Poetry Forum

...

Arco

Firstly, bits that (may) need correction -

"Frightened, he broke
these chain of thoughts"

"the soul has neither
breadth, width or depth" - should "or" be "nor"? I'm not sure what we're supposed to do with 3 items - maybe "no breadth, width or depth".

Great opening -

"A Cone of light beamed
on the wall "

Good image here -

"The downpour commenced
black as a river
consuming everything
into a black molasses-mass. "

I enjoyed the internal rhyme, especially -

"there is so much reading
to catch-up on he thought;
these dry brittle-boned
men of letters still exhort us
from their graves to read their works" - nice close too.

Nice one

Mick

thanks mick,

you are right , neither is a 'double negative ' ( ie not one or the other ) so for 3 items, there is a problem.

I will use 'no' instead of 'neither' , I prefer not to use double negatives in poems

good pick up though

cheers
Arco

Some invention here, notably "molasses mass". There's a lot that is indistinguishable from prose : " A cone of light beamed on the wall- the lecture started with commentary followed by a succession of images and texts. Instead of focussing on the white screen and listening to the lecturer he lapsed in a reverie. A reef of clouds drifted across the window pane and a vein of lightning lit for a moment the city's roof tops. " Now that could be the beginning of a novel perhaps. I personally don't see what makes it poetry. Where is the leaping phrase, the shining moment?"

Followed by the following .." Frightened, he broke these chain of thoughts (train of thoughts ??) and heard the tail-end of the lecture: something about Yeats making soul and sailing to Byzantium: didn't quite get it, (I bet he didn't) and something too about a Heraclitus excerpt:

the soul has no
breadth, width or depth:

thought he knew that one, and also something about the term-paper due next week: ( I'm not really that gripped by this point) critical commentary required on Poe's: "The Purloined letter". .............

It was obviously a tedious lecture and echoed in the lack of excitement in this "anti-poem". Maybe that was your intention.

By the way shouldn't

"He laughed, shaked his head " be

"He laughed, shook his head ?". Or is that "anti-poetic" licence?

Not my cup of tea I'm afraid..

Regards,

DG

DG,

it is true I have used prose style for the narration, and this is as you say: not your cup of tea. Then maybe in the afternoon, it is your cocktail -- say a Singapore slinger with enough alcohol to stop you from focussing on the sentence and let the mind race imagistically -- hallucinatory if you will -- so you can see the metaphor of death/rebirth cycle contained therein - LOL)

I experimented with philosphical method (the love of wisdom and the activity for the search for knowledge that is non-utilitarian ) and made a caricature of it.

this is a workshop isn't it ? -- aren't we allowed to experiment ?

Also can you point me to an authority today on what constitutes a poetry text ? ( leaping phrases and shining moments hardly qualifies as premise for poetry -- you will have to be more specific than that) I will gladly read with care in this post-modern age ( no brittle-boned authors please -- we know their work is to be read and understood in their "cultural-era" context; which of course is not applicable today.

cheers
arco

I woke up at about
six this morning
and I noticed the curtains

were flapping in the wind.
so I closed the window
in case my wife woke up
and I would have to carry
up a cup of tea.

The radio said there were a few
children shot dead today.
I got on my bike and went
to work.

LOL

haven't you forgotten something ? -- the form guide ( horse-racing guide), you sound like bukowski