearby stream, and the in between noise of leaves rustling and crackling as a squirrel darts through.

Explication of Anne Sexton's "Her Kind"

Anne Sexton's "Her Kind" tells the story of a woman progressing through 3 different situations of alienation, each provoking a different emotion (maybe 3 different women?). The poem seems to be about a 'witch' who then moves into a cave and eventually is so outcast/the people are so scared of they burn her/send her to the gallows, but whether it was meant literally or metaphorically may be another matter-it could be just about a woman who is first an outcast/the subject of gossip in society, then an alienated-from-society woman living in a cave in the woods, and finally the subject of an execution.
In the first stanza she talks of being a 'witch' possessed by bravery and dreaming 'evil' things, but it makes me wonder if this isn't some kind of irony-
When talking about being some 'kind' of thing, who decides what 'her kind' is like but the crowd? It feels like she's relaying an outside image of 'her kind' more then actually casting herself in guilty admission in this stanza, though that's possible as well.
In the second stanza she seems to be talking of removing herself to a sanctuary of a 'cave', and whether this is literal or metaphorical it definately takes on the connotation of her making someplace removed from society her home, though once again this is one of those things that could also be read as her being kicked out of society and then still gossiped about with fantastical tales about feeding worms and elves.
The last stanza is the execution scene--she is brought through the streets still waving her bare arms at the villagers and once again bringing up bravery (or at least the lack of fear), this time in matters of dying, seems to still express a you-can't-touch-me/proud sort of emotion.
Either that or she too believes she's guilty and deserves death...
This is one of those poems that seems to be able to be read either way...
The speaker is a woman set to be on the outside of the situation, an onlooker who sympathizes with/has been through the same stuff as the woman actually going through the trial and tribulation, or perhaps the woman herself speaking in 3rd point of view, except she had to phrase it this way since its impossible to speak through the grave with 1st person pov. I'm not sure who the speaker is talking to--maybe herself; it seems like a private admission.
Once again, the attitude is either between pride of being 'her kind' to indignation at having to be called 'her kind' with all the outside stipulations of gossipers attached to it OR guilt at having been 'her kind' to understanding why she had to die, though i'd like to vote on the former/my first reading through's interpretation due to phrases such as how she was 'braver at night' and she didn't seem to mind to be 'possessed' or 'dreaming of evil' (what if this is just a statement of it could've been she was dreaming of escaping old school women limitations rather then actually causing evil?) and how she talks of not doing evil things in the second stanza and her usage of the word "misunderstood" rather than "evil" when showing the actual close-up examples of what made others think her a 'witch'.
A somber tone of voice seems appropriate for reading through all of this, maybe a little bolder at the beginning of the stanzas "I have gone out"; "I have found"; "I have ridden"and then somber at the end.

Regarding the structure of the poem, I think the poet knew that having all similarly lengthed stanzas that used repetition at the ending was effective at giving an ultimate sense of connection throughout the poem. The poem seems to develop chronologically, if its given its about one woman instead of three. It moves from ironic self-ridicule/mocking of others ridicule to a "Live proud of what you are, die proud of what you are" attitude.

There are 21 sentences in the poem (3 sets of 7), there are some simple sentences, some complicated. Some of the verbs are placed in front of the nouns ('dreaming evil') because evil dreaming makes it seem like the dreaming is evil instead of she is dreaming of evil things/evil things up.
There are commas, semi-colons and periods in the poem, the punctuation does not always coincide with the end of the poetic line, though it does sometimes. The punctuation in the middle of the line seems to be in order to make the poem flow more naturally. The title is repeated throughout the poem and is made for people to really re-think what is meant when she says "Her Kind"/what her intention is with the poem.
The language seems simple but descriptive. The first stanza leaves a creepy feeling, her 'haunting the black air' and going amongst the houses at night, someone with 12 fingers whose not quite a woman...the 2nd stanza leaves a comfortable feeling though, homey, with her 'warm caves in the woods' with all the trinkets she fills it with, feeding the 'worms/elves' reminds one of how someone would feed a family, 'whining, rearraging the disalligned" resembling housework. Like she wants to make a house, but her own way. The third stanza's mood is one somewhere near indignation, like its an injustice for her to die; this is especially shown through the depiction of her riding through the streets and burning/her ribs cracking. The end of the stanza also holds another mood though-one the audience is seeming to be given to respect, that she wouldn't let them have the satisfaction of shaming her with thier mislabeling of her person/character/judgemental attitudes towards her life, even in death.
The allusion in this poem would be to witch trials that have taken place over the century against odd or adultrous women who first were outcast and later burnt by fear-filled villagers unwilling to attempt to begin to understand a different point of view/accept a different lifestyle.
Using this allusion and all the figurative language that goes with it intensifies the effect of the poem deeply, putting set concrete events to frame a situation that may be very different then the exact one put down.
Its not a rhyming poem, the effect is satisfying, the tonal effect of the rhythym here is that it seems to go from quiet/less effective to powerful matter-of-fact-speaking.
The poem creates a 'no-shame' mood on the reader, the technical elements helped the poet create this effect by allowing her to bring three subsequent situations of alienation/typecasting by others together to show the damage it can bring--and that it doesn't work, because even in death the others fail to kill her spirit (and, as a warning to future witch hunters-why do something pointless when they won't let you the satisfaction?)