WAGblog

More to say on Poetry (edited)

I'm happy to report that I have a volunteer to be a poet-victim, A M, and in the coming days and weeks ahead we will be working on a poem together in these pages. The first installment should be posted in the next day or so.

Meanwhile, it looks like I need to explain a bit what I was doing in my last poems, as it seems that my oh-so-cleverness was lost on people! BD

Let me reprint two of them here and do a little analysis of my method:

TO A REPEAT OFFENDER (first of all, the repeat offender refers to someone who has attempted suicide more than once, as is implied in the very last line)

It (meaning the hospital ER etc) was never like anything you imagined
from a television familiarity with ERs
ORs and ICUs, (It was) never on schedule, (or made)
orderly just in the nick of time
but (filled) with a touch of humor, comic relief
always ready in the wings. For one thing
there was always too much noise
and damaged bodies gave off fluids
messy, even repulsive, if you didn’t know
what to expect. The four
times you were there (unknown why now, but after knowing the ending, it is for attempted suicide) you never got used
to the uproar, the loudspeaker,
doctors racing from cubicle to cubicle,
peripatetic (that is to say, wandering) police, harried nurses,
all in service to the temple of the body,
its personal soap (opera), the "one life to live" (a soap opera! as well as a fact of life)
you were always so intent on throwing away.

You see, the repeat suicide attempter is so involved in his or her personal soap opera/tragedy that he/she is throwing away the one life to live he/she has, which is the title of a soap opera...It's all a (serious) play on words with a moral: these docs and RNs are working hard to save people who want to live; cleaning their wounds (personal soap) and festering sores and here you are complaining about your petty tragedies (personal soap opera) and trying again and again to throw your precious life away... This is the sort of thing that you have to watch for in some poems, the constant interplay of words that mean one thing in one context but can mean something entirely different when seen another way, and may in fact mean both at one time. And yet you are also free, entirely free, to put your own spin on the words too! No poet knows all that they put into a poem, a lot of it is subconscious and unknown even to the writer.

(I know, I know, and I was the one who wrote: "the best poems mean what they say, and say it" and they do, but sometimes they say more than one thing at a time. There is always a surface meaning that is enough, but if you mine deeper, you can find more richness than even the poet intended.)

SESQUIPEDALIAN (someone who uses 7 syllable words, or the mere use thereof)

Webster must have known big words hurt (the suprise is in the enjambement of next wd)
less than the small venomous yellow jackets (which are tiny but painful biters cf bumble bees or robins)
of lesser ones that speak their minds
and don’t care who hears,
which is why in “perorate” you find
a synonym for “talk” and “circumlocution”
hides a way to walk around and around (exactly what circumlocute means)
what it is you want to say
so that when the wasps would sting
with his “Go away, Leave me alone!” (hurtful remark)
and you wish he had chosen to circumnavigate
your feelings, Webster’s Registered Word-nurse (fanciful notion for the idea that big Greco-Latinate words will soften the blow of the short Anglo-Saxon hurtful words of insult or offense -- all our swear words for instance)
springs to her duty: “Perambulate
from the domicile,” her gentle urge is, offering
aloe to a burn (aloe plant juice soothes a burn). “He is fugaciously recusant.” (ie leave the house, he temporarily rejects you)
It is not aloe you want, but no burn,
but the stinger is in and must be removed
and so you tweeze and lotion
with words of soft vowels, cushions,
no sharp edges or plosives, comforting yourself. (Using words that don't hurt you tell yourself it's okay, soothe yourself with comforting reminders that he doesn't hate you etc)
He comes around by evening, (Indeed he doesn't hate you) contrite
as you cook, puts his arms
around your trembling shoulders,
his chin in your neck, says the two short words (these short words don't sting)
simple, peacemaking,
that are white moths (small and delicate, but not stinging insects) fluttering
near your anger (like a flame) taking that risk to say,
I’m sorry. (The two most healing short words there are...)

Remember, in poetry you use CONCRETE images to convey something that may well be abstract, so while I am using two people having a quarrel to illustrate the power of words to hurt and to mend, I'm also concretizing those words in order to make the same point. The words themselves have become hurtful and healing, wasps or moths...You see how it goes? Now take a look at the poems again, and see if you can understand them better, and perhaps find even more richness in them now that you see how to read "into" them more deeply. Truly, find whatever you can there, I am not the be-all and end-all of everything that may be being said in any of my poems. God only knows what I'm saying that I'm not even aware of! And they are not perfect by any means, either...So there are inconsistencies and flaws too. But all I mean to show is that I did not "do" these things without careful consideration of WHAT I was doing; I was not just spewing onto the page but had a plan in mind and a means to an end that I formulated if not beforehand, then as I went along.

TO A REPEAT OFFENDER

It was never like anything you imagined
from a television familiarity with ERs
ORs and ICUs, never on schedule,
orderly just in the nick of time
but with a touch of humor, comic relief
always ready in the wings. For one thing
there was always too much noise
and damaged bodies gave off fluids
messy, even repulsive, if you didn’t know
what to expect. The four
times you were there you never got used
to the uproar, the loudspeaker,
doctors racing from cubicle to cubicle,
peripatetic police, harried nurses,
all in service to the temple of the body,
its personal soap, the one life to live
you were always so intent on throwing away.

SESQUIPEDALIAN

"Sesquipedalian: using seven syllable words"

Webster must have known big words hurt
less than the small venomous yellow jackets
of lesser ones that speak their minds
and don’t care who hears,
which is why in “perorate” you find
a synonym for “talk” and “circumlocution”
hides a way to walk around and around
what it is you want to say
so that when the wasps would sting
with his “Go away, Leave me alone!”
and you wish he had chosen to circumnavigate
your feelings, Webster’s Registered Word-nurse
springs to her duty: “Perambulate
from the domicile,” her gentle urge is, offering
aloe to a burn. “He is fugaciously recusant.”
It is not aloe you want, but no burn,
but the stinger is in and must be removed
and so you tweeze and lotion
with words of soft vowels, cushions,
no sharp edges or plosives, comforting yourself.
He comes around by evening, contrite
as you cook, puts his arms
around your trembling shoulders,
his chin in your neck, says the two short words
simple, peacemaking,
that are white moths fluttering
near your anger, taking that risk to say,
I’m sorry.

Posted by pamwagg at November 3, 2006 09:42 PM