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Open Poetry #42
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Transience (II)
| Open Poetry #42 |
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Transience (II) |
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secondhanddreampoet Member Ascendant
since 2006-11-07
Posts 6394a 'Universalist' ! 
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Transience (II) the world is… a warm, sweet sunset, reflected in the last drop of falling rain. [This message has been edited by secondhanddreampoet (02-03-2008 09:16 PM).] |
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| © Copyright 2008 Bruce E. Adams Jr. - All Rights Reserved | |||
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TomMark Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133LA,CA |
Extremely Beautiful, sad though. -------- on the fresh non-gravity earth. ------ |
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Bobby Jordan Member
since 2007-08-13
Posts 491Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
Secondhanddreampoet, The words go together well in this poem. However, the world is much more complex than that. Bobby |
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secondhanddreampoet Member Ascendant
since 2006-11-07
Posts 6394a 'Universalist' ! |
The 'point' was that the only 'certain certainty' is flux and change...regardless of any particular level of complexity in any given time and place...all is transient! [this universe has undergone some 15 billion years of ever- evolving (and increasing) transient 'complexity!'] |
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Midnitesun
since 2001-05-18
Posts 28647Gaia |
When I think of transience, I see a mayfly. |
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Artic Wind Member Rara Avis
since 2007-09-16
Posts 8080Realm of Supernatural |
Very Beautiful! ARCTIC WIND |
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secondhanddreampoet Member Ascendant
since 2006-11-07
Posts 6394a 'Universalist' ! |
yes...I imagine I could have said a mayfly reflected in that drop of rain! [rather the quintessence of 'transience'] |
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Marchmadness Member Rara Avis
since 2007-09-16
Posts 9271So. El Monte, California |
Warm, sweet sunsets and falling rain, Two of my favorite things. Transcience... not so much but all together it makes a beautiful poem. Ida |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear secondhanddreampoet, Transience (II) the world is… a warm, sweet sunset, reflected in the last drop of falling rain. You've got a good strong poetic impulse here and you're reaching hard for the poem but I don't believe you've broken through yet. You're on the edge. Let me go through pretty much on a line by line basis and talk about this if I may. The Title: Transience (II) Normally, I feel that a poem isn't finished without a title. In a poem of this length, however, titles aren't obligatory. To talk about a poem of this length as being about Transience is a distraction from the poem itself. To put the (II) in afterward makes it even more a poem about thought rather than an offering of direct experience. I know you know about the importance of direct experience because I see how hard you are working for it here, and how close you've come. If you hadn't come SO close, mixed blessing, I wouldn't be writing you about this stuff. The World is... This is an attempt at a first line that speaks to the actual terror of facing a poem in its initial empty state. There's nothing there, and all there is is what you decide to put there. There could be any subject, which is mind boggling in the extreme. So what happened is that you did what most of us do from time to time, you went large. The World is... That's a bit large. If God hasn't finished that one yet, you're not going to, even if you get started early and keep at it. So you did what any sensible person would do, and went small next. a warm, sweet sunset, A big improvement, but you didn't take out the first try. You probably didn't think of it as a first try, but think back on your process. First big, and trying to tackle the world, and then trying to cut the subject down to size, something minimal that a guy can actually get a grip on. That's why the line about what the world is should probably come out. It's like a bid in bridge or hearts, you can't deliver, and in poetry you've got to try to make your bid. That's part of the pleasure of it. I know you tend to like short poems, but there's a longish 18th century poem by Christopher Smart called "Song To David" with a fantastic poetic bid to it, including a very complex scheme of rhyme and meter and a complex poems of celebration about King David and Smart who has just essentially gotten out of the loony bin for a serious and prolonged bout of manic depressive disorder pulls off this tour do force of a poem with possibly the most triumphant last line in English poetry. You'd have to read the poem to get the full impact and I'll be codswallopped if I let the cat out of the bag anyway, but it's simply boggling. Enough of the digression! a warm, sweet sunset, is where we were before I so rudely interrupted myself. I know what a sunset is, secondhanddreampoet. Both of us do. On the other hand, there is nothing specific about "a warm, sweet sunset." The problem with that is that you didn't recognize that warm and sweet as adjectives are too heavily overused to be of much use to a poet these days, and that you probably thought that you were saying something when the words you chose masked you from the very impact you thought you were having. That you deserved to be having, from the amount of energy and the amount of risk it probably felt like you were taking. Part of the problem