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Weddings
| Critical Analysis #2 |
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Weddings |
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Yejun Junior Member
since 2007-11-21
Posts 49 |
Weddings in an orchard of mandarin oranges are difficult enough without a map. I wave to a farmer, an idealized man, and to an old woman picking and she waves. They have the same eyes as charlatans and in-laws, bright and vapid, lost in others themselves. Why hope? A stranger stares. Does he want to talk or does he want to practice and preach silence? Respect is a dreamscape. Those that demand it don't return it and those that deserve are dead. An hour and half again, I do not hear the sounds of English or jazz, only birds and breeze. Ahead a distant glint, a white car approaching― neither friend's friend nor relative stranger ― passes a foreigner looking for a wedding in mistaken tangerine groves and turns around. He says he saw where the cars are clustered and in broken English offers a ride. "Thank you," I say and get in the car and listen to garbled words with a certain regret. [This message has been edited by Yejun (11-25-2007 04:01 AM).] |
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hush Senior Member
since 2001-05-27
Posts 1653Ohio, USA |
I really like the imagery here, tho I have to wonder why the narrator is searching for this wedding on foot? |
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Yejun Junior Member
since 2007-11-21
Posts 49 |
That's because the taxi dropped me off at the wrong orange farm. And explaining why that happened would involve another whole poem. Thanks for commenting. |
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oceanvu2 Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066Santa Monica, California, USA |
Hi Yejun: Admiring thought: This is very reminiscent of Robert Creeley’s work. Was he an influence? Problem: It’s over long and under focused. This reads as mainstream academically informed poetry. It is the sort of thing one finds over and over in portfolios submitted in applications to the Iowa Writer’s Program, earnest, sincere, technically adequate, dispassionate, and, as too often in the portfolios, DOA. “Weddings in an orchard of mandarin oranges are difficult enough without a map.” This is the poem, right here in these first five lines, the moment of insight, the poetic pulse. It addresses a reality seen, experienced, felt, and transformed. Hopefully useful, but possibly cryptic comment: Reality, in this mode, is the interstitial instant between that which is seen, and the seer. “I wave to a farmer, an idealized man, and to an old woman picking and she waves.” When the poem shifts from what “is” and shifts to the first person, it loses its power to startle and inform. It loses the concrete nature of the opening stanza, and drifts into narrative. The poem can have it one way or the other way, but it’s not as effective as it could be when it tries to have it both ways. “They have the same eyes as charlatans and in-laws, bright and vapid, lost in others themselves.” If this and the preceding stanza are compressed to something like, in your words only, “Farmers have the same eyes of charlatans and in-laws” The stanzas contain an astute observation in a fresh framework. When readers have the option of filling in the blanks, they will get to wherever it is they are going to go. You can either trust them, or not trust them, or ignore them, but that sort of defeats the purpose. Sidebar: If you like discussion, here’s an opportunity to smack this analysis with Charles Olson’s theories on directed reading. Staying with Creeley for another moment, he was both student, teacher, and peer of Olson at Black Mountain College. Creeley took Olson in stride, and did his own thing anyway. Yes? No? Maybe? “Why hope?” Damned if I know. “Hope” may be inutile delusion to the max, but that has it got to do with this poem? “A stranger stares. Does he want to talk or does he want to practice and preach silence?” Damned if I know. But the difficulty again lies in the shift from the personal to the impersonal. The “stranger” in context, is the poet/observer. It’s musing. What difference does it make if the poet talks or shuts up in THIS poem? “Respect is a dreamscape. Those that demand it don't return it and those that deserve are dead.” Interesting aphorism. Questionable context. An hour and half again, I do not hear the sounds of English or jazz, only birds and breeze. This seems to fit. Then poem goes back to narrative. Simply referencing the tangerine groves doesn’t tie the two thrusts of the poem together. “Ahead a distant glint, a white car approaching¯ neither friend's friend nor relative stranger ¯ “ The poem takes a risk in using “stranger” twice in unassociated meaning, and a syntactical difficulty that doesn’t necessarily shed light on anything. I’m going to suggest what everybody rightfully hates, a possible condensation/revision of the lines. Apologies in advance. “A white car passes and returns; a foreigner looking for a wedding, lost in tangerine groves, in broken English offering a ride. Accepting, to be lost In garbled words, Tangerines. Regret.” Best, Jim [This message has been edited by oceanvu2 (11-27-2007 07:15 PM).] |
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Yejun Junior Member
since 2007-11-21
Posts 49 |
