Level three please

Suppose at the moment you hit the submit button, a demon came and took your memory of that poem away. During the course of next day, you hear it recited, what would you think, do you think it would catch your ear? On the second day, you hear it again, would you strain to find out who is saying it, would you hope to hear it again? On the third day (these things always happen in 3's) you hear it again, do you rush to find out where it is coming from, or do you just sit there and stare? Doesn't matter, this is a demon remember, they like to fuck with you. The demon then confronts you tells you it is now you job to assign the writer to a certain level, and perhaps you will be rewarded, perhaps he will do what demons like to do. Now here are the levels, the demon says with a grin:
Level one, the writer is a babbling idiot
Level two, the writer is a crashing bore
Level three, just someone trying to write poetry
and then Level four, well this is someone of interest, someone you might like as a friend, a lover, someone, perhaps to fear. The demon even offers to take you two out to lunch and he'll pick up the tab. One caveat, one hour and nobody better get bored, else...
Level five, was either written by an emissary from either heaven or hell, would you like to meet them?
Get it right, pick very carefully, the demon says

1,2,3,4 or 5? And tell me something about the poem.
Well if you have the intelligence of something greater than a hamster, you should start to sweat, demons are tricky, it is right up there on their job description.

Five, one person says, because it sounds important and it's right there in my brain...realizing too late. Really the demon says level 5 at literotica, you wrote it, not only are you a babbling idiot, but a bedwetter to boot, so the bottom bunk for you.

The next person says three, really, the demon says, I'll let you pass this one time, as the person begins to sweat remembering he had just submitted six others, and he's been hearing shit for days.

When my turn came up, i quickly stepped aside, pointed at Tzara and said this one is a four. A four? Yes, this one I fear.
Poor bastard never knew what hit him.

twelveoone said:

Yes, this one I fear.

Click to expand...

Near the end of a long, dark corridor, 1201 sees a tall figure dressed entirely in black, holding a Mont Blanc fountain pen with an extended, sharp red laser point. The figure slowly advances towards 1201, breathing as though he has left his Symbicort inhaler back in the glovebox of his customized TIE fighter. Some thirty paces away, the figure stops and intones in a wonderfully deep and rich basso voice (rather reminiscent of the great American actor James Earl Jones): I've been waiting for you, Twelveo-Wan. We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. When I left you, I was but the learner; now I am the master.

*Disputations ensue.*

Tzara said:

Near the end of a long, dark corridor, 1201 sees a tall figure dressed entirely in black, holding a Mont Blanc fountain pen with an extended, sharp red laser point. The figure slowly advances towards 1201, breathing as though he has left his Symbicort inhaler back in the glovebox of his customized TIE fighter. Some thirty paces away, the figure stops and intones in a wonderfully deep and rich basso voice (rather reminiscent of the great American actor James Earl Jones): I've been waiting for you, Twelveo-Wan. We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. When I left you, I was but the learner; now I am the master.

*Disputations ensue.*

Click to expand...

I see you beat the demon.

Level four rarefied is a big place, however I do have a plastic spoon smeared with lipstick.
And therein lies a clue
Batman
" the smell of lipstick left on the plastic spoon we share."
Front and center, Jade, you're being summoned.
Jade creates it, needs a little development work.
Seattle Rain has it most of the time.
It blooms in Les Fleurs du Mal
ah choo!
Hayfever, excuse me.
Tzara you know where the I is, you know what it is doing. You know that the I can carry baggage. What is in the baggage? And what is missing?

BTW Jade you need to break out the I, it is too subsumed.

This is clearly for people much smarter than I am, but I will watch from the back row and eat popcorn. *munching erotically*

Level Four anyone?

the 10,000 things
10,000 is just the Chinese way of saying more than you'll ever know.
So there are 10,000 ways of writing poetry
and 10,000 ways of reading poetry
I also feel that there is no right or wrong, they are value judgements that are also absolutes. Let's instead use the terms dumb and smarter. Dumb is what you want to avoid, and you do want to get smarter, right? I intend to use this thread to explore some of the psychological effects of the choice and arrangement of words. It will be just as much as a learning experience for me.
This thread of course open to anyone, feel free to post a link, what specifically you see, if any possible drawbacks, suggestions for greater effect. The author if he wishes is encouraged to post the poem in it's entirety and comment back.

Allow a day or two of no posts before the next poem posted.

neo, if you please, Covet the night, I won't post the entire poem without your permission. may as well put the link in, lines are fair game.

I'll allow some time and come back.

twelveoone said:

neo, if you please, Covet the night, I won't post the entire poem without your permission. may as well put the link in, lines are fair game.

I'll allow some time and come back.

Click to expand...

Ya, I haven't had any coffee yet so I assume you'd like to do something with my poem and yes it's fine. You paid a great compliment on it that I learned from. thanks again for that. Here's the link and everything: Covet the Night.

