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oceanvu2
Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066
Santa Monica, California, USA

0 posted 2007-12-20 03:54 PM


Picnic In Jutland

(A poem in the narrative).


For a picnic in Jutland, to be with you,
I took a train from Naples north to Denmark,
Cramped in a third class coach with
Factory bound Italian workers, shared
Garlic sausage, rustic reds, and, wine-wrecked,
Found a common tongue in baby talk,
In rolling eyes and flying hands.

No one slept ’til Darmstadt and a change
Of trains, and then we slept on tabletops,
Stank together, snored, then, fuzzy headed
Boarded  trains again..  A continent traversed
Unnoticed.  I did not miss Switzerland.
I missed you.

Who bangs on doors at 2 AM?  The police?
A thief?  And who knocks tentatively?
Bearer’s of bad news!  I slept outside
your door.  Your voice my morning song.
Who startled whom the most when met, the youth,
Or tanned, blonde Caroline, rumple haired
In  flannel robe?  “You  stink,” she said.
I did.  What sweet words for waited waking!

Welcomed by your family, I showered,
Slept the day away.  That night, the Jazz Hus
Where we heard Ben Webster play.  It was
Enough to hold your hand.  When finally
Your parents went to bed, we kissed, touched,
Whispered on the couch.  

Your mother rattled dishes in the kitchen,
Father stomped his way to shave, that we
Might disentangle from our chaste but loving
Night.  Proprieties observed, we dressed.

And then your cousins came.  Ivan, Aase,
Car-borne Danes in this cosmpolis of bicycles
And trains.  Hamper’s packed for picnicking,
We took the grand adventure into Jutland,
The countryside, the farms and fields which gave,
Short season, modest yield, but in high Summer
Spoke abundance, treasured life beyond
The  Copenhagen city drill. No Little
Mermaids here, just homesteads, dairymen
And wives who set out tables in their yards
For picnics.

A couple kroner, tablecloths and spiced
Fermented cider set the scene to complement
Our Akavit and beer.  There is no time.
No time is passing here while Ivan plays
His classical guitar and birds attend
To business.  You speak such perfect English when
You say, “I am afraid to love you.”  Let’s then
Have this day.  What follows will.  How wonder?

The day we met, confirmed again with kisses
By a Jutland stream, was all the love
That we might need.  In Sitges, Spain, you let
Me follow you, and knew that I was following.
Attraction, yes.  Attachment is the thing
So rare.  Over wine and little plates
We found attachment there.  It was not casual.
Your address and invitation: “Visit me,”
Not lightly given.  Two summer travelers with
Different destinations and pre-determined days,
Committing still to picnic in the countryside.

The long Northern summer day ends
Of its own and we return to Ivan’s house,
Aase’s home.  They turn a couch to bed
For us.  Ivan wags a finger, “No! No! No!
Enjoy Yourselves, Behave!”  Ignoring that,
We couple and explore, drift, and then
Explore some more.  

I am afraid to love you too.  Can’t help
It though.  This night, you are my Caroline,
name of Princesses and Queens.


Jim Aitken

[This message has been edited by oceanvu2 (12-22-2007 05:05 PM).]

© Copyright 2007 Jim Aitken - All Rights Reserved
TomMark
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since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133
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1 posted 2007-12-20 05:24 PM


It was good that you have not been long here in PiP. I searched everything you posted to find out if you had ever written something romantic so I shall sense some styles of yours.

This is a beautiful poem. A light hearted romance. See, A silence always bring out sound (poem) since you have not posted much lately. You were writing!!!!!!!!

Love this one. truly.

oceanvu2
Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066
Santa Monica, California, USA
2 posted 2007-12-20 06:50 PM


Thank you TomMark.  I am happy that you looked at this and some of my other poems. I am particularly happy that you found this to be "romantic." Most often,"romance" would be the last thing to come to mind in what I write.  It is not what I think of as my "nature," but hey, I really am an old softy who can't deal with it.  Unless, now and again, I give myself permission and deal with it.

