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Critical Analysis #2
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Grinch
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since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929
Whoville

0 posted 2007-10-24 02:56 PM



Those eyes hawked, flashed grass upon a greener hill
Wooed me with their beat
Two-timed our pulses raced,
Caught, held me once, they hold me captured still.

That silken mane, that soft and flowing frame
I bolted eager to that purse,
Lungs filled to burst with scent,
Entangled within those tresses I helplessly remain.

Sweet whispering lips, whose ruby beckoned call
Set me on this course,
With tongue tied muscles ache
Whose dumb lines tripping stumbled me to fall.


© Copyright 2007 Grinch - All Rights Reserved
chopsticks
Senior Member
since 2007-10-02
Posts 888
The US,
1 posted 2007-10-24 06:22 PM


Grinch, do you play the ponies ?

If you don’t, you should. You would be good at handicapping .

oceanvu2
Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066
Santa Monica, California, USA
2 posted 2007-10-26 07:27 PM


Hi Grinch!

This one is really a learning experience for me.  Aside from the fact that it is excellent metaphor, it's a beautiful example of being formal whithout following a format.  (At least, not one that I am familiar with.)

This may be off the mark, and is not the sort of thing I usually do or care about in the presence of a poem, but there are discussions going on about form, so, for the heck of it, this is what I get:

Rhyme Scheme:  Consistent within stanzas, yet elusive overall.  There is a connection through the stanzas with off rhyme that ultimately ties them together, but I'm not sure I can explain it without doing a word for word.  And I don't know that even I would understand my own explication.  Part of the wonderful mystery of how things work when they work.

Syllable count:  Charmingly inconsistent.

This is one of the ways, for me, in which structure and the noetic coincide.  "Free" and "rigorous" combined.

I don't understand the referential syntax of the third stanza.  Anyone offering a "booby prize?"

Best, Jim
.

Oh, that this too too solid flesh would melt

Grinch
Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929
Whoville
3 posted 2007-10-27 08:59 AM



So what you’re saying Jim is it’s not quite free verse, it’s not quite a form, the rhyme scheme is flawed, there’s no consistent meter, the meaning is obscure, the syllable count is inconsistent, it’s grammatically incorrect and yet it still works and is recognisable as a poem.



Seems all my hard work didn’t go un-noticed after all, the three meanings it contains btw are the hunt for love, the hunt for game (from the perspective of the prey) and the hunt for the definition of poetry.

I’m glad you mentioned the recent discussions regarding form because I was prompted to post this due to those discussions, I thought it might be interesting to examine what isn’t necessary to produce a poem as well as what is.

So is it a poem, and if so why?



chopsticks
Senior Member
since 2007-10-02
Posts 888
The US,
4 posted 2007-10-27 06:29 PM


Grinch, , when the novelty  wears off and you no longer have anything to lose , will you tell us which stanza are which or are the meanings intermingled. Here’s my guess

Stanza # 1 hunt for game ?

Stanza # 2 hunt for love ?

Stanza # 3 hunt for poetry ?

My original guess was you describing a triple crown winner.


Grinch
Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929
Whoville
5 posted 2007-10-27 06:51 PM


quote:
Grinch, , when the novelty  wears off and you no longer have anything to lose , will you tell us which stanza are which or are the meanings intermingled.


Sorry if I was unclear, all three are intermingled, I only mentioned them to avoid re-hashing the argument regarding interpreting obscure poems.

quote:
My original guess was you describing a triple crown winner.


I know, and a very good interpretation it was too and just as valid as the three I gave.


oceanvu2
Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066
Santa Monica, California, USA
6 posted 2007-10-28 10:05 AM


Hi Grinch -- I'm not ignoring your question, I'm thinking.  Clearly, you have patience.

Best, Jim

oceanvu2
Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066
Santa Monica, California, USA
7 posted 2007-10-28 02:17 PM


Hi Grinch!

RE:

“So what you’re saying Jim is it’s not quite free verse, it’s not quite a form, the rhyme scheme is flawed, there’s no consistent meter, the meaning is obscure, the syllable count is inconsistent, it’s grammatically incorrect and yet it still works and is recognisable as a poem."

Yes, that’s what I’m saying

RE:  “the hunt for the definition of poetry.”  

I don’t know how to define something that is myriad in form and constantly in flux,  except to suggest that poetry involves a type of communication dependent upon engagement, and provokes an emotional response in both writer and reader.

Here’s a brief go for starters.  Two assertions:

Writing and reading poetry are processes.
Recognizing poetry is an event.