Neonurotic said:

Ya, I haven't had any coffee yet so I assume you'd like to do something with my poem and yes it's fine. You paid a great compliment on it that I learned from. thanks again for that. Here's the link and everything: Covet the Night.

Click to expand...

I assume permission was granted

Covet the Night.
Sundown made the sky bleed
onto the sand stone. We drank Chianti
from each others mouths, igniting
redder and hotter than Moab at night.
Though this very morning ash smolders,
with its wispy smoke lingering
like lust and I still say you led me on.

Where I'm coming from

I basically operate in a modified reader response and gestalt framework, what i generally look for;anything that is repeated is important, three times more so, after four it begins to bore me.
How the component parts mesh, the whole (the poem) becoming greater then the parts.
Anything that stands out is very important.

Here is close to what I saw reading

1, good opening line, looks a little red

Sundown made the sky bleed

2, got redder, here he introduces the action also a personal pronoun "we"

onto the sand stone. We drank Chianti

there is a curious psychological trick with "we" and "you". They almost automatically become involved and have a tendency to stay until they are notified otherwise. I think I remember reading some neuroimaging was done showing the effect. It seems to work (for me) best with songs, least with the written word.

OK neo we are drinking Chianti, 3rd line tells me it time to drop out, however, he still has half the audience doesn't he ?
but now maybe i'll stick around to watch the action, after all, I was invited in.

3. the action is implied, outside of Chianti being passed around I, the reader get the chance to imagine what the rest of the action is.


4. he basically sets up a linear motion and disrupts it at the end, here he also introduces the persona.

I still say you led me on.

5. Here I regroup, neo has a scene, action, a persona that looks interesting

And at this point neo threw red at me four times, mentioning red (redder) once, hot is at least implied three times. Nothing at all is mentioned between the Chianti and morning. The last two lines even point back to it. Senna Jawa always claimed the difference between poetry and literature, is the audience has to supply 90% in poetry only 50% in literature, true, true, but the audience is basically an idiot and needs pointers. Neo puts all the pointers in, says nothing and I get to put 90% of the good part in, I just better make it red hot. That's poetry.

Here I am looking at a poem in depth, and rather enjoying it. Not a bad thing, eh?

I also see some problems, and problems beget other problems



Again this is my perspective. Another perspective would be different, feel free, where are you coming from, what do you see?

Here I'll quit for now. but come back with further comments.

twelveoone said:

I assume permission was granted

Covet the Night.
Sundown made the sky bleed
onto the sand stone. We drank Chianti
from each others mouths, igniting
redder and hotter than Moab at night.
Though this very morning ash smolders,
with its wispy smoke lingering
like lust and I still say you led me on.

Click to expand...

Really interesting and instructive commentary, 1201. I'm inspired to be more rigorous in thinking about what moves me (or not) in a poem -- as well as a bit nervous at the prospect of subjecting my own poems to similar analysis by someone else.

I don't have (yet, maybe this will come with experience) a set modus operandi in reading poems. Some poems are so packed with reference, history or politics that there is little choice other than to turn on the Thinking side of the brain - others not.

Neo's poem, for me at least, falls into the later category. He uses words to spark vision - vision to unleash passion - and a snap at the tail end of conscious thought.

Neo has a fantastic way of linking nature viscerally with passion. Sky bleeds. Moab is associated with red, hot. Ash smolders, smoke lingers like lust. It’s about losing thought and giving over to urge.

Thus:
Sundown made the sky bleed
Onto the sandstone. We drank Chianti
Lights out, but not before the sky cuts itself open and drops blood onto the earth, blood associated with wine

From each others mouths, igniting
Redder and hotter than Moab at night
Here we have the unleashing, so to speak

Though this very morning ash smolders
With its wispy smoke lingering
Full cycle of the night, back to reality and drab color contrasted with the reds

like lust and I still say you led me on

This is the snap of the tail - waking up. Back to reality from all that passion and an almost sheepish excuse for letting go.

That's my take.

Interestingly, a pure “Thinking” take on this could look to the story of Moab from the Bible (Genesis 19:30-38…don't worry - I had to look that up). Moab, patriarch of Moab in present day Jordan was the son of Lot via incest with his daughter. The act was facilitated by getting dad drunk on wine.

Desejo. i'm going to mention something about structure in "coming to america" , just one of those things most don't think about. after we're done with neo

Desejo said:

Though this very morning ash smolders
With its wispy smoke lingering
Full cycle of the night, back to reality and drab color contrasted with the reds

like lust and I still say you led me on

This is the snap of the tail - waking up. Back to reality from all that passion and an almost sheepish excuse for letting go.

That's my take.

