Interview

[dogofdiogenes]

I am drained, albino, jewel. I am
not a throat, but I have enjoyed them. So
I have made my home where the surface
Is sure and the wit of age will
Not prevent my laughter.

I am not a throat, but there are throats. And
there are throats on which I have crawled,
Cobbling like a sea across those groynes of flesh,
Agitated by pleasure.

Are they excited by me? Smelling
emotion by stillness at the cellular level, my
own frosts are the passion of my girl's
variegated moods. I am
bloodless, have bred lust, yet wait for

stillness, a return to the oyster. I am cursed
by lack of erosion, but my lovers corrode,
Bittering the bed. My thousand white
marbles roll the loss back to you. The nacred
heart stones under the shell of
your skin; softened I wriggle, outside and in.


This was written in July, which now seems like a lifetime ago. I'm not happy with it any more, but I'd like some feedback if possible! To improve?!

[kozmikdave]

Gidday

I didn't mind this piece, but offer a couple of suggestions.

The title is still so cryptic for me at this time of the morning that I haven't a clue what it is about. (Maybe me being thick!) The way it is set out makes it hard work to read and understand initially in any case, so the added pressure of the title made it just that little bit more difficult.

T liked the idea of the pearl being timeless while the wearer aged. Old ladies seem to be drawn to pearls, don't they? Maybe it is just a collection of a lifetime.

In places it reads like a riddle or conumdrum. Is that intentional?

I'm not sure the repetition of the line "I am not a throat" was useful. I liked the line and after the second time, expected it to turn up again. Maybe it would be better to combine the two ideas and use the phrase just once.

...The nacred
heart stones under the shell of
your skin...

was a clever line - enjoyed that.

At the end, I thought it felt unfinished. It needed a stronger image, IMO.

I hope this has been a little helpful. Just my impressions, so wait and see how others feel.

[Merlin]

I really liked this - but its hard to fathom....at least for me...

It feels like its something about the oyster , but more specifiacally about something that lives on or inside it....like an anemone or something esle similar...

It reads well..flows well...almost lethargically , in places....

The only thing I would suggest is to re-look at some of the repitition ....throat especially .....(I kept thinking of deepthroat ...put me off the poem)...

[barrie]

Sometimes I think I understand it, sometimes I think I don't. When I think I've got one part of it another seems unintelligable.

The first line appears to be the introduction to a riddle -

I am drained, albino, jewel. - but I can't find any pertinent clues - unless it's just me that's clueless.

Maybe if the first line was clearer (clueful - there's a word!) then the rest would fall into place. It's as if you want to tell us something that you don't want us to know.

There are some really good lines -

Cobbling like a sea across those groynes of flesh,
Agitated by pleasure.

..........The nacred
heart stones under the shell of
your skin;

Maybe you should read it through and change the uppercase letters that occur seemingly randomly at the beginning of five lines - unless, of course, there's a reason for them.

A suggestion - in V3, you could well omit my girl's, as in -

.............Smelling
emotion by stillness at the cellular level, my
own frosts are the passion of
variegated moods.

I enjoyed getting tangled in this, but I need a ball of twine (a clew) to lead me out.

cheers

Barrie

[dogofdiogenes]

Hi guys,

Thanks for your thoughts.

i wrote this in response to an exercise which was set by a tutor and I had one of those chucking toys from pram moments about it. When I looked at it to put it on here, the only bit which I still thought okay was the first part and some of the last. We were supposed to be writing from the point of view of being an inanimate object-so I thought pearls/necklace. they must have stories to tell. I think pearl paranoia would probably be a better title, but i did imagine as if the pearls were talking-albeit onesidedly-to their wearer(s). i also thought about the deep throat thing, but was struggling to find other places for pearls to be and as a word neck is quite harsh sounding. It is a conversation about necks and the emotional life of beads, i guess-having had enough and wanting to give it all up. But if that wasn't clear enough then I haven't really succeeded. i ceratinly never meant it to be a riddle, but i can see how it would be read as one. Riddle-me-pees. Shiver me timbers and back to the Locker to look for more expressive nuggets.

Barrie, on looking at the capitals again i cannot remember if that was an editorial cock-up. a good enough reason to keep a better diary about how things come about, ie serendipitous process.

mutley

[barrie]

It's so obvious now that I know!

[charbird]

I like so many things about this poem... but it's slightly problematic for me at the same time.

As has already been noted the poem is slightly cryptic on the first few reads, I'd probably change the title. Again, as noted, it seems like a riddle-me-ree you'd read as a child, the ones that end 'what am I?'. I read that you didn't intend this, but I like this, it makes me want to pick apart the clues even more.

The pace of it seems almost wistful, like the pearls are remembering old times at the neck and contemplating its past. Others disagree but I like the repetition of 'I am not a throat'. Seems like it's almost envious of the throat, that it's in it's rightful place, where the pearls are not?

I am
bloodless, have bred lust, yet wait for

stillness, a return to the oyster.

Liked that... combined with the words 'frost', 'white', 'cursed' and 'lack' give the voice a coldness that contrasts with the ideas of pleasure and passion.

I agree with Barry RE omission of 'my girl's'.

Perhaps I'm being dense but I'm puzzled by the final stanza... like I almost understand what it's saying but then it slips away from me. The pearls are sad that they can't die (erode), right? Whilst their wearers do age. Then I'm lost on the rest.

Cx

[David]

Jacq, I'm definitely getting that riddling sensation off this as well, and I think you overdid the unusual words effect. Some very good lines, but - completely unlike Blanking Beach, which I still think is an absolute cracker - there doesn't seem to be a lot of human warmth on display here.

OK, I know it's about pearls, so human warmth is pretty much by definition irrelevant, but I'm referring more to your poetic voice here. It's a great experiment, and a great exercise, but it also seems like quite a large stride up quite a blind alley.

Still, no doubt your next post will prove me completely wrong. I look forward to it!

Cheers

David

[dogofdiogenes]

I'm really grateful for all your comments and especially your ones, David, because you made clear something which I hadn't seen myself. I knew I wasn't fully happy with Interview, but I couldn't work out why. I remember being hacked off that I had to write it, but it was just an exercise so I kind of just did it and there wasn't any warmth in its writing (by which i mean production). There was certainly no generating a good marriage between the object and the context-but I just didn't care about it enough. When I wrote BB, it was really important that James and his situation were one and the same and then flowed over into extending the ideas about him. There was no separation in it. It's not the only difference but it is the main one. I'm working on something else at the moment (and I am a slow writer) but I may try a rewrite in the near future and look at the process as I do so. I've learned something very important here. As you said, David, an exercise rather than a poem. Learning to love pearls, when I have no good reason to do so. (Bad memories of something to do with pearls, but I won't bother with the details).