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Critical Analysis #2
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Skin Sense
| Critical Analysis #2 |
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Skin Sense |
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oceanvu2 Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066Santa Monica, California, USA |
Skin Sense Why do my hands forget What my heart remembers? A fallible vehicle, though Much revered, this touching And the touch. A surgeon’s hand Forgets so little In the exploration Of a heart’s interior. The heart of marble, Malleable, brought forth, Hand shaped, honed, The sculptor’s touch. Yet, flesh on flesh The touch betrays The givens of the heart, Forgets intentions. When my touch fails To reconsider love, Sense memory, I sense, Is heart wrought, Not in hands. |
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chopsticks Senior Member
since 2007-10-02
Posts 888The US, |
Ocean, your proposition in the first two lines was clear and down to earth and I thought I was in for some truth , but in your need to get philological , you lost me. Your first two lines were dynamite and had you stuck to the poor man’s version ,what a poem you might have had . |
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oceanvu2 Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066Santa Monica, California, USA |
Chopsticks: re: "you lost me" That's a compliment, right ? I guess I lost me, too. I don't see the philology involved. I see some wordplay with the various uses of the word "heart" used as an internal structure. Thank you for your comments. Best, Jimbeaux |
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chopsticks Senior Member
since 2007-10-02
Posts 888The US, |
“ That's a compliment, right ? “ Yes it’s a compliment. I think the first two lines of your poem was outstanding. Your first two lines in a poor man’s version : My heart can still lay out a plan That can’t be done by this old man The spirit can still boldly speak But the flesh is profoundly weak Btw , philological may have not been the right word to use. |
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oceanvu2 Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066Santa Monica, California, USA |
Hi Chopsticks: I like your take, but it's a different line of thought altogether. Which is not a problem. Per Grinch, and a seemingly endless undercurrent in CA, the poem is the responsibility of the writer and the interpretation is up to the reader. What I haven't been able to figure out is why you maintain a faux-rube persona. You slip once in a while, drop the act, and lapse into what I think might be your natural sophistication. Are you making some kind of statement about poetic pretention? Certainly a worthwhile statement, and you are far from the only one making the same point over and over. But I think, and I think you know, that you have a lot more to offer. I just wish you would. I also think it is possible that you wish I would offer a damned sight less.  So it goes. I can't email you, but I respect that choice. But I do wonder why you choose to work the way you do. I'm not being presumptuous enough to suggest that you work any other way. Just wonder why you do what you do. Best, Jimbeaux |
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chopsticks Senior Member
since 2007-10-02
Posts 888The US, |
Ocean, I didn’t know you couldn’t email me. “I also think it is possible that you wish I would offer a damned sight less “ Not true at all Ocean, you got it backwards , I am a rube and when I seem sophisticated, I’m acting . I don’t know why I do what I do . If I knew, I probably wouldn’t tell you ; but I thank you for asking . [This message has been edited by chopsticks (05-16-2008 08:56 AM).] |
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beautyincalvary Member
since 2006-07-13
Posts 98 |
Love gives into lust? I like this. |
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oceanvu2 Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066Santa Monica, California, USA |
Hi Beauty -- I'l try to explain this one. It is really really simple. The poet is remembering a first touch, the kind of touch that raises goosebumps. Over time, the, the skin, the fingertips, the hand, forgets the lover's feelings. There is a "touch" memory that stays with surgeons, say, and sculptors. This sensation can be lost to lovers, though love persists. The poem is about both this specific loss of a particular sensation in "loving", and the persistence of love in the heart when the skin forgets. It's actually pretty upbeat. Thank you for reading and commenting. Best, Jimbeaux |
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oceanvu2 Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066Santa Monica, California, USA |
Chopsticks, I can't email you because you don't post an email address. Best, Jimbeaux |
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RC Langill Member
since 2008-03-09
Posts 104 |
An intriguing exploration into a seldom charted facet of loving. Thank you for the explanation, a glance at the "man behind the curtain". For me, the interpretation/construction fit very well except for quote: reconsider doesn't quite fire for me. It doesn't feel wrong so much as feeling only very close. |
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hunnie_girl
since 2006-06-18
Posts 2567Canada |
