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ChristianSpeaks
Member
since 2006-05-18
Posts 396
Iowa, USA

0 posted 2008-01-18 01:03 PM


We'll call this chiasmic free verse.


I remember sitting at Arby’s
eating roast beef and curly fries
that I dipped in a mixture of
Arby Sauce and horseradish,

when my Dad asked me how Jamie was and I cried.

I wish now, that I sit on my couch
with my son feeding at my wife’s breast,
I wasn’t embarrassed by that.
But I am.


Dane

Girls like you always get to see Ireland. - Paulette Bonafonte, Legally Blonde: The Musical

© Copyright 2008 Dane Barner - All Rights Reserved
jbouder
Member Elite
since 1999-09-18
Posts 2534
Whole Sort Of Genl Mish Mash
1 posted 2008-01-18 08:55 PM


Dane:

I think you lost me here.  I'm having a difficult time connecting Jamie to a reason for crying.  I can't figure out whether it is relevant or not.  I almost considered the crying to have been evoked by the combination of curly fries and horseradish (Arby's horsey sauce IS spicey), but it didn't seem quite right.

I think I understand the feeling you describe ... remembering some event nobody else probably remembers and feeling embarrassed by it.  Interesting topic.

Jim


ChristianSpeaks
Member
since 2006-05-18
Posts 396
Iowa, USA
2 posted 2008-01-22 09:00 AM


quote:
I think I understand the feeling you describe ... remembering some event nobody else probably remembers and feeling embarrassed by it.


Jim-

This is kind of the point. Especially remembering and being embarrassed by the event while in such a comfortable and intimate situation.

I guess I feel that I shouldn't have to feel embarrassed about that time now that I am so accomplished (albeit normal accomplishment - job, house, child, etc...) Do you ever out grow the memories that sometimes hurt the most?

Girls like you always get to see Ireland. Paulette Bonefonte, Legally Blonde: The Musical

dwgpoet
Member
since 2007-03-05
Posts 122
FL, USA
3 posted 2008-01-24 03:42 AM



I recall sitting at fast food,
tired from shopping at "whole foods" store.

Organic bags of grocery,
laid in trunk of gas-ahol car.

I poured chili over salad,
peppered with spice for energy.

Lemon water washed down well chewed
report cards recycled for me.

Honor roll grands ate what I ate;
giving thanks, before breaking bread.

100% sliced whole wheat
lined our stomach as our eyes read.

Her obituary program.
Ten years old, "How could she be dead"

copyright dwgpoet 2007

ChristianSpeaks
Member
since 2006-05-18
Posts 396
Iowa, USA
4 posted 2008-01-24 08:26 AM


???
chopsticks
Senior Member
since 2007-10-02
Posts 888
The US,
5 posted 2008-01-24 09:35 AM


"???"

ChristianSpeaks, is this any better ?


I remember sitting in Danny’s,
eating matzo ball soup.
I was suffering that day,
with one hell of a croup.

When Danny threw me out
by the nap of my neck,
I had not a penny
to pay on the check.


ChristianSpeaks
Member
since 2006-05-18
Posts 396
Iowa, USA
6 posted 2008-01-24 02:09 PM


Am I getting made fun of? I'm totally confused. This is Critical analysis right? Just Checking.

Dane

Girls like you always get to see Ireland. - Paulette Bonafonte, Legally Blonde: The Musical

jbouder
Member Elite
since 1999-09-18
Posts 2534
Whole Sort Of Genl Mish Mash
7 posted 2008-01-24 02:22 PM


No, they're not making fun of you (at least I don't think so).  Read both poems as examples of other poems that utilize an introspective mode (like yours).  I think dwgpoet's is closer to yours in that respect.

That's how I read them ... I could be wrong.

Jim

ChristianSpeaks
Member
since 2006-05-18
Posts 396
Iowa, USA
8 posted 2008-01-24 02:49 PM


I'm not getting the connection.

How does the posting of another poem help with the correction/revision of the first. I'm definitely not trying to be ungrateful, I just don't know how to use what I've been given.

Dane

chopsticks
Senior Member
since 2007-10-02
Posts 888
The US,
9 posted 2008-01-24 03:32 PM


“Am I getting made fun of “

Not by me .

This happens all the time. Go to my poem “ It's just a poem on cut and paste.” and you’ll see what I

mean.

I was just looking for something to do before I went to Good Wills .

But I will apologize if you think I was making fun of you .  

Your poem will go to the top of the page more than it would have.

ChristianSpeaks
Member
since 2006-05-18
Posts 396
Iowa, USA
10 posted 2008-01-24 04:05 PM


For sure!

I'm not trying to be a bug, I was just confused was all. I can dig my stuff being at the top for a while. Thanks for the clarification.

Dane

Brad
Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705
Jejudo, South Korea
11 posted 2008-01-24 04:25 PM


No, they're not making fun of you (or if they are, it's still a compliment. I knew a guy a long time ago and that's all he would ever do. Some people hated it, some people loved it, some people didn't know what to make of it).

At any rate, this poem has the potential to be very good.

But for the life of me I can't figure out what's wrong:

quote:
I remember sitting at Arby’s
eating roast beef and curly fries
that I dipped in a mixture of
Arby Sauce and horseradish,


My guess is that, in a short poem like this, you spend too much time at Atby's.

Maybe and this is a shot in the dark:

At Arby's, I ate roast beef
and curly fries with my dad.
I dipped the fries in a horseradish sauce,

and he asked me how Jamie was.