Thank you very much. In so many ways, I really want to stop there. This is such a wonderful and useful critique that I feel almost 'dirty' in attempting a response. And yet I can't get it out of my head. So here it goes (And so it goes?). This is not a defense nor an attempt to change your mind. I accept these things in stride. And you did say some nice things. Is it overlong and unfocused? Yes, it is. I wanted to play around with the cinquain form and was doing that when this particular scribble started to take form. As I was scribbling, I had one of these filled with iambs and rhymed the 3rd and 5th line. I was shocked, it sounded so familiar. Sure enough, if you discount the first line, call it a title (and that's what many cinquain sites say to do), you have twenty syllables. I was chopping up heroic couplets. I didn't want to do that and I had no interest in some of the even more bizarre 'directions': noun, 2 adjectives, 3 -ing verbs, emotions, restate noun or use synonym. So, no meter, no rhyme, and decided to play around with it some more. I've read Creeley but not very much and not very seriously. Maybe I should look at him again. At any rate, I think my discussion points can be condensed into three. First, I simply do not understand: quote: It's not that I think you're wrong here. I can almost hear your disappointment at the shift. What though is the aesthetic point that necessarily make it less effective and how does it take away from: quote: Certainly, I understand if it just wasn't done very well. On that, I plead no contest, but I don't really see why the two can't mesh together unless, unless the very form I'm using already creates the expectation that it's going to be a short, poignant moment. If that's the case, again, I plead no contest. I was trying to subvert that. Second, on 'Stranger': Yes, it was a risk, a risk that ended in failure. You are correct that the observer is the stranger, but I meant it much more directly than that (Who watches the watchman?). The use of stranger twice was intended to convey that it was the same person, the person staring at the observer and the man who picked me up in the 'white car'. And in that sense, the question posed is answered. He was trying to figure out how to help. Third, on 'rhetorical' questions: I laughed when you said "Beats me" twice. But as I tried to show with 'stranger', 'Why hope?' is also answered in the second part of the poem. Kindness, help from others, from strangers, and for whatever reason they may have (In this case, a chance to practice a little English.) is reason to have hope. We are selfish creatures but that selfishness leads to strange attractors where we can and do work for our mutual benefit. Two dilemmas: All this leads me to believe that it should be longer, not shorter as you want it to be. (the best of intentions I suppose), and I now believe that it was wrong to end on 'regret.' Regret is there, but I sometimes wonder if big metaphysical questions like 'Why hope' are constantly being asked and reasked, not because they can't be answered, but because they can be answered and answered simply. And we want it to be hard. |
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oceanvu2 Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066Santa Monica, California, USA |
Hu Yejun -- I had "hoped" to copy and paste the above into Word to continue the discussion, but, after updating to Word 7 at 6 PM, I was just able to reconflooey the damned computer and get back into C/A, and it is now past midnight! Can't do this one on the fly in the box, so it will have to wait until tomorrow. I promise I won't attempt get into semiotics or Barthes, though some of the comments seem to be seems to heading that way. Life is tough enough, and short, so, a minimum of that stuff forthcoming. One little comment: "Hope" involves some devilish metaphysics, so I won't hit it too hard. The notion will be that "hope has nothing to do with anything, and it hurts people." Which has never stopped anyone from hoping.  Best, Jim |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
Hmmm. The form is nice. I like a little room to play around in. I'm thinking about this title though-- "Weddings" Which implies either more than one, or a generalization of the ritual. (Or sacrament if you prefer.) Then you go on to write about one specific event, which made me wonder if you were tying in the idea of other sorts of marriages. (As in ideas or things akin to one another.) Weddings--I can obsess over a single letter--so trust that it is probably just me. Nice work, and I don't mind an impressionistic approach when the stanzas tie together logically. |
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oceanvu2 Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066Santa Monica, California, USA |