ahh Jim! its been way too long.... i find myself compelled to come here at this godforsaken time.. but it calms me to read one of your poems again.... it has been awhile.. great post i agree.. first to lines woahhhh really knew it was going to be a great poem by the first lines Krysti |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
smiling with hunnie--nod-- Jim's poetry is always sensitively insightful, sometimes with a wit that takes some time to hit home, but always, always a good mind meal. Even his replies are genuinely, authentically poetry. Hope ya'll are okay, Jimbeaux.  |
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oceanvu2 Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066Santa Monica, California, USA |
Thank you all for commenting. Here's a revision of the final stanza. It comes closer to what the poem is trying to say, again, nothing complex. I'm not convinced it's "better," but I'm trying to work with the above comments. When my touch fails To reawaken, not desire, But sense memory, Sense memory, I sense, Is heart wrought, Not in hands. Best, and thank you, Jimbeaux |
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Gabe Junior Member
since 2008-08-05
Posts 17 |
Oceanvu2 (Jim?), I thought this was a good, compact poem. Although it isn’t a sonnet, it strikes me as being a little Shakespeare-esque as love poems go. I seem to recall a story, although it might be apocryphal, about Michaelangelo talking about his sculptures. He supposedly said once that the sculpture is already in the heart of the stone, but that it is up to the sculptor to bring forth the true shape waiting to be revealed from within the stone. I was wondering if this is what you had in mind in the sculptor quatrain? In a similar vein, the job of the heart surgeon isn’t to create a new heart, but to either repair a failing heart or to remove blockages that prevent the heart from functioning properly. I don’t know much about cardiology, but I suspect there is an element of finesse to surgery that weaves its way around the technical procedures. If there is a weakness in the poem, I think it might be a missed opportunity to draw parallels between sculpting/surgery and physical touch rather than presenting them in contrast to one another. I guess I’m saying that this poem could also be re-written in reverse or presented as a series of mirror images. The hands, for example, remember the motions but forget the motivations of “the heart” and the purpose of touch. You do seem to be saying something like that in S4. I am having a few problems with the contrast in S5. A sculptor might argue that his or her hands are instruments used to bring the sculpture out of the stone in a similar way that a poet’s hands are instruments in arranging words on a page to articulate a feeling. It probably isn’t entirely correct to suppose that art is conceived by the hands, or even that a successful heart operation is also, although the hands certainly do play an important part in all the examples you’ve presented to us. Sculpting, for example, is as much an exercise of inspiration as it is an application of precise use of sculpting instruments. If I can suggest anything to improve this poem, it would be to expand it. The art of writing poetry would also be an apt avenue to explore – the “mechanical” arrangement of words, even if technically flawless, loses something without the poet’s investment of a part of his or her creative personality in the work. I enjoyed the poem, Jim. Nice work. G |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Jim, This one and I seem to miss each other, though I'm usually very happy with your work. I think that Gabe was onto something when he was talking about it having something of the shading of a Shakespearean sonnet without actually being one. What I heard from that was that it had the metaphysical convolutions and twists that WS seems to stuff into his sonnet stuff like a Strasbourg Goose without the imagery and the sonic payoff that he uses to make the stuffing more tasty. I have trouble getting from one end to the other here because it's more a poem of convolute logic than of passionate engagement with the reader. It virtually begs for internal rhymes and for a rhythm to pull it along. Instead it offers inversions of syntax. If the poem were actually going to show what it was describing, an alternate strategy, it would be smooth and lucid and deep and accepting. Just a few thoughts on this knotty draft. Affectionately, Bob Kaven [This message has been edited by Bob K (09-11-2008 06:36 PM).] |
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viking_metal Senior Member
since 2007-02-02
Posts 1337In a Jeep, Minnesota. |
It made me, literally, sad. I didn't feel lost, and I enjoyed the whole thing. I know I'll be chastised, but hey, I have no gripes. It was excellent. -Paul |
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oceanvu2 Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066Santa Monica, California, USA |
Hi Gabe and Bob. Maybe this is a case of compression being the lesser part of valor. The poem is, in its simple way, stuffed with stuff that people are picking up on, but then my head is like that -- stuffed with stuff. I like it better with the revised ending. In fact, my endings are often weak and they are something I work on. I could start from the bottom of the page, I guess, with great "enders," but I'd probably wind up with mediocre beginnings. Paul: Good to hear your voice. "Intangerine" from your early post is still one of the greatest words not yet in the dictionary. Best, Jimbeaux |
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