Best, Jim Aitken

TomMark
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since 2007-07-27
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3 posted 2007-12-20 07:36 PM


http://picasaweb.google.com/soumya.dutta/JutlandTripSreeAbhiramiAmmanTempleBrandeDenmark/photo#5092964763352072338
TomMark
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since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133
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4 posted 2007-12-20 07:46 PM


Dear Jim, more good romance!!! before you forget them , write down here. There must be more. And did you find that you indeed could write good romance?!

have a good evening and be safe and warm in the rainy day.

oceanvu2
Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066
Santa Monica, California, USA
5 posted 2007-12-20 08:35 PM


Thank you TomMark.  An absolutely perfect link to the Jutland contryside.  How much this landscape can add to the idyllic love between the young people in the poem, I am sure you know.

Very much appreciated, Jim Aitken

TomMark
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since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133
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6 posted 2007-12-20 10:55 PM


Dear Jim, I thank you for your understanding. I could write three-volume novel about all kinds of romance. Or couldn't I as a arrogant, insensitive and self-righteous youth long time ago?  
Brad
Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705
Jejudo, South Korea
7 posted 2007-12-21 04:09 PM


A thouroughly enjoyable romp through Europe.

Rhythmically, I suspect it might give certain formalists around here nightmares. Is it iambic? Is it trochaic? Is it? What is it?

I do think there's enough lines on either side to at least raise the question.

Which reminds of a certain essay I read a long time ago: if a poem has 41 iambic feet, 39 trochaic feet, and 13 anapestic feet, is it iambic, trochaic or free verse?

No, I haven't counted it here, but I suspect this will give similar headaches.

But then again, maybe not.

I'm not fond of ending on Queen.

Is there more to be said here?

oceanvu2
Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066
Santa Monica, California, USA
8 posted 2007-12-22 06:07 PM


Brad:  Thank you for your comments.

RE: Rhythmically, I suspect it might give certain formalists around here nightmares. Is it iambic? Is it trochaic? Is it? What is it?"

Answer, e.  None of the above, or all of them.  

Actually, I'd have to come down on the side of free verse.  It will not, and does not scan with any true metric consistency, but I hope it is the inconsistent meter, and not the music, or rhythm that causes consternation.

I've never thought of "free verse" as being particularly free.  Even when lines are built on breath, which may flow or stutter, there is most often. structure, or craft-consciousness, at work.  In this poem, I think there the lines themselves do speak to metrical considerations, but there is no fixed pattern.

This poem was written "in the narrative," that is, per other threads, the stories we tell that make ourselves up.  In that sense, it IS a romp, physically and emotionally shifting through the mundane, wacky, and emotional notes of "narratives" with different specifics that we all make up.

I would expect the question:  "Why did it take you so long to get to where your were going?"  And answer that in "narrative," it takes exactly as long as it does.  In this mode, "compression" becomes secondary to "flow."

The trick, I think, is in selection of detail.  "Narratives" relate transfomed experience.  Details need to be specific enough to suggest a sense of presence, yet general enough to invite a reader in to what, in this case, is a simple romantic adventure shared by many others.  

It could be a "narrative" about being stuck in a snowstorm at O'Hare with a girlfriend or boyfriend waiting in New Jersey.  The story is the same, but the selected details will differ, making a different poem.

And, in working in "the narrative," a certain conveyance of spontaneity, the odd choice, here, of "garlic sausages," may help to suggest an "authenticity" that complements the tale.

RE:  "I'm not fond of ending on Queen."  Me neither.  The poem still ends on the word "Queen," but, for those who didn't see the original, I lopped of two lines which also ended in "Queen."  

RE: "Is there more to be said here?"  I don't know.  Endings are very hard for me, personally.  Sometimes I'm too abrupt, sometime's I get caught up in my own emotional processes and neither translate
well to the page.

