POEM CLASS #3

4-28-17

 

The cocnept of the line. 

 

What are lines? What is the meter? The sylabal count? 

 

What is the sound of the words? Verse, how do you see it as an image? 

 

…see this collection of sentences?

 

I took the line breaks out! how can you break the line of the poem?

 

did you reaarange the poem in your own break?

 

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death,

call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,

to take into the air my quiet breath;

now more than ever seems it rich dies,

 

 

…The poem is by Keats! Keats did something different. HE SPACED THE LINE BEFORE THE WORDS STARTED. You, made it like a hiaku, she, made it like a longer poem.

 

But the original poem, has spacing in the beginning of the poem. Keats messes with the concept of the line. 

 

Ode to a Nightengale by John Keats. 

 

Once you caught the rymth, 

 

…for you can pick it out by phase. 

 

iambic sylabals. Japanese. 

 

da-da-da-da-da-daa-da

 

If “pain” dosent rymth, we should recognize that the syallbas match.

 

Lets look about another poem. Where the syllabus are diffenrt. 

 

Breaks can be hidden, or they can be open. Should the idea be open in a single phrase? Or, should the information be concealed, and be a cliff hanger? 

 

Shifting sand snow dunes

 

OR

 

Shifting sand snow 

dunes

 

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Spacing can make you feel a sense of meditation of “space” of thinking about the concept of fine art. 

 

Remember, poetry, either it can be  lyrics to music or fine art. When has potrey been used as a straight forward lanauge? 

 

An Octopus by Marianne Moore

 

Moore experts ideas from national park brochures. She quotes or “cuts up” and uses “poor man plagaism.” 

 

Iamges using word as fine art on a war. Imagine if her poem was printed on a piece of paper, and sold in a gallery. What does the viewer see? Art?

 

—

 

Imagine poetry with no breaks! Think of it, like a “wall of text.” IS it still art?

 

How do you break it? Do you leave it alone? Is it rambling of English? What is it? How do we contrast the image, prose, and sound? Does it have one thing and not the other? OR does it have everything? Who is defining poetry and what is going on? 

 

Beauty by B.H. Fairchild. 

 

Imagine his poetry in one big prose. A wall of text. What is it? A Disgusting comment. Or fine art? 

 

Five beats. 

 

What is Seamus Hanley’s translation of Beowulf is like? Does that ever break with the Anglo-Saxon langauge. 

 

hand and foot, Venturing closer,

his talon was raised to attack Beowulf

where he lay on the bed; he was beating in

with open claw when the alert hero’s

comeback and armlock forestalled him uttery.

 

—

 

How do we operate words? Does a poem have to make sense the way its broken up the way it is? OR is it totally separate? 

 

Do we oppose something upon the words, or do we chisel the words and find the aesthic groove? What kind of games can we play it? 

 

The poem… can it be the shape of something? A picture of something. Can the words make that picture? Arranging the letters in different and cool ways. 

 

 

Deep autumn and the mistake occures

the plum tree blossum, twevle blossums

on thre differnt branches,

which for us,

personally

means nothing this coming spring

or perhaps none

on just those beaches on which just now

suddenly,

a grey-gold migratory bird

—still here?—crisping, 

multiplying the wrong air,

shifting branches with small hops,

then stilling—very

still—breathing into this oxygen

which also pockets 

my looking hard…

 

—

 

See how she broke the poem in her own way, from the original wall of text she had to comfort? 

 

Single phrases, routining phrases, single words, cliffhaning words. What should you do? 

 

Do-Do-Do-Do

Do

Do-D

-o-Do.

 

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Embodies by Jorie Graham

 

Long lines and then short ones. Why does she do it. She wants you to focus all your thoughts on one big line, but then glancfully, as your skimming through it, focus on the short lines.

 

Again, this is a battle between “Attentive” vs. “Passive” reading. 

 

Deconstruction = Passive

Academic and logical = Attentive

 

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Sea Change by Jorie Graham - Poems.

 

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When somebody speak poetry, treat the speaker as an intrsument. Is it good hear the person speaking the poem? This will bring the topic of “Poetry Slam.” 

 

How do you distinguish the words between the speaker and devoted of him or her? 

 

Does your perception change when you hear poetry by a grumpy old lady, vs a beautiful young girl? And a masculine sneaky man?

 

Think of poem books as musical compistions. Verse, thinking about poem books as coffee table comic books / fine art galleries. 

 

Avoid yourself from reading the poem like a intructive lanauge. Think of it as a flow.

 

Contrast it with E.E Cummings and Jorie Graham. Cummimngs is playing with grammar and punctuation. Graham is playing with how we are reading the text and compromising. 

 

Poets, unlike artist, can control your mind abusing and explotiing logical language.

 

…Now, can you latch on to the poetry? Should you understand it? Do you get the aesthics that is being used? Text is used as paint, not words. 

 

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Moore’s very image and stylish good sound words. Looks good, sound good, feels good. 

 

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