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Blowfish
| Dark Poetry #4 |
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Blowfish |
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JenniferMaxwell
since 2006-09-14
Posts 2423 |
Your callous indifference, to the suffering of those obviously inferior to your smug sense of superiority, smacks of the same psychological wounds inflicted on George by the stone hands of his ice veined mother and the cow paddied boots of his spit shined father. Your wake is the shadow of the Limbaugh shake mocking Michael, your closet is full of Condi’s Katrina shoe shopping shoes, and Cheney, the Tin Man’s heartless buck shot in your face defective pacemakers. Your insensitive perceptions once boiled my blood, set my ear drums athumping with off the top of chart blood pressure. But now I’ve concluded you’re just a pitiful blowfish best avoided, puffed up on the outside and stewing in your own juices, the poison within. |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
"the poison within" This is so cool, Jen. I mean, I felt the impact passion, but I just love, love, your blowfish. Because in Haitian Voudoin/Santeria? That's the very stuff from which zombies are made. I'd tell ya more, but I don't wanna go giving weird ass lectures at 3.39 in the morning.  But oh, what a metaphor! I-do-not-read-you-often-enough.  y'got skills, lady! loved this. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear JenniferMaxwell, Clear and straightforward. Much of this poetry business can come down to who you're reading and what you're listening for in your own work. There's a nice bitter wit here, but what do you want and what does the poem want from you? Is there a voice that you're hearing yourself speaking in or a voice that seems to come from the poem that you're revising towards? This is not so easy as suggesting you use fewer adjectives or more action verbs. It means reading your stuff out loud and finding other poets whose work you like and reading their work out loud. Maybe you can get recordings of them reading; these days that's a better possibility than it used to be. I'm reading Maura Stanton these days because she's quite incredible. She's developed a personal mythology, part fiction, I suspect, part real and she inhabits it with language that must be seen to be believed. Her first book in 1971 won the Yale Younger Poets prize for that year and she's always pushing over this award or that one. And always deserving it. The book of hers I'm reading now has Trolls in the title someplace. Mekeel McBride has a different voice entirely, much more whimsical, much lighter, but also wonderful. Her selected is Dog Star Delicatessen. One of her earlier books is The Going Under of The Evening Land, which was worth the purchase price simply for the title. (It's the literal translation from the German of the title of Oswald Spengler's turgid but classic The Decline of The West.) So perhaps it's worth expanding your reading and enjoyment of other poets now, so you get a sense not only of the nice things you're doing, but of some of the nice things other people in the field are doing too. Looking over Poetry Magazine and American Poetry Review when they come out will also give you a somewhat biased but active view of what's going on. You need to get some notion of who's professional out there, what they're doing and how they're going about it. It all helps your thinking about your own work. Jane Shore is worth reading as well, an excellent poet with a good sense of depth to her insight into language. You learn quickly, and you need to listen to what directions your contemporaries tempt you with, and how you react with and against them. And listen to how your voice wants to responds to them. And listen to what your poems want from you. I'd be pleased as punch to be on a streak like yours right now. Enjoy it and keep going. All my best, BobK. |
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JenniferMaxwell
since 2006-09-14
Posts 2423 |
Thanks, Karen. Your kind comment lead me to the Wikipedia article on Zombies which was fascinating. I get the blowfish connection now. Coming back as a Zombie doesn’t seem like it would suit either of us very much - no speech and no free will. How boring is that! Thanks for the very helpful tips, BobK, especially the one about reading other poets out loud. (Still can’t tolerate reading my stuff out loud, but will try reading it louder in my head. ) I’ve read Jane Shore in the library’s back issues of Ploughshare and enjoyed her work very much. Will look for Poetry Magazine and American Poetry Review. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear JenniferMaxwell, Sorry to be a dork here, because I know how embarrassing it can be to read one's own poetry out loud for Oh so many reasons, but as a detector for flat notes false notes, overwritten notes and notes where the rhythms and movement go wrong the only thing that can beat it is reading aloud in front of an audience. Reading louder silently doesn't cut it because you haven't read your stuff out loud enough yet to make the jump, otherwise you wouldn't even suggest it. It's one of the few cases where being excruciatingly shy works to your advantage. My definition of real shyness: When you find your own words so painful that even hearing them spoken aloud when you're alone feels unbearable. This is the one situation when you know in advance exactly what the worst things your audience can say. These struggles with the ego are part of the writing process. We tend to think of them as part of our own personal struggle, but they're more profitably looked at as another technical problem in the writing process. Read the stuff out loud and you get a better idea about what to revise. Don't, and you won't. Silent doesn't substitute because your embarrassment is a resource for you here, and you need it to improve your work. For once, it's on your side. It's doing the job it was meant to do in the way it was meant to do it. Instead of enforcing somebody else's standards, it's helping you form your own. If you don't agree with any of those standards after thinking about it, these are embarrassments you can change because you are in the process of forming your own voice. This is not something to flinch from, this is something to experiment with, enjoy and play with as you read and hear other poets and as you read and hear yourself. I'm not telling you you shouldn't be afraid. You have no control over that. I'm telling you that this is a fear you can play with and indulge and bring with you and learn from, unlike most of the other fears you've had to deal with before in your life. It is a resource. Hope I've not gotten too dorky here, but it's something I feel pretty strongly about. BobK. [This message has been edited by Bob K (06-02-2008 05:05 AM).] |
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JenniferMaxwell
since 2006-09-14
Posts 2423 |
BobK, I know you're right and you know I'm reluctant. How about a compromise? Like maybe reading them out loud in the bathroom with the door shut and the shower running? |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear JM, I do go on, don't I. Large mouth here not always connected to brain here. Your sense of humor is appreciated. BobK. |
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