I don't think there is a "second chapter" to this particular poem.  There is a specific "event statement" being made, not a philosophical one that needs to be tied own with a Coda.

Just doing my thing, whatever that is.  Jim Aitken  

beautyincalvary
Member
since 2006-07-13
Posts 98

9 posted 2007-12-22 07:01 PM


Wow. This s definitely one of my favorites I have seen on piptalk. Beautiful.
oceanvu2
Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066
Santa Monica, California, USA
10 posted 2007-12-24 06:03 PM


Hi, Beautyincalvary.  Thank you for your kind words!  

Best, Jim Aitken

oceanvu2
Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066
Santa Monica, California, USA
11 posted 2007-12-24 06:16 PM


Brad -- The poem is also an odd sort of tale, beginning in the middle, moving to the beginning, but at least ending at the end.  Maybe it's a movie.

Best, Jim Aitken

Bob K
Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208

12 posted 2007-12-27 11:56 AM


Dear Oceanvu2,

          I've been working on a bit of a reply for this fine piece of work.  It needs some condensation, I think.  I like that it starts in medias res.  Some of the issues may come from trying to preserve the strict prose temporal order of things when you're the only one who knows what it is.  You can move things around to do the tightening if you think it's useful.
     Anyway, Elaine and I are heading out of town again for a week or so.  I try again when I get back.  My best, BobK.

oceanvu2
Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066
Santa Monica, California, USA
13 posted 2007-12-27 04:06 PM


Hi Bob K, and thank you for your interest in this.  My apologies also for not having responded fully to this and other comments lately.  It has been a time thing.

Since starting to write poetry again, I've usually done condensed little pieces -- along with a a bunch or silliness.  This poem is indicative of how I was writing 30 years ago.  I don't know whether it is a matter of finding my voice again, or an oddity.

Best, and have a great trip.  Jim Aitken

Brad
Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705
Jejudo, South Korea
14 posted 2007-12-27 05:24 PM



FOR a / PICnic / in JUT /land,|| to BE / with YOU,/
i TOOK / a TRAIN / from NA /ples NORTH / to DENmark,/
CRAMPED / in a / THIRD CLASS / COACH with /
FACto / ry BOUND / iTAL / ian WORK / ers, SHARED /
GARlic / SAUsage,/ RUSTic / REDS, and,/ WINE-wrecked,/
FOUND a / COMmon / TONGUE in / BAby / TALK,/
in ROL / ling EYES / and FLY / ing HANDS./

I wish I had more time to spend here, but here's what I've got. The first strophe is, intentionally or not, an alternation between trochees and iambs. Now, I used to think that the iamb and the trochee were distinctions without a difference (When you're reading out loud, does it really make a difference?) and to a large degree I still believe that, but if you look at that first line and then the rest of the first strophe, I see this oscillation happening.

I don't know if this pans out with the rest of the poem, probably not, or at least not as clearly as the first strophe. But these little discoveries are the reason for scanning ostensibly 'free verse' poems.

Or that's what my professor said when he made me scan 'free verse' poems many, many years ago.

oceanvu2
Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066
Santa Monica, California, USA
15 posted 2007-12-27 07:00 PM


Hi Brad!  I'd read that first strophe exactly as you scanned it, and nice pick up on the American(?) pronounciation of "factory" as two syllables.  The poem is very much in the vernacular.

I tried scanning the rest of the poem for metrical or even syllabic consistency.  Ah, it pretty much isn't there, but in reading it out loud, there seems to be a sense of "something" going on.  I hope.  The "something" is what I've been calling the music, as opposed to the meter.  

Using the word "music" is metaphor, hard for me because I work consciously to avoid metaphor, just my peculiar choice.  I guess all it means in the end is, "does it sound good?"   Music and meter, of course, are not mutually exclusive, and there are endless arguments da dah, da dah.

Grinch previously posed the question, paraphrased, "Which poetic conventions can be left out of a poem and still have it be a poem?"  

