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Critical Analysis #1
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donovan blue
Junior Member
since 1999-09-21
Posts 26
austin,tx,usa

0 posted 1999-09-25 09:08 PM


valium and red wine -
climbing the rock face
and then falling again...

her eyes move my soul
and when surrender bears my
vulnerability,
I feel mysteriously powerful.

the air we breathe is thick.
a violent ascent into the inferno -
willingly walking into the pyre.

crazy love - this of yours and mine,
a marriage between valium
and sweet red wine...

© Copyright 1999 donovan blue - All Rights Reserved
Brad
Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705
Jejudo, South Korea
1 posted 1999-09-27 04:28 AM


Donavan,
You need a title to cement the whole thing together. Well, like it or not, you're the first one to get interpretation time. This is a style of criticism where the reader tells the writer what he or she is trying to say (in that reader's opinion). A lot of writers and readers get stumped by a poem because they don't know what it means. But, everybody forgets that while the writer does own the words, he or she doesn't own the meaning. This may seem obvious to you but I've gotten into debates over this very proposition.

There are only two points to worry about in an interpretation. Is it interesting? Is it persuasive? In other words, did anybody raise their eyebrow and go "hmmmm" and does it look like the words fit the interpretation -- do you buy it? Right and wrong disappear because, well, everything is open to interpretation. For both the writer and the reader, it can open up doors to new thoughts and, of course, new poems.

Here we go:

It seems you have two basic images working to complement each other: a couple enjoying a dangerous mix of drugs followed by sex and a couple ascending a volcano.

valium and red wine -
climbing the rock face
and then falling again...

The set up. You've got two things going on here. Taking valium and red wine is like climbing a rock face and the danger of falling again (or falling into a volcano); in the sexual scene, it is the inevitable coming down from a high and the possibility of death.

her eyes move my soul
and when surrender bears my
vulnerability,
I feel mysteriously powerful.

A focus on the male member of the couple who is drawn into the eyes of his partner (or the volcano seen as a goddess? Or a fusion of the volcano and the partner? Power and death all rolled up in one). At this point, close to the lethal danger of the top, the moment where he realizes he is the most powerless, he feels powerful. This is common enough in drug use (when you are controlled, you feel the illusion of strength) and it is also, perhaps, felt at the final acceptance of death -- nothing matters anymore (the illusion of freedom).

the air we breathe is thick.
a violent ascent into the inferno -
willingly walking into the pyre.

The couple have ascended (reached a high) to the pinnacle of a volcano where the air is thick due to the heat and noxious fumes (sex and drug atmosphere). Passion takes over and death is willingly walked into. I would also argue that the pyre means the act of sex (sex and death together, not all that far fetched)


crazy love - this of yours and mine,
a marriage between valium
and sweet red wine...


However, in both cases they have survived. How they survived the volcano, I don't have the faintest idea. Maybe the goddess saved them or something.
The love (sex) is as crazy as jumping into a volcano, taking the chance of mixing drugs simply to have a heightened sexual encounter.

An element of common sense has returned with the use of 'crazy' (yeah, I think it means both 'cool' and 'clinically insane' at the same time). I even feel a hint of regret in this final stanza.

Well, what do you think?

No, it's not a college paper; you've got to be lot more rigorous than I am here and probably have a poem with a stronger form and more detail (sorry donavan) but it is a way to play with your imagination and stimulate ideas in others.

It does take a bit more time but writing poetry is also about creating meaning with words. Why not try it with someone else's sometime?

This one's pretty in depth for a forum but, what the hell, you could just throw out ideas and see what happens.

Brad

Iloveit
Senior Member
since 1999-09-02
Posts 1121
NM
2 posted 1999-09-27 01:09 PM


brad you are doing great, I had a lot of what you wrote in my head after reading this poem, but could not have put it down so clearly, I do feel all of the images fit until the last stanza, it is a bit out of place....
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