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Open Poetry #42
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April 20, 2008
| Open Poetry #42 |
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April 20, 2008 |
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Master Senior Member
since 1999-08-18
Posts 1867Boston, MA 
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Seagulls are crying, like no one can hear them, Elephant ears, lobster-tails with butter, A bear of a dog and the little one near him, And old photographs, - everything’s cluttered, The wind from the sea is piercing and brutal, Bare feet on the pavement, fake props for a movie, A warm cup of coffee and a chocolate strudel, And rocks on the coastline, - everything’s moving, A woman from Norway whose English is German, A bummed cigarette and a garden of flowers, The opera singer, the street that we turned on, The bench that we sat on - everything’s ours… |
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| © Copyright 2008 Andrey Kneller - All Rights Reserved | |||
Marge Tindal 
since 1999-11-06
Posts 42384Florida's Foreverly Shores |
Andrey~ Always good to have a post from you~ 'The bench that we sat on - everything’s ours…' Such serenity in the summation~ *Huglets*  ~*Marge*~ ~*The sound of a kiss is not as strong as that of a cannon, but it's echo endures much longer*~ |
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gilead Senior Member
since 2008-03-10
Posts 1067nevada, USA |
The choice thereof, and the juxtaposition of images are magnificent! Art |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Seagulls are crying, like no one can hear them, Elephant ears, lobster-tails with butter, A bear of a dog and the little one near him, And old photographs, - everything’s cluttered, The wind from the sea is piercing and brutal, Bare feet on the pavement, fake props for a movie, A warm cup of coffee and a chocolate strudel, And rocks on the coastline, - everything’s moving, A woman from Norway whose English is German, A bummed cigarette and a garden of flowers, The opera singer, the street that we turned on, The bench that we sat on - everything’s ours… Dear Master, The concreteness of this is very nice indeed. Also the poem has a strategy to it which gathers momentum and leads to the ending and the ending itself feels integral to the poem. That to my mind makes the poem shapely. Also a fine thing. The dactyls and the anapests aren't frequently used, are a touch disconcerting, but I think you pull them off pretty well. Not many folks in this particular age and milieu could manage that without the verse getting totally away from them, and it appears you have, pretty much. It's clear you've spent a lot of time working on the formality of the verse and done very well at it. The actual vocabulary and diction and the way you use them need some sharpening, I believe. The first line you use invites the reader to ask what you mean. What do the cries of seagulls have to do with whether they should be heard or not. Then the reader has to stop and think, Oh yes, he's saying that the seagull should be ashamed of crying so loudly. At that point—at least for this reader—it was off to the races, and I was lost to the poem and into my internal dialogue: "But that's so un-sea gull like. They don't care at all. They're like rats, really. But then of course he's identifying with the sea-gulls and his own shyness." It went on longer, and all that time I wasn't engaged with your poem, which is where I should have been. I can think of two possible fixes if you see this as a problem. First, to use the most straightforward and absolutely descriptive line you can come up with but use language that makes it crackle, like some of the poems from the Greek Anthology. Or come up with a truly outrageous first line that is so strange there is scarcely anything about it for the reader to argue with. Say the first line of Stevens' "Bantam in a Pine Woods." Elephant ears, lobster-tails with butter A bear of a dog and the little one near him It wouldn't hurt to be specific about what the little dog was. As for the elephant ears and lobster tails, the first is a pastry and there are times the second is as well. When you mention the butter, you bring up the question of place, which is often so important in a poem. You don't really give the reader a place from which to observe the things and events happening in the poem until the end so it's unclear to the reader whether we are looking at two dogs turning over trash with their noses in an alley behind an Italian restaurant restaurant or two diners out for a walk after a wonderful meal or something else entirely. Time a reader spends speculating on these things is time he spends away from your poem, and it dilutes the effect of the poem on him. "fake props for a movie" is a tautology. You need place, you need tracking to keep the reader oriented and just a little work to sharpen up some of the details. You seem to work much better than most with rhyme; certainly much better than I'm usually able to do. I enjoyed this piece a great deal. Best, Bob K. |
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