here is that people mostly only THINK they are seeing, hearing, smelling, touching and tasting the world. Instead of using the full range of words we have available to match our sensory experiences, many people simply limit themselves to a few basic ones as if they were actually specific enough to convey what's going on in the world and inside our selves. Then again, many people simply don't have that range of physical and sensory experience and must teach themselves what the sensation of deftness feels like. What clumsiness feels like in comparison to that. what one smell is in relationship to another, painstakingly. That's not you. You're simply not used to extending the full range of your imagination into a sunset, and making that sunset particular. You haven't decided, for example, if you want to talk about the smell of this sunset as a way of making it real to yourself and your readers. Or the sound of it. Not all sunsets need to be warm. The sweetness of this sunset could be of many different types, all of them more specific and less shopworn than the word sweet. You haven't asked yourself about what it is you're actually being party to with this sunset, and as a result you've missed it. You've given us an average sunset, when you were reaching for and could have gotten much more, if you'd thought to look in a bit more detail at what actually made this sunset different. I am actually puzzled as to why you've tucked the word "sunset" onto another line. It doesn't need to be there. a warm, sweet sunset, seems to work, although the adjectives. . . not so much. But I've already said my piece on that. reflected in the last drop of falling rain. Not bad. They cohere. It's going to be pretty difficult to see the image you offer. Rain falls quickly. The eye doesn't focus that quickly. The light, by virtue of it being sunset and all, isn't so great. A person probably wouldn't actually see the image you present, and the tradition you're looking for is a meditative one. You'd probably want to leave the reader with a single deep image rather than a question about how could this actually happen. It takes away from the theme. You probably want to cast about some more, but basically you've done most of the work you were trying to do above but hadn't come to grips with. It's only a bit more shifting around to find the right meditative image, and you're home. I hope this is of some use. Bob K, |
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secondhanddreampoet Member Ascendant
since 2006-11-07
Posts 6394a 'Universalist' ! |
I was simply penning my quick impression of a specific sunset in a particular moment where a sense of ‘transience’ most strongly impinged upon my mind…[It was still fairly bright, definitively warm and (to me) ‘sweet’ in terms of the effect of the entire ambiance of the surrounding (Springtime) environment (including the specific mix of flora in that part of Scotland.) I’m rather sure a sunset could reflect for at least some infinitesimally small moment (whether a human eye can detect it or not) in a falling raindrop [It certainly was doing so in the drops hanging and standing on various objects around me]; Additionally, I chose ‘falling’ raindrop simply because its action state might likely suggest greater transience. The adjectives chosen here still work best for exactly what this (transient) experience was like for me. The 15 billion years of cosmic evolution and 4.6 billion years of our planetary history (the world) IS...(most characterized by grandly nested) flux/change/'transience'...across all potential scales of observation; time-frames; etc. [this poem was really just an impression of one moment when that realization happened to strike me most intensely] p.s. The II is there because this is the 2nd. of my poems with the title 'Transience' (I have a few poem sets as numbered series) [This message has been edited by secondhanddreampoet (02-05-2008 06:38 PM).] |
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Midnitesun
since 2001-05-18
Posts 28647Gaia |
Re: BobK's reply: "You're simply not used to extending the full range of your imagination into a sunset, and making that sunset particular. You haven't decided, for example, if you want to talk about the smell of this sunset as a way of making it real to yourself and your readers. Or the sound of it. Not all sunsets need to be warm. The sweetness of this sunset could be of many different types, all of them more specific and less shopworn than the word sweet. You haven't asked yourself about what it is you're actually being party to with this sunset, and as a result you've missed it. You've given us an average sunset, when you were reaching for and could have gotten much more, if you'd thought to look in a bit more detail at what actually made this sunset different."  You couldn't be further from the truth, MrK, as this poet regularly gifts us with incredibly fine imagery which captures unique moments in time and space. And I've felt many warm, sweet sunsets, and don't find such descriptive words to be lacking imagination. |
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secondhanddreampoet Member Ascendant
since 2006-11-07
Posts 6394a 'Universalist' ! |
As far as I can tell, three of the main aspects of Zen poetic minimalism are...a paradigm (world view) built upon the aesthetic comfort garnered from the acceptance (and mourning) of transience; the awareness of the universal void at the heart of everything; and the non-distinction of self from the rest of ‘reality’… If a 'write' even effectively hints at one or more of these, then it likely possesses reasonable merit! |
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Marchmadness Member Rara Avis
since 2007-09-16
Posts 9271So. El Monte, California |
Wow, Bruce, you just seem to be a magnet for whatever comes down the pike. Ida |