Hi Yejun: Re: “Thank you very much. In so many ways, I really want to stop there. (But didn‘t”) A perfectly reasonable response. Grinch’s take on this elsewhere in these threads is that it’s the poet’s job ends with the creation, or more reasonably, the posting or publication of the poem, and then it’s up to the reader(s) to make of it what they will. A response isn’t necessary. Of course, Grinch then will go on and respond to critiques anyway. Brad’s take on it has been, that poets love to talk about this stuff. Especially their own stuff. So there is no particularly hard and fast protocol for responding to the critiques beyond a courteous “Thank you for reading this.” “So here it goes (And so it goes?)” OK, I‘ll play.. “This is not a defense nor an attempt to change your mind.” Why not? I’m easy, and my mind changes all the time when there is fresh input. Or I stop being dense. Or something else comes up that I hadn’t noticed before. No problem. “I accept these things in stride. And you did say some nice things.” Ok, well, there were many nice thing to be said. My questions here are, “What things do you accept in stride?” and why? A quote from my first post: “It is the sort of thing one finds over and over in portfolios submitted in applications to the Iowa Writer’s Program, earnest, sincere, technically adequate, dispassionate, and, as too often in the portfolios, DOA. I can’t imagine why this remark would be taken in stride. I’d want to know who the hell was making that statement, and why should it be given any credence.. Best I can suggest is that I get to read portfolios from the Iowa Writers Program, because I have a friend in the business, and she ships’em to me. (A kind of literary underground railroad, that helps me keep in touch with what younger writers are up to. None of these examples can be ethically or legally posted by anyone other than the author. Re: “Is it overlong and unfocused? Yes, it is.” The question is why, and you give an answer, paraphrased here: “I started an exercise in the cinquain form. The poem then took on a life of it’s own, and through several peregrinations, came out looking like this.” End of paraphrase. The referential level of my comment on the poem being academically informed seems justified by your remarks, and it is not a negative comment. Poetry, like bull fighting and other blood sports, doesn’t come with a level playing field. Some folks get good at it and manage to kill the bull, or at least avoid stepping in the bull (deleted.) Other folk are regularly gored by the bull, until the bull eventually kills them. Some folks can’t find, or refuse to acknowledge, that there is even an arena where the bull is waiting. So it goes. . “So, no meter, no rhyme, and (I) decided to play around with it some more.” That’s always the fun part, what happens after the bleeding stops. “I've read Creeley but not very much and not very seriously. Maybe I should look at him again.” Well, IMAO, he’s one of the sharper knives in the drawer, but certainly not the only knife. “At any rate, I think my discussion points can be condensed into three. First, I simply do not understand: Your quote, my response: "When the poem shifts from what “is” and shifts to the first person, it loses its power to startle and inform. It loses the concrete nature of the opening stanza, and drifts into narrative. The poem can have it one way or the other way, but it’s not as effective as it could be when it tries to have it both ways. Re: “It's not that I think you're wrong here. I can almost hear your disappointment at the shift. What though is the aesthetic point that necessarily make it less effective…” It’s the set up. Not doing Barthes and not doing semiotics, yet: “Reality, in this mode, is the interstitial instant between that which is seen, and the seer. The first stanza is concrete. To move from apperception to narrative, just jolts. There is nothing “wrong” with narrative, and by that I mean much more than “story.” In my first post, “Drifts into narrative” was not well considered phrase. The poem knocks on that particular door and opens it. (Still, there is always that damned difference between the map and the territory.) And, shifts like this happen all the time. In “Thirteen Ways of Looking at Blackbirds,” Stevens makes the leap, but he takes a long time to set it up, and the reader is somehow “ready.” (I promise never to mention Stevens again. I’m too big a fan to always see him clearly.) “Certainly, I understand if it just wasn't done very well.” It wasn’t poorly done. In the context of this forum, “Weddings” is a work of genius. But, you clearly intend to fight the bull in Madrid, Spain, not Tijuana, Mexico. “Second, on 'Stranger': Yes, it was a risk, a risk that ended in failure.” OK, but the best risk takers ever get is a fifty-fifty shot. When the shot hit’s the mark, it’s sublime. When the shot misses the mark, it’s a noble effort. This is Way different than not knowing that there is a target out there. "Third, on 'rhetorical' questions: "I laughed when you said "Beats me" twice. But as I tried to show with 'stranger', 'Why hope?' is also answered in the second part of the poem. Kindness, help from others, from strangers, and for whatever reason they may have (In this case, a chance to practice a little English.) is reason to have hope. We are selfish creatures but that selfishness leads to strange attractors where we can and do work for our mutual benefit." Ah, good old faith, hope, and charity… Well, I would look at these words as establishing a hierarchical celebration of nonsense. The hierarchy of import is turned on it’s head. Despite suspecting that I am going to get knee-capped at least one more time, I suggest that faith is a dubious context, hope is an inutile concept within that context, and charity is a useful, self-serving action so universally practiced, that no matter how it is couched by whomever, it is unrelated to unrelated to any doctrinal concerns. Faith, I’m just barely going to touch. Too much ultimate respect for my knees. I don’t care what anybody “believes” as long as they don’t believe that I should be shot for what I believe. (Or, as Bob Dylan (BD as opposed to