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Cineaste
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Cineaste |
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bsquirrel
since 2000-01-03
Posts 7855
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Bright lights up ahead but I can't recognize the city. Spires cut the sky too weirdly, throw misplaced shadows in the street. When it snows, I'lll know I'm home. The cityscape won't matter then. Everything equal under the grey definition of growing drifts. The streets weighed down in monochromatics. Cheap symbolism abounds in winter -- you are your own film, without edges, winding on the reel. A girl will cut across the landscape; crunching snow will fill the soundtrack. She will carry a sack of groceries. She won't stop or notice the stranger. I won't reveal the denouement portrayed in a dazzling mise-en-scene that leads to the moaning ring of the alarm, and her words. "Life is not a poem." |
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Wind
since 2002-10-12
Posts 2981 |
half of me understood this..but then again, half of me didn't. Good job though, it had great images and fit together nicely insanity is not a crime |
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bsquirrel
since 2000-01-03
Posts 7855 |
Thanks, Wind. You captured me in a talkative mood, so I'll lay my case out here. I prefer poems that resist simple platitudes or meaning. I love layer, depth and resonance in poetry -- poems that have a unique character and whittle out little-known places in the subconscious. So then they go from being poems ABOUT something to poems that make you recollect a feeling or impression that you couldn't otherwise feel. Read Wallace Stevens ("Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird," or "The Planet on the Table," or "Bantam in Pine Woods," or "Anecdote of the Jar" for example). He's a poet I go back to again and again when I want to be reminded what poetry can do. To some he's obscure and ponderous. To others, he sings a song and flits images across the screen like no other. So I guess it all comes down to a matter of preference. I've been writing poetry for 13 years now, and have been reading and writing and meeting people and taking up causes and dropping others during that time. If I read this 13 years ago, I probably would have hated it, and that, alone, tells me I've come a-ways from where I was. It's a poem that sort of resists an easy explanation. I could say "This poem talks about cinematic imagery, the strata of dreams and the slow evolution and failing of personal relationships," but even that needs more explanation. In other words, I've done my job. Mike |
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Wind
since 2002-10-12
Posts 2981 |
that was not an insult, I enjoy things that I don't understand. There was that thing that told me that I understood it, but something else. so I guess you did do your job insanity is not a crime |
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Aenimal Member Rara Avis
since 2002-11-18
Posts 7350the ass-end of space |
Fantastic and I agree over the years I've developed and refined my tastes in film for example. I abhor hollywood fare especially having discovered french film in particular. Some things are better left unsaid, to be slowly unraveled by the viewer and yes the same goes for good poetry and literature. My first thoughts of this were pleasant. I pictured you surprising a certain someone in calgary. Though the second thought was of you returning home(not sure if you've always been in California) and how you'd be a stranger having changed over the years. Well i didn't say they were good thoughts yet. grin. I'm not done with this has to be read over and over and will be. |
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Janet Marie Member Laureate
since 2000-01-22
Posts 18554 |
Bright lights up ahead but I can't recognize the city. Spires cut the sky too weirdly, throw misplaced shadows in the street. When it snows, I'lll know I'm home. The cityscape won't matter then. Everything equal under the grey definition of growing drifts. ===================================== You always keep your imagery vivid and illusive at the same time.... surreal and concrete... textures and layers... COOL and COOLER YET  I like Raphs interps of this..I had similar thoughts as well... snow... like the ocean, always makes for high inspire in your groovy gifted pen.  "How could I stand here with you and not be moved by you." |
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brian sites Senior Member
since 2002-06-25
Posts 1475usa |
yes as in this poem you do take sledgehammer to the old mildew of crumbling sewertunnels make the life within taste a little fresh air maybe see something it could never have had its semicircle of ancient bricks never been touched by the macktruck snowfeather of your words |
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Local Parasite
since 2001-11-05
Posts 2527Transylconia, Winnipeg |
It interests me to read what you say about poetry, how you've grown out of the self-restriction of poetry that has meaning and instead opted for poetry that invokes a certain reader response. Funny, because myself, I've found that I grew the opposite direction... I once wrote poetry for the purposes of creating a subconscious response and now write only with specific meaning to what I'm saying... the evolution out of what I had thought to be "empty" poetry. What do you enjoy with this poem? The image that I got in my mind, is that what you were looking for? Then I'll share it with you... it made me think of how my mother used to look when she'd come home carrying groceries and the way the snow speckled her winter jacket, and how sad the streetlights looked with that layer of snow resting on their heads... and the sound the snow used to make under my boots when I'd walk to school in the winter... how cold I felt and how I reassured myself by looking up and imagining the number of steps until I reached my destination. I disagree that winter is full of cheap symbolism. I find it rather rich. But hey, that's just me. Thanks for the food for thought, Mikey... mine was getting hungry. Parasite Faith is a fine invention |
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bsquirrel
since 2000-01-03
Posts 7855 |
Exactly, LP. The poem evoked an image in your head -- its own poem. That's why I enjoy keeping things at a more resonant level than a concrete one ... then everyone can have their own thoughts and ascribe what they want to the poem's meaning. As for cheap symbolism, I realized while writing the winterscape that it was turning into a black and white film. These things can be done artfully, or they can be done heavy handedly. I tried to strike a balance between the two, giving off both the sublime and the overdone (the "it was just a dream" ending is pure corn). |
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Wind
since 2002-10-12
Posts 2981 |
geesh mikey..as for you bumping mine  This is my favorite one of your so far. I never told you..did I? the half of me that didn't understand this needed to reread it a couple thousand times. because something terrible happens in the end..at least in my opinion. second materpeice to be bumped in our revived haven. congradulations. 'life is not a poem.' I think you've proved her wrong, only that life is not a movie. Cineaste: a person involved in filmaking. What about China? Have you seen the Great Wall? |
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