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Critical Analysis #2
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Lock step and mindless
| Critical Analysis #2 |
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Lock step and mindless |
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Radrook Senior Member
since 2002-08-09
Posts 648 |
Lock step and mindless they blindly stomped the cobbles into sumbission Without derision but mechaially digging their hob nailed boots resonating against bloodied walls of gheto life whoes squalid ribbings pointed accusatory fngers at the twisted cross held aloft by jagged featured men. Beneath the canopy of a weeping sky they march truth into the ground goostepping kindness into oblivon's maw brotherhood splatterd by their ravenous jaws backs like bludgeoning clubs eyes like beists of pray but they don't but seek solace only in zieg heiL Zig Heil! Zig Heil! instead. The corpses of the dead trampled and disdained flung like refuse fill the trench with staring eyes of the accused to death for being Jews. Swastic in bare knuckled hand they stand proud raising rifles and firing round after round until the silence screams and the living gleam in splndorous disgrace. The human of their race trampled under foot of hobnailed Nazuio boots which beat it itnto the suffering Fatherland ground between agonizing streets blown assunder by hate's steel spittle, and the sonorous Mozart Sonatas in the distant station assuage and assure while the ovens are primed and the biting showers are scoured of their ravaging hunger for Jewish flesh. [This message has been edited by Radrook (10-26-2002 03:31 AM).] |
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TJDoat Junior Member
since 2002-09-29
Posts 26 |
I like this, but will wait to comment on it until later, when I've had enough time to fully soak it in. 'The human of their race'<----fantastic word play here. -Jason |
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SimplyGold Senior Member
since 2002-07-10
Posts 1453 |
Rad, I too, liked this. I will wait to comment as this is pretty intense.Very frightening images. SimplyGold |
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Not A Poet Member Elite
since 1999-11-03
Posts 3885Oklahoma, USA |
It is intense but how else could one write about such an intense subject? The very nature of the subject and the outlook you have chosen also makes it difficult to write without seeming prosey. Maybe that was your intent but my personal choice would be to put more effort into line breaks and some of the wording to help make it less prosey. Sorry but that's all I can come upn with right now. Must be running only half-full today. Thanks, Pete |
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Radrook Senior Member
since 2002-08-09
Posts 648 |
Thanks to everyone for the feedback. Hi Not A Poet! Yes, it does tend toward prose. Not as much as Walt Whitman's poems, but it is a prosy style I was led to write in. I say led because this was a stream-of consciousness effort. So I held my tendencies to interfere with the spontaneous imagery flow in check. The few attempts at consciously adding a word here or there tended to appear forced or insincere. So I left it more or less as it came to my mind. I agree that additional line breaks might improve the poem. I began experimenting with line breaks but have not decided as yet where to place them. Any line-break suggestions with the specific reasons for each one would be appreciated. [This message has been edited by Radrook (10-25-2002 02:22 AM).] |
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Radrook Senior Member
since 2002-08-09
Posts 648 |
Here is my attempt at using the line breaks suggested. The brackets point to where I made some modifications in word-choice or grammar. Lock step and mindless they blindly stomp the cobbles into submission Without derision but mechanically digging their hob-nailed boots resonating against bloodied walls of ghetto life whose squalid ribbings point accusatory fingers at the twisted cross held aloft by jagged-featured men. Beneath the canopy of a weeping sky they march truth into the ground goose-step[]kindness into oblivion's maw and [splatter brotherhood] [with]their ravenous jaws. Backs like bludgeoning clubs eyes like beasts of pray. But they don't [] They seek solace only in Zeig Heil! ZEIG HEIL! ZEIG HEIL ! instead. Corpses of the dead are trampled and disdained flung like refuse [filling] the [trenches] with staring eyes of the accused to death for being Jews. Swastika in bare knuckled hand they stand proud raising rifles firing round after round until the silence screams and THE LIVING GLEAM IN SLENDOROUS DISGRACE The human of their race trampled under foot of hobnailed Nazi boots which beat it into [] suffering ground between agonizing streets is blown asunder by hate's steel spittle []while the sonorous Mozart Sonatas in the distant station assuage and assure the[]trusting lost into []submission. Resonating boots on stone transform the evening darkness shaping it by force into a hideous mass of marching men. [This message has been edited by Radrook (10-26-2002 03:55 AM).] |
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TJDoat Junior Member
since 2002-09-29
Posts 26 |