I still grapple with the question of metaphor.  Yes, concrete imagery works well, and is generally the point, in Imagist and Haiku-related poetry. but there seems to come a point where "gestural" or "observational" poetry, lacking metaphor, and often, IMO, much else, becomes little more than a well or poorly constructed bit of prose broken into lines per the poet's singular and perhaps arbitrary choice.

Ignoring that, what I wonder, and work with is, can one sustain a "poem" such as this one, without metaphor, or is it just a crafty bit of prose?

Best, Jim Aitken


Brad
Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705
Jejudo, South Korea
16 posted 2007-12-27 08:02 PM


quote:
but in reading it out loud, there seems to be a sense of "something" going on.  I hope.  The "something" is what I've been calling the music, as opposed to the meter.


I hear that same 'something'.  

Bob K
Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208

17 posted 2008-01-07 12:59 PM


Dear Jim,

         I've found that when folks put some sort of an explanation before they get into the meat of a poem, many readers seem to stop reading right
there and go into a lengthy frenzy of speculation about what the explanation might mean.  Often, they never get to actually reading the poem itself and confine their attention to side issues.  When, for example, you say, "(A poem in the narrative)."  A certain percentage of your readers won't be able to get beyond the first two words and will get sidetracked by their own particular (and might I say valid and interesting) questions about what a poem actually is and how that relates to music, meter, scansion, tradition, their poetic education versus yours and so on.  

     This will happen anyway, occasionally, but probably less frequently if you don't try to offer the clue, the explanation, the hook that will pull a good reader's ever distractible attentions away from where you probably want them.  If the reader can't figure out that the poem uses narrative elements as part of its strategy, your telling them isn't going to help.  If they can, they might feel you're not giving them credit.  It doesn't take very much to make a reader put a poem down or go out jogging.

     The most likely answer to Brad's question ("if a poem has 41 iambic feet, 39 trochaic feet, and 13 anapestic feet feet, is it iambic, trochaic or free verse?") is probably not ,"It is Iambic!" "It is trochaic!" or "It is free verse!" but more likely to be "It is unread and unappreciated!"

     When you say narrative takes exactly as long as it takes I suspect you are being coy.  To answer the question of how the French did against the Russians in 1812, you could offer perfectly acceptable answers ranging from "poorly" to offering a translation of "War And Peace."  The events don't control how fully you dramatize them and which elements you select and which point of view you use, Jim.  You are responsible for how the poem flows as well as which imagry you choose.  

     Anybody who can write a poem this good doesn't have to defend himself against this sort of mistake.  Everybody makes them and worse.  Having somebody else point it out to you is simply a reminder until you get back into the swing of things.  You still get to keep making the same mistakes, if a bit less often; but you don't stop from feeling exactly as foolish.  With luck you can graduate to more horrible and much more humiliating mistakes, as befits a guy with more ambition and the willingness slowly to take on the larger risks.  Wahoo!

     You should be damn proud of yourself for being able to write this well.

     I took a shot at pushing the thing through another draft to tackle some areas where I though there might be issues worth looking at.  I'd appreciate any comments if you feel there's anything helpful here.  If not, I'f like to know that, too.

PICNIC IN JUTLAND

Cramped in a third class coach with
Factory bound Italian workers, shared
Garlic sausage, rustic reds, and, wine-wrecked,
Found a common tongue in baby talk,
In rolling eyes and swooping hands,
I took a train from Naples north to Denmark
For a picnic in Jutland, to be with you.

No one slept till Darmstadt and the change
Of trains.  We slept on tabletops,
Stank together, snored, and fuzzy headed
Boarded trains again.  Unnoticed,
A continent transpired.  I did not
Miss Switzerland.  I missed you.

Who startled whom the most when met,
The youth, or tanned blond Caroline,
Rumple-haired in flannel robe.  "You stink!"
She said.  I did.
What sweet words for waking!