DT), once sang, “I’ll let you be in my dream if I can be in your dream.” I know, oblique, obsucure reference. It’s still to the point.) “Hope,” however, is irrelevant. No matter how hard one might hope that one wins the lottery, one either will or won‘t, and hope will have nothing to do with it either way. This is a very gentle example of what I’m trying to express. It gets real hard when it comes down to something like this: If a loved one is involved in an automobile accident, is seriously injured and hovering between life and death in an intensive care ward, one might, and most often will, fervently “hope to God” and not be able to avoid hoping to whatever God being invoked, that the loved one does not die. “Hoping to God” will have nothing to do with it. All right. I’ll stop. Almost. That somebody or almost everybody “believes” something, hopes for something, and there is a cultural commonality, it does not alter the “real.”. That’s Barthes’ without his complicated and different, though hardly unique, take on signs, symbols, and the delusions of bourgeois consensus. (We don’t say “bourgeois” too much in this country because it has too much left wing atheistic, hippie Marxist wacko freight. And that is pure Barthes, going directly to semiotics.) Even more simply put, I suggest, as Hamlet pondered, that we are indeed subject to the “Slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” And that’s it. Regarding your second dilemma at the end of your responding post: I don’t know if the poem should be shorter or longer, either. But that’s your call, not my call. Re :“And we want it to be hard.” It is. Best, Jim And I lied. I did talk about Roland Barthes and semiotics. [This message has been edited by oceanvu2 (11-30-2007 02:11 AM).] |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
"semiotics" Has that been approved by the FDA?  I SLIPPED.  |
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oceanvu2 Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066Santa Monica, California, USA |
Dottie: Yes, semiotics has approved by the FDA, but only to be used then trying to crack the skulls of adults in instances where a sledge hammer fails. Love ya' Jimmy |
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Yejun Junior Member
since 2007-11-21
Posts 49 |
quote: And there shouldn't be. quote: Well, it's good to keep an open mind. But I meant that I don't mean something like, "This is a great poem if only you had read it correctly," response. I change my mind all the time, but ultimately I can't change your mind. At many sites, there is a kind of reductionism that follows from any explication: you really just want me to like your poem and if you add something, by definition, you detract from the work, and furthermore, you add to my dislike of the poem. Now sometimes that's true, but sometimes it's not. It's a judgement call. quote: I just assumed you had something to do with that program. I saw no reason to challenge it. My comment was more aimed at quote: A certain point by Oscar Wilde came to mind. quote: I didn't take it negatively, but some will. quote: I have nothing to add here. I just like the extended metaphor. quote: and then: quote: And then: quote: Okay, I get it or something like it. My words: the first cinquain sets up a 'poetic suite' or at least the expectation of something in that direction. The next jumps into a narrative. This creates a dilemma for the reader, however small, about what's coming next. And from that point, let's call it a waffling effect and that effect permeates the whole poem. Something to work on. quote: Well, I never liked TJ all that much. quote: Okay. quote: Hope has no power in what you're calling 'the real', I agree with that. quote: Again, I agree, but I'm not convinced that 'hope' is useless. 'Hope' is the opening that allows you or me or anyone to see things happen. You're right, it has no power in the sense of control (and that confusion is one part of the problem), but it also allows us to 'see' the minor as the major: a bird singing, another's need to want to talk to the big, white guy, a cup of coffee. This is obviously not a good thing to point out when someone is waiting outside the intensive care unit, but it is something that can provide comfort if one can feel it on his or her own. I wouldn't put it in with 'faith' which is an attempt to reify what I'm talking about, to turn it into a form of control, nor would I put it in with 'charity' which almost always contributes to self-delusion. 'Hope,' at least for me, is the state of being that opens up the real. Okay, that's a bit too Heideggerese for me, but quote: It doesn't alter the real, it is a component of the real. The delusion is not that we aren't part of the real, but that we have control of the real -- a standing in reserve if you will. (And why am I sounding like H. again?) And just to completely alienate just about everyone here let me quote Putnam on the relationship between mind and world, "The mind and world jointly make up the mind and world." Always thought that was funny. quote: Another time, another time. quote: Yeah, I know. quote: It is and it isn't. When it isn't we tend to to make it so that we can say, "It is." |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
I know the story behind this so I'm not the best judge here but what about dropping these two: quote: It might make for a smoothing narrative run. |
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