I've read this enough to have portions of it committed to memory. I dreamt of it last night(seriously). Nightmares and all, I like this, and I think I prefer the original, loosely streaming, version better. The ranting feel of it, does the subject justice. I can't help but feel as if I am there witnessing the madness described, and wonder also if perhaps you where......... I can think of nothing at all that would improve this, other than having it published far and wide, so that a great many more people can experience it as well. By far one of the best poems(all prose aside) I have ever read. Not to belittle it by comparisons, but it reminds me of a more intense version of Ginnesburgs 'America'with the loose flow, and the slightly disjointed narrations coming together to form a much greater whole. Fantastic! -Jason |
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Radrook Senior Member
since 2002-08-09
Posts 648 |
Thanks for the feedback. Well, I have two formats here. To be honest, I like the former one better myself though you expressed the reasons why before I could really determine the cause for my preference. Perhaps flow-of-consciousness poems should not be tampered too much in terms of spacing? I rarely write in this style so I will make many mistakes in finding the right presentational format. Maybe I should decide as the surrealist purists and adopt the leave-it-as-is modus operandi until I become more accustomed to this style. Did I personally experience these things? Fortunately not. I am, however, a student of European history and have studied the issues involved and the disturbing details of this whole disaster. So I drew from this reservoir as well as from my emotional reaction to it in order to write this poem. Thanks again for the advice! [This message has been edited by Radrook (10-26-2002 03:08 PM).] |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
While I'm glad you cleaned up the spelling, those line breaks make no sense to me. I don't think you should worry about that though, I think you should embrace Whitman and explore what can be done in that form. This is far too short, a longer piece will give you the space to explore the moral consequences of dwelling on Nazism as evil and, perhaps, explore a certain Nazism that still dwells in us. Is this a bad poem? No, but I think it is a sketch, a beginning, of something that could be a lot stronger. You mentioned that you are a student of European history, but it strikes me that this piece (except perhaps for the Mozart sonata -- a lot of potential there) is utterly lacking in any kind of in-depth protrayal of the Nazis. Certainly nothing that gives us a more interesting picture than a Spielberg film. Speaking of an interesting picture and of what the Nazi theme can do for a picture, have you seen, "Kiss of the Spider Woman"? It's that kind of moral ambiguity that can be addressed in a form such as this and seems utterly lacking here. Somebody mentioned Ginsberg's America but it's precisely the kind of self-irony that he uses so successfully that this poem needs. As far as form is concerned, you're far too top heavy: "Lock step and mindless they blindly" --no need to use blindly here if they're mindless "mechaially digging their hob nailed boots" "bloddied walls" "gheto life" "squalid ribbings" "accusatory fngers" "twisted cross" "jagged featured men." And that's just the first stanza. Now, some of these aren't bad but collectively they begin to weigh on the reader, almost as if you're not sure that the nouns you chose can't stand on their own or that piling adjective/noun combinations are in some sense more poetic than the noun itself. Which brings us to the aesthetic question concerning revision. No doubt one can write a good poem in one sitting, but they can also write a bad poem the same way. The point is to write a good one, it really doesn't matter how it is written if it's good. It should be pointed out that the two poems most sited in terms of this form, Ginsberg's "Howl" and Whitman's "Song of Myself", were not written in one sitting. Whitman, for example, took nine years and continued to revise his poems throughout his life. |
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Radrook Senior Member
since 2002-08-09
Posts 648 |
Hi Brad! The misspelled words were due to writing while half asleep and being careless by not passing the poem through the spellchecker twice. I agree wholeheartedly with the revision part. Actually, this is my first effort at stream-of-consciousness writing and striving to follow the purist surrealism modus operandi of not revising. I did so with a bit of reservation but wanted to see how much value that viewpoint holds. But as I suspected, they are not being realistic. Revision is valuable and poets have been revising their poems for ages. Thanks for pointing out redundancies and other things which you feel need modification. I do appreciate the time and effort you have taken to read and analyze my poem. Thanks for the advice! God bless! [This message has been edited by Radrook (10-28-2002 01:19 PM).] |
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Radrook Senior Member
since 2002-08-09
Posts 648 |
Expansion and a more detailed account are definitely possible in this area. The problem, at least in my case, is that I am not particularly fond of delving too deeply into this nightmare. In fact, I began to do so while writing this poem and stopped due to the possibility of offending someone's sensibilities. After all, there are still victims of these things present some of which might be among us at this site. So in consideration for them, I held back quite a bit. But in all honesty, and I mean this in no way to devaluate your suggestions, I would rather leave this theme and move on to something less depressing. One reader had nightmares reading this and I do not wish to cause any more suffering of that kind. God bless! [This message has been edited by Radrook (10-29-2002 01:31 AM).] |
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