Welcomed by your family, I showered,
Slept the day away.  That night, The Jazz Hus,
Where we heard Ben Webster play.  It was
Enough to hold your hand.  When finally
Your parents went to bed, we touched,
Kissed, whispered in the couch.

Your father stomped his way to shave, that we
Might disentangle from our chaste but loving
Night.  Your mother rattled
Dishes in the kitchen:  Proprieties observed.
We dressed before your cousins came.  Ivan, Aase—

Car-borne Danes in this cosmopolis of bicycles
And trains, hampers plumply packed
For picnicing, we took the grand adventure
Into Jutland. The countryside,
The farms and fields gave short season,
Modest yield, but in high summer
Spoke abundance, treasured life beyond
The Copenhagen city drill.  No Little
Mermaids, but homesteads, dairymen
And wives who set out tables in their yards.

A couple Kroner.  Their tablecloths and spiced
Fermented cider set the scene to compliment
Our Akavit and beer.  No time is passing
Here while Ivan plays his classical guitar.
There is no time.  What follows will.

The day we met, in Sitges, Spain, confirmed
Again with kisses by a Jutland stream,
Was all the love that we might need.
"Visit me," your address and invitation
Not lightly given.  Two summer travelers
With different destinations
And predetermined stays,
Committing still to picnic in the countryside.

I'm afraid to love you, too.  The long summer
Day ends and we return to Ivan's house.
Aase's home.  For us they magically transform
Couch into bed.  We couple and explore.


     Anyway, that's the best I can do for now.  I know that this pulls a lot of the romance out of it in some ways, but for me, it actually puts more of it back in than it takes out.  To me it's about the hopefulness of the relationship triumphing of the reality of it all, and how the hopefullness is still there for all of us in some way if we can be real enough to accept it as it is and do something real about it.  Anyway, I think you've got a fine poem here, no matter how you decide to work with it or not.  Congratulations, BobK.


  

rwood
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since 2000-02-29
Posts 3793
Tennessee
18 posted 2008-01-07 08:52 AM


"No one slept ’til Darmstadt and a change
Of trains, and then we slept on tabletops,
Stank together, snored, then, fuzzy headed
Boarded  trains again..  A continent traversed
Unnoticed.  I did not miss Switzerland.
I missed you."


Hey Jim. Lots of great feedback on this poem. I found the above stanza to be a gold piece in the pocket of my mind. In fact, it could be the opening narrative for a wonderful screenplay/movie.

just curious though, due to the train, "continent" or country?

I was drawn in by your words the entire way. The only thing that tends to throw me is the acronymic structure of all caps on each new line. I'm OCD, & my mind wants to seek out the hidden messages.

"You speak such perfect English when
You say, “I am afraid to love you.”  Let’s then
Have this day.  What follows will.  How wonder?"

Love and fear....universal & very enriching to your poem.

I happen to like the ending, and the word "Queen". How could I not, with my name?


smiles all around and I'm glad I found this poem this morning.

cheers,
reg


Bob K
Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208

19 posted 2008-01-07 11:30 PM


Dear Jim,

         rWood (and you)are right about the Darmstadt stanza she quotes and I'm wrong.  Seeing her say it and quote it made me see it differently.  I still go with "till" rather than "'til," and I can't see the punctuation [..] which you use and rWood quotes.  Play with it a bit, and then I think you should  send it around some of the quarterlies if you can find 3-4 more to go with it.  Good stuff and you're more than ready.  
Great stuff.  Happily, BobK.  The queen stuff, still not so much for me, too much unexamined sentiment can mean unexamined text, but so what?  Personal opinion, and I've shown you my somewhat hacknied alternative.  Good luck still, & best wishes, BK  

oceanvu2
Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066
Santa Monica, California, USA
20 posted 2008-01-08 03:50 PM


Hi Bob K!  First, thank you for the time you’ve spent looking at some of my poems, including this one.  I keep pasting your responses into my computer and promise to reply in kind, then don’t.  It’s shabby treatment and I apologize.

