Week 14

I recorded myself reading the poems I was considering reading for our performance, "Incidents in Cartography", "Odyssey", and "Roadkill". I was interested mainly in figuring out pacing. I had read all of these poems so many times that I already felt pretty comfortable with how they sounded in every other way, except for pacing. Listening to "Odyssey", I realized that I had to really slow myself down because the rate I was reading it in my initial recording wasn't allowing enough time for the images to seep. With "Roadkill", I discovered that the tone with which I read the poem was actually a decision I had to make. Did I want it to be sardonic at the end? Did I want it to be sentimental? I realized that I had to make the tonal shifts within the poem obvious with my voice, so I rerecorded myself changing the tone of my voice and the pacing with each quatrain and couplet. Finally, I realized that with "Incidents in Cartography" that one of the things I like most about it is the conversational tone in the beginning that then shifts to majestic, so I decided to read it as I would say it to any old buddy of mine and then slow it down and put more weight on the words as I neared the close. It was pretty interesting recording myself. I think my voice changes when I read aloud. Hm.

Week 13

C.D. Wright's "One With Others [I take one more drive across town thinking]" is, I think, elliptical. Again, I find the term confusing, but pretty much when I come across a poem that seems purposefully confusing I automatically connect it to the term. Mutual confusion is the connecting thread, apparently. Well, this particular poem begins in a fairly straightforward way. The speaker goes for a drive and let's us into her thoughts momentarily, because you know when you drive your thoughts run rampant. Well, it starts simple enough, but then it starts to veer. The poem alludes to segregation, but then there's all of this stuff about V and I really don't think I know what she's getting at.

       I attach V to my driving-around thoughts.           An object unworthy of love she thought she was.            It was a cri de coeur.            Those of our get had given her a nom de guerre: V.

This is where it stops making sense, which I suppose means is when it starts being elliptical. It's like she's referencing something that's an inside joke for her and her friends, expecting us to get it, but knowing that we can't. I mean, what is V? Am I missing something? I don't think this whole elliptical thing is really to my liking...

Week 12

Picking from this week's playlist in particular, I would say that the poet who I admire the most is William Carlos Williams. His style is not particularly experimental, but it is also not boring or tired. His language is vivid, his themes interesting and simple, and his tone appealing. "Pastoral" is beautifully written with excellent images, but it has a great turn at the end. I really like closure in poems, call me old fashioned. His closure is definitely sudden and at the close, but it is also not on the nose or too obvious. He still allows your mind to wander.

"Love Song" is a vivid little poem that seems to be hyperbolic at times in tone and uses just wonderful imagery in depicting this sort of odd love poem. I'm not even sure I totally get it, but I like it. I imagine it is about a sexually restless person at sunset wanting to entangle his "limbs" with another's as night quickly approaches? Well, it's lovely and and I feel uncertain as to if I should find it lovely sue to the content. But I like that contrast.

I would like to play around with tone in the way that Williams does. I'm not sure if I can write humorous poetry, but I would like to try. And to do so in a way like Williams, where the language is still beautiful - at times florid, at times simple.

Week 13

I do not think I fully understand what elliptical poems truly are. According to one of the definitions of the word elliptical, it is "of or relating to extreme economy of oral or written expression" and it is "marked by deliberate obscurity of style or expression." To me, this is what all poetry is: using just the right words to express something that is not overtly evident at first glance. It is about deeper meaning and, intrinsically ,an economy of language. I understand how this definition applies to the poems that are considered "elliptical", but I also think that these poems are not exclusively that. They are a weirder, more confusing version of that from other poems. Basically, I don't like the definition and I think it is elevating this form of poetry to an overvalued state. In general I find them unappealing. I'll now look further into the example Hoagland gives of an elliptical poem, Louis Aragon's "Pop Tune."

Aragon's "Pop Tune" is actually easier for me to grasp than some of the other elliptical poems that I have come across in trying to figure out what the hell they are. I think I like it more than those others because it is actually dealing with an emotional thought, with a severe topic; therefore, even though it is following the detached form of an elliptical poem, it is decidedly attached to a serious human concern. Where I find this poem elliptical is in its lack of punctuation, which leads to a difficulty in placing yourself and determining who is speaking. But in general, the progression of the poem makes sense. This is something I think other "elliptical" poems seem to lack.

Week 11

I find Palmer's "Autobiography 2 (hellogoodbye)" interesting because of what the title adds to the poem. Although there is much to be said about this piece, the thing that I like most about it is how most of the couplets have a sense of transition within them. There are notions of togetherness and separateness (book of COMPANY - put down), travel (Trans-Siberian disappearing - Shadow Train), barriers/connectors (crossing the Lion bridge - doorway). Although the poem is fragmented, it has a thematic element that seems to connect it and I find the sentiment of "hellogoodbye" important for this. It is filled with the simultaneous arrival and departure of its subjects.

In terms of style, particularly, however, I find Ras's "You Can't Have It All" the most enjoyable to read because of how the words are strung together. Alliteration and repetition coupled with imagery make this poem flow nicely for me.

Here's my chant opening:

Going down to the river

Going down to the river

Going to smoke some crack

Down by the river

Where the crackheads are at.

Week 10

I don't feel as connected with poets as I do with some prose writers, so this prompt was proving to be quite difficult for me; therefore, I decided to just address it to Hemingway.

Dear Ernest,

I worry that I read too much into you. Your words just aren't enough. But maybe they are and I'm not losing it.

You are the worst kind of lover. You are the other who reveals nothing with your stifled words, the blankness of them a vacuum that sucks me into their void and I think and I think and I build my own story out of yours. Perhaps you mean nothing at all and I am driving myself mad for an iceberg that really is all above water.

But then, what does it matter? The notions that I connect to your nices mean something if they mean it to me, perhaps?

Out with it. If I can't write my own words then I must request that yours say more.

Yours (because what's yours is mine),

Marisa

Between Matthews and Levis, I suppose I would say that I appreciate the works of Matthews more. Although the narrative power of Levis is compelling for me, especially as a prose writer, I find that the subject matter and the imagery of Matthews' poetry resonates more with me. The beautiful and complex way that he writes about setting appeals to the poetic side of me, as I feel like my own writing is at its most vivid when describing sensual aspects of setting.

Week 9 - Fragmented

I sit in my dim matchbox,

Crowded around the glowing open mouth

Of the electric oven.

The blazing coils dim and intensify

With each wandering breath.

These are the duties of the righteous,

The ways of the anointed.

And she pulls me away from the oven

And she rubs my burns with ointment.

Last night she’d been

Ironing shirts and trying her best to explain

Something important to the children

And you waited

Behind a pile of linen.

The word linen seems inherently clean.

Soiled linen is no longer linen –

It is a rag.

Just as to spit-clean is inherently not clean.

And here I am filled with my own spit.

My house floats on a lawn.

In the icehouse I'd clear my name

From a scruff of ponderosa pines.