Both process and event are experiential, but they are not the same.

It is dancing in Milton’s (and John Press’)  chequer'd shade.  

That’s about as broad a generalization as I can come up with, and, while I am biased toward form, I hope it includes some free form dancers of my (give or take) generation. These notions were specifically influenced Charles Olson’s essay on projective verse and his work in field composition.  If I remember, one of Olson’s contentions was that form is always a function of content.

It might be interesting to note that even the most radical poets of this era were almost all university educated (though not all bothered to graduate.)   Creeley, Duncan, O’Hara, Merton, Ginsberg, and Bukowski were all well “versed” in the traditions.

RE:  “I thought it might be interesting to examine what isn’t necessary to produce a poem as well as what is.”

One of the things not mentioned before which can be left out of a poem is “language” as we generally understand it.  Quick and obvious example:  Jabberwocky

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.”

Go figure.

As to “The Hunt,” is it a poem or isn’t it?

It is, if one accepts the above attempt at definition.
It is, if one accepts someone else’s definition.


Still thinking on it.  Jim


Grinch
Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929
Whoville
8 posted 2007-10-29 06:05 AM


quote:
I don’t know how to define something that is myriad in form and constantly in flux,  except to suggest that poetry involves a type of communication dependent upon engagement, and provokes an emotional response in both writer and reader.


Jim,

I agree, though I think it’s important to emphasis that the writer, in the case of a specific poem, is singular and the readers are (hopefully) many and as diverse as the types and forms of poetry. This is important when we consider your point that the process of reading and writing are tied to experience.

When it comes to poetry experience takes two forms, there’s poetic experience, the ability to recognise metaphor, meter and rhyme forms along with all the other trappings that make a poem a poem. Then there’s the other experience, the one that discerns meaning, you could call this life experience, it’s from where the writer draws his inspiration and from where the readers draw their conclusions.

So where does “The Hunt” fit into all this?

I wrote this poem a couple of years ago, the intention was to make it as hard to define using poetic experience in the hope that the reader(s) would concentrate on their own life experience to give it meaning. Following the recent discussions regarding form and the definition of poetry I thought it would be interesting to re-post the poem but give (my) meaning away early on just to see what people would comment on (if anything).

To be honest I wasn’t expecting many replies, I thought that the people who like to criticize poetics wouldn't find much to comment on due to the lack of poetics and the people who were interested in meaning would be satisfied with my interpretation. Then along you came and opened up the opportunity to try to work out why it works on a poetic level without all the stalwart devices that are normal constituents of poems.

I don’t know the answer by the way in case you’re wondering.

I didn’t miss the reference to Olson, his methods and impact are probably worth a thread of their own though.

Jabberwocky was an ace I was holding up my sleeve in case anyone mentioned language, I guess I should have realised that I’m not the only one with sleeves.



oceanvu2
Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066
Santa Monica, California, USA
9 posted 2007-10-29 06:08 PM


Grinch,

RE:  “I think it’s important to emphasis that the writer, in the case of a specific poem, is singular and the readers are (hopefully) many and as diverse as the types and forms of poetry.”

OK, but the interaction is still one on one, between the reader and the poem, and, as you have suggested before, the writer may well be out of the picture at this point.  There is another whole school of thought devoted to picking lint from poet’s pockets in order to divine the “true” meaning of a poem from the poet’s perspective.  

I’m not trying to suggest anything that you personally don’t already know, but I have noticed that there are people who don’t have a clue as to what is going on.  And this is a discussion, so I’m just discussing.

“When it comes to poetry experience takes two forms, there’s poetic experience, the ability to recognise metaphor, meter and rhyme forms along with all the other trappings that make a poem a poem.”

Pretty much true, IMAO.  (“IMAO” is the opposite of “IMHO.”  I think I made that up.      This seems to be why people go to “school,” formally or informally.  I’m not suggesting as an absolute that people who don’t read can’t write.  There’s an argument to be made for the power of the primitive impulse.  And there is an equally strong argument which suggests that most poets are ahead of the curve.  Who was reading Beowulf, or writing early ballads?  Cobblers?  Wainwrights?  I think not.

But sooner or later, school’s out.  Which leads us to:

“Then there’s the other experience, the one that discerns meaning, you could call this life experience, it’s from where the writer draws his inspiration and from where the readers draw their conclusions.”