I sit on my couch with my son
feeding at my wife’s breast, I wish
I wasn’t embarrassed by that.
But I am.

I like that Jamie is left vague here. But I think it's important to indirectly connect all three situations:

1. Arby's with dad
2. you and Jamie
3. you and your son

Good luck.

Amazingly enough, I suspect you'll get more criticism with these types of poems than with others. I just don't want you to be discouraged. These powerful moments are wonderful in their suggestiveness and though I don't always see this as compliment, I think it does capture something of real life in all of its ambiguity and complexisimplicity.

Sorry for that last word.

TomMark
Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133
LA,CA
12 posted 2008-01-24 04:41 PM


I remember sitting at Arby’s
eating roast beef and curly fries
that I dipped in a mixture of
Arby Sauce and horseradish,


Just as natural as life itself.

when my Dad asked me how Jamie was and I cried.
frustrated with little baby. And the baby took aways all attention, and love.

I wish now, that I sit on my couch
with my son feeding at my wife’s breast,
I wasn’t embarrassed by that.
But I am.

"I" is embarrassed by that. But why? Could be jealous.

My understanding.


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

13 posted 2008-01-27 03:46 PM


Dear Dane,

           The problem here is an embarrassment of riches.  I have your poem and Dwgpoet's poem to respond to.  To avoid confusion, I think I'll get to Dwgpoet's off-line because you're the guy taking the original risk, and I don't want to take away from that, even for such good work as the other.

     Brad talks about the three situations of the poem, Arby's with Dad; you and Jamie; and you and your son.  I would suggest that your wife is a part of that third situation, by the way; and having some interest in psychotherapy, which I bring up only paranthetically,
I would suggest there is a basic difference in two and three person situations which could help you make sense of the poem developmentally, and help explain the grief.
I suspect that this is too difficult to show naturally in a short poem.

     The poem itself, then, seems to be asking you to make a choice in focus.  Where do you want the importance of the poem to be, and what thread do you want to follow through the poem to come up with what single pointed ending.  You need to take the last line, "But I am[.]," out.  If the focus of the poem is done well, it will only be a weak sounding repetition of the obvious conclusion reached in the line before.  If the focus of the poem is not done well, as it is not done well here, it only serves further to confuse.

     While it may not be absolutely necessary to know who Jamie is for the poem, depending on the strategy and direction you settle on, I think it is necessary for the reader to have some notion of the age of the poem's speaker.  An eight year old speaker having a spontaneous reaction of this sort tells us something very different about the speaker than an 18 year old speaker having the same reaction.  An 18 year old speaker tells us something different than a 30 year old speaker who's just come back from that encounter with his somewhat older father.  

     My suggestion is that you lie to create the most interesting and dramatic and paradoxically truthful scenerio you can come up with.  At a minimum, it will give you a who new world of resources to draw upon for material.  If you think any of them don't fit, leave them in the wastebasket.  The wastebasket is your friend.  Love your wastebasket.

     Leaving too much information out of the poem can wreck the result you, as poet, hope to create.  Often, as poet, we are so caught up in the assumptions we make about the poem and the ways a reader will read it, we're unable to see potentially different readings until a friend points them out.

     The Arby's Horsey Sauce and Curley Fries, by the way, are wonderful touches.  It may be helpful to allow your imagination to fill in some of the details of the Now,the current happenings in the poem.  Try to see how your imagination has created the need NOW for the Speaker to remember the tears about  Jamie NOW as a humiliation, and how those feelings become acute NOW when the Speaker watchs his son suckle.  What makes this embarrassing NOW?  Once you recover the details that create that sense of humiliation in the Speaker, the actual concrete details of lighting, music, scents, objects, then give them to us in such a way as to force us to recreate that feeling in ourselves.  

     Be that nasty nasty man you always hoped you could be.  Try it as an experiment.  If you need to, lie to get the details as right as they should be to create the effect the Speaker needs to have.  This isn't memoir nor is it biography, though it may have started there.  See what you come up with and share it.  You get no points for painting on velvet.  Good luck, BobK.

    

ChristianSpeaks
Member
since 2006-05-18
Posts 396
Iowa, USA
14 posted 2008-01-28 05:07 PM


Brad-

quote:
My guess is that, in a short poem like this, you spend too much time at Arby's.


Not as true as you think - but I start with something that somewhat plain hoping to get across the idea that while the speaker was doing something ordinary the mention of "Jamie" was enough it was enough to move him to tears.

Maybe it works who knows.

Otherwise, thanks for the read and suggestion.

Tom

quote:
when my Dad asked me how Jamie was and I cried.
frustrated with little baby. And the baby took aways all attention, and love.



NOT AT ALL! I love my child and I think that he's brought my wife and I closer by far. You have no idea because you don't know me or situational whatever-ness - but the baby set up was just to give a time differentiation. To show the there had been time that passed and events (large events) that had changed the speaker. Thanks for the crit.

Bob K -

I have not even started to digest all that you said so, I'll read a few times more to make sure that I respond to you.

In all thank you for your comments. Makes me feel good when you give of your time.

Dane

[This message has been edited by ChristianSpeaks (01-29-2008 08:29 AM).]

TomMark
Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133
LA,CA
15 posted 2008-01-28 05:34 PM


then kindly tell us line by line.
Brad
Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705
Jejudo, South Korea
16 posted 2008-01-28 05:34 PM


quote:
Maybe it works who know.


Uh, what does that mean? I mean, I really have no idea what you're trying to say here.

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