RE:  “I've found that when folks put some sort of an explanation before they get into the meat of a poem, many readers seem to stop reading right there… “

You’re right.  It’s not necessary, and I’ll stop it.  I think I may be overly concerned about the various levels of readers in general, not just on PiP, and try to eliminate some confusion.  The result may well indeed be the reverse.  In this poem, it’s also there (A poem in the narrative) because I am tentative about what I am doing here, and maybe I’m just reassuring myself.  On the other hand, people go into lengthy frenzies over haiku.  They are lengthy-frenzy people.  Nothing can stop that.
.
.RE:   “If the reader can't figure out that the poem uses narrative elements as part of its strategy, your telling them isn't going to help. If they can, they might feel you're not giving them credit. It doesn't take very much to make a reader put a poem down or go out jogging.”

I have mixed feelings on this.  Helping people out in this forum may be appropriate, because in part it is about looking at how things work, and they “work” as differently as the poems and poets posting.    I think poetry is, as much as anything, “about” the nature of poetics.

Grinch frequently uses an interesting strategy togreat effect. Many of his poems here contain or “are” complex extended metaphors. Serenity spins streams of consciousness into a poetic completeness.  Brad uses an extended frame of reference based on his life in two cultures.  Some writers are moved to work within traditional forms beyond the common ones.  Your first poem post here is technical and specifically referential.  All approaches “work” when the result is a poem.

I’ve been trying to write poems that are a-poetic, eschewing (God I love to laugh at myself when I get pompous) most poetic devices in favor of clarity.  It’s certainly not a strategy unique to me, and I don’t often succeed.  I get amused when try to find what they’ve been taught to look for in someone else’s poems.  For me, what you see is what I’ve got.  If the poem takes somebody someplace, that’s good.  But I don’t don’t write crossword puzzles.  It’s just my approach.  

RE: The most likely answer to Brad's question ("if a poem has 41 iambic feet, 39 trochaic feet, and 13 anapestic feet feet, is it iambic, trochaic or free verse?") is probably not ,"It is Iambic!" "It is trochaic!" or "It is free verse!" but more likely to be "It is unread and unappreciated!"

Nah.  “A Coney Island of the Mind” contains none of the above, but was the best selling poetic work of the 20th century.  Maybe it was the catchy title.  Or maybe it was like “A Brief History of Time,” one of the best selling unread books ever. J.

RE: “When you say narrative takes exactly as long as it takes I suspect you are being coy.”

Maybe.  Wordsworth took forever (to little effect.)  Joseph Conrad said he could write a novel on the back of a matchbook:  “He was born.  He suffered. He died.”  Maybe what I’m suggesting is that a tale tells itself, and the writer jots it down.  Some tales take longer than others.  There seems to be a point where narrative is lost in compression, and a point where poetics are lost to bloat.  So the readers and writers make judgment calls.

On mistakes:  I make outrageous mistakes all the time in my posts.  My theory is, if you can’t humiliate yourself, who is going to do it for you?  Did I say that before?  Ah, humiliation.  

On revisions:

PICNIC IN JUTLAND

Cramped in a third class coach with
Factory bound Italian workers, shared
Garlic sausage, rustic reds, and, wine-wrecked,
Found a common tongue in baby talk,
In rolling eyes and swooping hands,
I took a train from Naples north to Denmark
For a picnic in Jutland, to be with you.

I really like the above reconstruction.  It adds a nice touch of mystery and drama, the invitation to stay with it.

No one slept till Darmstadt and the change
Of trains. We slept on tabletops,
Stank together, snored, and fuzzy headed
Boarded trains again. Unnoticed,
A continent transpired. I did not
Miss Switzerland. I missed you.

I’m not as happy with this.  I think I’ll stick with “traversed” as opposed to “transpired.”  Because I’ve chosen to capitalize each line, “Miss Switzerland” reads awkwardly.  It’s my kind of gaffe, though!