Aye!, or Oy! There’s the rub.  We seem to be in a period of cultural illiteracy, or maybe referential illiteracy, and it goes across the board.  Jennifer Maxwell posted a poem here which clearly and intentionally referred to the Holocaust.  How this could be missed by respondents is beyond me.  She wasn’t talking about an obscure event which occurred in, say, 1320, but one which affected, altered, or created the latter half of the 20th century.  Bizarre.

At the same time, I agree with what I think is your underlying notion that a reader at age 20 cannot read “King Lear” with the same level of insight as a reader at age 60.  A reader (or writer) at age 20 may have had a heap of life experiences to draw upon, but they can’t have had (or may have trouble projecting) the experience of age or Lear’s anguish.

“So where does “The Hunt” fit into all this?”

For one thing, it is not “referential.”  It does not rely on “presumed knowledge” on the part of the reader.  It allows, as you intend, the reader to bring to it whatever he or she might have in his or her internal archives.  This is a pretty lofty objective, and you seem to have accomplished it.

I’m going to get self-referential here, though I think its on point, and ask for indulgence.

In my previous post, I mention Milton.  His work, I think, should be part of a common cultural heritage.  I then mention “the chequer’d shade.”  This is a little tougher.  Folks with a general knowledge of whom Milton was may not, at the same time, be familiar with “Allegro.”  Folks familiar with “Allegro,” may or may not have gotten the point of line 96.  (Yeah, had to Google that one for the line number).  Folks familiar with all of the above, may or may not be familiar with John Press and his book of poetic analysis, “The Chequer’d Shade,”  which wasn’t about Milton, but a seminal work on contemporary poetics.  (Didn't have to Google that one.  That's where I grew up.)

What does all that mean?  Not a damned thing, except as an example of what a reader might bring with him or her to a poem, or, in this case, a consciously anti-poem.

I defend myself:  The references tend toward the obscure, but they are not pretentious.  This is stuff I have in my head, and bring to reading a poem.  Other’s will, as you do indeed state, bring something else, and others, as you don’t state, will have nothing to bring to the party.

For reasons which I don’t understand and can’t explain,  I choose to write structured verse without using metaphor, even when being silly.  This IMAO, is every bit as wacky a choice as Essorant makes.   .

Finally (subject to revision) a thread on Charles Olson might be a case of “fools rushing in.”

Do you teach, Grinch?

Best, Jim

[This message has been edited by oceanvu2 (10-29-2007 06:41 PM).]

Grinch
Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929
Whoville
10 posted 2007-10-29 07:47 PM


quote:
Do you teach, Grinch?


No, I learn.  

I don’t think we’re that far apart on poetic experience, you could probably sum it up by saying that you have to know the rules before you can bend or break them.

How you get that knowledge is a moot point, I personally have no formal training in literature, poetic or otherwise. I do however have a knack for absorbing information and being absorbed in anything that interests me and I read, I read anything and everything I can get my hands on and I like to think I learn.

As to life experience we aren’t that far apart either, though I’m a little reluctant to draw a direct correlation between wisdom or understanding and age, I know that’s not what you meant, I thought I’d just clarify the point.

You mentioned the one to one relationship between the reader and the poem, I think that’s worth delving into especially as we're in a forum for critical analysis. I’ve noticed that a lot of people are comfortable offering analysis based on poetic experience but few people tend to offer an interpretation based on life experience – they don’t try to unravel the thinking behind the words.

I don’t know but perhaps that’s what happened with Jen’s poem, people are reluctant for some reason to say what they think they’re reading about. Milton is a case in point.

Well here’s putting my money where my mouth is.

I read L'Allegro a long time ago along with the companion piece Il Penseroso, while most people take them to be expressions of melancholy and mirth respectively, or day and night I’m drawn towards Roy Flannagan’s suggestion that they are both representations of poetic styles and the mechanics of how poems are constructed.

quote:
Finally (subject to revision) a thread on Charles Olson might be a case of “fools rushing in.”


How’s an angel going to learn without leaping in with both feet?  

Olson did something interesting, he created the equivalent of sheet music for poetry, I can see the reasoning behind trying to control the reader, I could have used his suggestion myself in the hunt:

Two-timed our pulses raced,
Caught, held me once, they hold me captured still.

Should be read:

Two-timed our pulses raced,
Caught/held me once, they hold me captured still.

The problem is would people understand what the / was for?

[This message has been edited by Grinch (10-30-2007 11:09 AM).]

serenity blaze
Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738

11 posted 2010-07-22 11:15 PM


I just read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stag_hunt

which reminded me of this--

and I am lmao.

Genius.

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