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ArtSolstice Member
since 2007-03-18
Posts 498 |
Bob, Sometimes a rose is a rose. This delightful poem is a straightforward Zen-inspired write. Perhaps the intent of your lengthy critique here was benign, but to me it appears unnecessarily detailed and somewhat picayune, of both the poem and its author. No one needs to explain or defend a simple Zen expression. 1) I think the title is fine, and having a title is fine. 2) “To put the (II) in afterward makes it even more a poem about thought rather than an offering of direct experience.” Bob, I just don’t know how you figure this. The poet wrote another poem which he titled Transience. So this is the second poem in that series. 3) “If you hadn't come SO close, mixed blessing, I wouldn't be writing you about this stuff.” Bob, this sounds patronizing, and I do not think it’s helpful. 4) “The World is... That's a bit large. If God hasn't finished that one yet, you're not going to, even if you get started early and keep at it. So you did what any sensible person would do, and went small next. a warm, sweet sunset, “ What if the “the world is… a warm, sweet sunset” was just the poet’s immediate Zen gestalt reaction to experiencing the sunset? 5) “A big improvement, but you didn't take out the first try. You probably didn't think of it as a first try, but think back on your process. First big, and trying to tackle the world, and then trying to cut the subject down to size, something minimal that a guy can actually get a grip on. That's why the line about what the world is should probably come out. It's like a bid in bridge or hearts, you can't deliver, and in poetry you've got to try to make your bid. That's part of the pleasure of it.” Bob, what if the poet is standing in "the world", being part of "the world"? What if it’s choreography? What if the poet’s mind’s eye move wide first, then narrowed on the specific? Y’know, I think that’s just fine. Perhaps his “process” was a simple Zen thought. Wide, then small; the encapsulation of the wider world in this smaller package. 6) “ a warm, sweet sunset,” Bob, I just don’t understand the intensity of your crit here. We’re talking about a sunset. One that the poet saw, not one that you saw. If you want to write about your version of a sunset that you saw, why don’t you do that? 7) “I am actually puzzled as to why you've tucked the word "sunset" onto another line. It doesn't need to be there.“ Perhaps it is an opportunity for the reader to consider the word sunset, and to focus on that as the choreographic step from moving large (the world) to small, to smaller. Again, this seems awfully picayune, Bob. 8) “reflected in the last drop of falling rain. “ “It's going to be pretty difficult to see the image you offer. Rain falls quickly. The eye doesn't focus that quickly. The light, by virtue of it being sunset and all, isn't so great. A person probably wouldn't actually see the image you present, and the tradition you're looking for is a meditative one. You'd probably want to leave the reader with a single deep image rather than a question about how could this actually happen. It takes away from the theme. “ Bob – It’s poetry. It’s imagination. And it’s art. It’s fine that we don’t actually see the raindrop or that rain falls quickly. That would be literal. We're talking about the mind's eye here, which may not be literal. To me, this is part of the magic of this particular write. [This message has been edited by ArtSolstice (02-06-2008 12:02 PM).] |
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secondhanddreampoet Member Ascendant
since 2006-11-07
Posts 6394a 'Universalist' ! |
I believe it is true that a simple (subjective) "Zen Impression" should require neither 'explanation' nor 'defense!' |
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amusemi Senior Member
since 2001-12-08
Posts 1262A State of Disarray |
Pretty cool! |
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Margherita Member Seraphic
since 2003-02-08
Posts 22236Eternity |
I love it, dear Bruce. It opens a picture in our mind's eyes and it is zen, peaceful. Perfect. love Margherita  |
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vandana
since 1999-10-22
Posts 10463USA |
loved it |
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Earth Angel Member Empyrean
since 2002-08-27
Posts 40215Realms of Light |
Good morning, Bruce! I would make a very poor literary critic. When I read a poem, I respond more to how it makes me feel rather than to how it is structured. I respond to a poem more in a poetic sense rather than a literal one. My poetry probably would not fair well under scrutiny by those more learned than I in the fine art of writing poetry. In nursing school, our studies were in the sciences ~ not English. Mind you, I would have liked to have taken English as well! I have never read a poem of yours, where I did not appreciate your talent and your ability to make me see or feel something special. You have the gift. Hugs to you, dear Poet, Linda  |
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secondhanddreampoet Member Ascendant
since 2006-11-07
Posts 6394a 'Universalist' ! |
some folks are perhaps not so much 'more learned'... as more 'self-referential' and condescending. |
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surrealpoetics Junior Member
since 2008-01-13
Posts 13Spokane, Washington |
hello my friend, it's been awhile since i've been around, i am very happy to see you still writing (and my personal library filling up) |
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ArtSolstice Member
since 2007-03-18
Posts 498 |
Y'know, it's a pleasure to see this poem again, just read it, and sigh. (smiling) |
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