Well, it's been ages since I posted one of my poems. That's because I haven't been writing any. This one from the archive, though, fits pretty well the mood of glumness that has prevailed during this loony week in China. I wrote this - composed it, perhaps I should say - in the space of about an hour, while out for a run. The first line is adapted from something my friend The Poet (a proper one) had shared with me. Once I'd hit on the basic formula, any number of variations readily suggested themselves to me. That's the appeal of 'list' poems - they're pretty easy! It's possibly a bit raw and unfinished. I never did any polishing on it; just jotted it down exactly as it had first occurred to me, and then promptly forgot all about it. That must have been a couple of years ago. Bleak, yes; but not without shafts of humour. (And the Metaphor Game is one you all can play.) The city screams itself awake, The screaming never stops. Love's being tortured on the rack, Charity's in chains; Delight's a missing person, Enchantment's on the slab, Aspiration's choked at birth, Progress has lost its way; Compassion's on a hunger strike, And Friendship's bought with bribes; But the screaming never stops, The screams fill every day. Hopes are shoved in cattle-trucks, Ideals hounded down; Joy’s being suffocated, Illusions body-bagged; Justice proved a turncoat, And Mercy's out of style; While Truth's a wriggling prisoner To test cosmetics on. And the screaming never stops, The screams go on at night; The screaming never, never stops Till all our dreams are dead. |
Sunday, October 04, 2009
Dark metaphors
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
You see, that's the problem with posting from e-mail: the formatting keeps getting all screwed up, and it's nigh impossible to fix even when I access the blog through my Blogger account.
Grrrr.
Also, this took nearly twenty minutes go through. I wonder if someone's reading my e-mail?
Really like the repetition of "the screaming never stops"; it reminds me of "Naming of Parts" in that respect. Is there a name for this form?
A number of years ago, I pulled out some old poems of mine to share with The Missus and a friend, both of them published poets. This wasn't a workshop or critique situation, but I had hopes that they'd read these and say that they found something of value in at least one or two. Alas... my ego has yet to recover from the experience.
P.S. Having looked at the page source, I think you'd have to use your Blogger account to edit the underlying HTML. Blogger always gave/gives me fits when it comes to removing nested "divs," which may be the source of the formatting problem.
I can't cope with HTML at the best of times, and certainly not when it gets as messy-looking as that.
I have a further problem at the moment that when I am able to access Blogger all I'm getting is the HTML view in the 'Compose/Edit' window, with none of the fancy buttons for embedding links or uploading photos or playing with the formatting. Most the other features - like edit layout, and so on - are non-functional as well, so I haven't been able to do anything with the sidebars in ages.
I assume I'm being lumbered with a 'simplified' verson of Blogger because my connection speed (via Tor) is so very, very SLOW at the moment. Or has Blogger just become utterly crap for everyone??
Most frustrating.
One thing I've noticed about writer friends - well, specifically about American writer friends; (Is there some difference in the culture? Or is it the kind of thing they encourage in creative writing classes??) - is that they will re-write stuff I've shown them. I don't find it wounding to the ego (because they're usually very free with the accompanying compliments, and they tender their own version with a "this is what I might have done with it" sort of introduction), but it is nonetheless irritating to me - pointless (because their take on it is almost invariably a bit half-hearted or unfinished, and [hope this doesn't sound too arrogant, but I am quite confident of this] seldom or never an improvement), and, more importantly, intrusive ("this is MINE; go and write your own stuff!").
I suppose some might accuse me of that falling into that vice myself here, but I was taking a single line - a single phrase, in fact - from a friend's work, and using it as an inspiration to something quite different, not presuming to re-cast her poem in my words.
Strange how proprietorial I get about this! But it does seem to me that this is quite different from giving someone 'notes'. I kind of like my stuff the way it is, warts and all. And while I try to be open to the possibility that it could be improved and will listen with interest to suggestions, it has to be up to me whether to make any "improvements" or not. Making such "improvements" to another's work - unbidden - strikes me as the height of discourtesy. If people want to do this kind of thing as an exercise to develop their own writing, well, all well and good, I suppose - but they should keep it a secret, not wave it smugly under the nose of the original author with a needling "Ha-ha, bet you never thought of that!"
Here endeth the rant.
Boy, where did that come from?
Oh boy. I completely understand the "...but this is MINE!" response.
The Missus and I -- well, mostly I -- have a theory about "professional" readers, critics, and reviewers. Which goes something like this: their reactions to someone else's work can be read as if they began, "Now, if *I* had written this piece..." or "...had made this movie..." or whatever.
Which is completely beside the point. Because, Mr. Reader (etc.), you didn't write/make it, did you? And if by some chance you were the person who did write/make it, wouldn't you have done it exactly as that person did?
(This tends to make me a very kind critiquer, btw. Unless I know pretty much everything there is to know about a writer, it's hard for me to say, "You didn't quite live up to expectations here, here, and here, did you?")
When I was in a writing workshop, whose point really is to solicit suggestions/criticisms as well as praise, my approach tended to be that of... hmm... a bullet-proof dirigible, maybe. Floating above the fray, letting things bounce off me. (But not quite not oblivious to them; useful stuff was often offered, especially because my workshop had all been friends already -- and had thus all been talking about our goals, and revealing our pasts, and understanding one another's instincts, etc..)
Well, criticism is a difficult task. I have some sympathy for critics (although it is often the case that they are just venting their frustration that their own talent is so much less). But criticism should be like giving notes - not re-making the thing from scratch according to your own whims.
The tactfulness of the language is a large part of it. Whenever you suggest that someone might have done something differently (at least if you give a concrete suggestion of what they should have done instead), you are implying This is how I would have done it. Reviews in the press have that problem of impersonality, which I think inevitably makes them sound more cranky and needling. I always try to make suggestions in a more roundabout way (making it a question rather than a statement - an imperative - is a great help!) - Did you think of this? Why did you decide not to do that? Did you consider trying....? etc.
Post a Comment