The remaining revisions, up to the final stanza, seem like very valid takes, and I’ve incorporated some word choices in my hard copy.  Thank You!

The revised last stanza doesn’t work for me:

“I'm afraid to love you, too. The long summer
Day ends and we return to Ivan's house.
Aase's home. For us they magically transform
Couch into bed. We couple and explore.”

I understand you point about the transposition of detail, here and above, not quibbling with that.  I think I can see a “magic” transformation of a  couch to bed in the context of this poem, though, emotionally maybe there is something “magic” going on between the characters.  Somehow using the word “magically” doesn’t seem to fit with the heightened mundane-ity (there’s a pun in there) of the poem.

I don’t like my ending either.  I usually don’t like any of my endings.  Mostly because they usually have serious problems.  In terms of emotionalism, the ending I present is actually a step back from the first ending posted before revision.  I’ll keep looking at it.  None of this happens in a rush.  At least, not for me.

A question that just popped up:  How do you separate the “process” from the poem?  At what point does a poem become an “event?”  I’m asking this generally, not about this specific piece.

And thank you for your encouragement, reasoning, and time.

Best, Jim

oceanvu2
Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066
Santa Monica, California, USA
21 posted 2008-01-08 03:59 PM


Hi Regina, you ol' Celtic Queen, you!  Thank you for looking at this and your kind words.

I'm about talked out on this one, thank goodness, but a zap from Naples to Denmark pretty much crosses a continent in one direction.   Which doesn't mean I got the line right.

Good to hear your voice and see you grazing in this funny-farm.

Best, Jim

Bob K
Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208

22 posted 2008-01-09 04:33 PM


Dear Jim,

         The comment about the poem being most likely unappreciated meant that if all the attention was being placed on the metrics, there was no attention left for the poem itself.  A sort of forest and trees thing.  It's one of the problems with obsessional attention to detail.  My bad, though, if I've got to explain a quip, it's a flop.  A quipflop, I suppose.  BobK

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

23 posted 2008-01-09 07:35 PM


I have this one on my desktop.



Simply because I thought, the last two lines of your first stanza capture the definition of poetry for me:

"Found a common tongue in baby talk,
In rolling eyes and flying hands."

I touch the screen.

You kiss a Deb for me.

I slept with Ginsberg last night...but yeah, that's the stuff, lovie.

Remind me to tell you the story of the talking mime.

If I ever find the punchline, that will be poetry too.



oceanvu2
Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066
Santa Monica, California, USA
24 posted 2008-01-10 08:16 PM


Hi Serenity!  Thank you for looking at this.  I think you are right.  It's all rolling eyes and waving hands!  There's a thing about poems which cry out for recitation and performance.  Maybe that's what the "slamming" thing is about.  If it is on the page, it can get to the stage.

Best, Jimmy

jbouder
Member Elite
since 1999-09-18
Posts 2534
Whole Sort Of Genl Mish Mash
25 posted 2008-01-13 10:05 AM


Jim:

I really enjoyed this and wish I had more time at the moment to dig in and give you some more detailed feedback than I can now.  Interesting comments Brad and Bob K. raise about the rhythm.  For the record, I think this looks basically iambic, but more importantly, I think you've pulled off an effortless looking rhythm that helps move the reader along through the poem.

Which is, I think, the point.  It is part of the musical quality that helps make this such a fine poem.

I'll try to get back to this later.

Jim B.

oceanvu2
Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066
Santa Monica, California, USA
26 posted 2008-01-13 06:26 PM


Hi Jim Boulder!  Thank you for looking at this and your comments.

The poem interests me because it is a reversion to a very much older form for me.  You are right in that is it basically iambic -- that's the nature of the English beast.  Other's are right in that it will not scan formally as iambs.

The trick, as always, is to make what one is doing look easy.  A bit of sweat went into this one, and I think BobK and Brad had great takes on it.  I stole BobK's revision of the first stanza.  Not only "sounds" a lot better to me, but is more inviting.

Best, Jim A

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