Click to expand...

excellent take, i was going to post something else on this tonight. I'll wait, I don't want to bury your critique. A comment though, I noticed the shift from red to grey, even wondering if neo had changed grey to very. Because of the fuzziness, i felt in may have been conjecture on my part.
a word about conjecture, it may be one of the greatest enjoyments of poetry. it is the reader completing (by thinking) the poem. but you have to be careful in critical analysis, i'd say so far we've both been conservative.

"I still say you led me on." forces me to look back to define the persona, it also poses a problem...

...because the poetry is a little choppy, right now "I still say you led me on." looks playful, perhaps even an inside joke. As it is now, the "other" is basically nothing more than a foil. (that's all he needs, right now). Suppose he smooths everything out, polishes it. The "other" is still a foil, how does that change the persona of the "I still say you led me on."

Though this very morning ash smolders,
is a strange construction

if fact the whole sentence is a little strange technically I think it is correct, but could be perceived as run on.

Though this very morning ash smolders, with its wispy smoke lingering like lust and I still say you led me on.

let's try one simple thing


Though this very morning ash smolders, with its wispy smoke lingering like lust. I still say you led me on.

does that shift the persona of the I?

this in isolation does looks better

In the morning ash smolders
wisps of smoke linger like lust
I still say you led me on.

but in context
what does it do to the persona of the I?


Though this very morning ash smolders, with its wispy smoke lingering like lust and I still say you led me on.

the original feels almost dreamlike

None of these are suggestions, just an illustration of what a writer has to consider.

Anyone else? Neo?

From a Box of Dreams

I haven't forgotten a dream, as it is written happens in the realm of dreams. One forgets a dream, then one forgets one has forgotten, nothing dies of this.
I've lost The Dream. - Hélène Cixous


From a Box of Dreams
byTzara©

I recommend this highly, it is one of the more unusual things you will ever see.
The action in the poem is a ticket dropping out of a book. Linear time sequence, 2 seconds? All of the other and some of it 's lush imagery is generated by a simile and a vision.

There are at least two referents, possibly more, but these are high probables;Proust "madeleine dipped in tea" and Eliot " not from memory but desire"

A ticket from a book...now I have to find the book...quote from wikipedia's article on Hélène Cixous

link to
Intertextuality

OK Tzara, the moment I saw this, I thought it had a very strange structure. the linearity ends at the ticket, something else comes in. The whole world of intertextuality.

My question, who is your reader? Ironic, isn't it?

"iron bed" is a bold move in the home of S&M, B&D, D&D, and m&m's, but I would like to point out the ambigity in the term.

now dear readers, i did the legwork...


Now if anyone finds any of this useful, stop in on the poem in question think about it leave a comment, it will help you in becomming a better reader and that will help you in becomming a better writer.

Any further comments here on Box of Dreams is closed untill Tzara gets back.
I am working on
Coming to America
byDesejo

who really does a nice thing with structure, which you could steal, modify and use for your own stuff and Desejo won't mind because she probably stole it from the movies, and now you'll have more time to work on your stuff to put in it.

"and like a madeleine dipped in tea a vision, struck"

This image confuses me, sponge cake, Magdalen? I'm confused.

ishtat said:

"and like a madeleine dipped in tea a vision, struck"

This image confuses me, sponge cake, Magdalen? I'm confused.

Click to expand...

A madeleine is a French cookie.
But you could eat Madeleine as well.

ishtat said:

"and like a madeleine dipped in tea a vision, struck"

This image confuses me, sponge cake, Magdalen? I'm confused.

Click to expand...

hit the link, but let's not talk about this one any further, tzara is not here

posting these two links, mainly so I can find then again

ttp://www.poetrymagic.co.uk/ttp://www.poetrymagic.co.uk/

Nothing brings finality of judgement


new writers have a tendency to tell stories straight through, componding the error by an excess of "I".
I did this
and then I did that
and then I did that
and then I did that
and then I did that
and then I did that

after the third such "I", this I tends to get bored, there are only so many stories, folks, so then I will skip to the end to see if your "I" gets killed by a chuck of blue ice falling out of the sky. Oh, you read that one too. See.

Same thing, only not quite as bad without the "I".

this happened
and that.....

Try to avoid the linear line.

Desejo does a nice job of avoiding it,
this is also a nice poem


Coming to America


here is here first stanza


The six foot high television
in the center of his living room
smooth, plastic
gleaming there triumphantly
A symbol I do not understand.

what the hell is that monster eating up most of the first stanza?
A symbol. She tells us, blatant, blatant, I love her already.

I'll be back to show you what I think she is doing...
but you should check it out, it is one of the better things I've found, and if anyone wants to walk through this, feel free, or even better if Des wants to talk about the construction, editing.

by the way des, i usually play the devil's advocate, but here I'm the attorney for the defense.

even though the hedge word "probably" is used, we'll ignore it for purposes of illustration; this is a rather common technique done in the movies, here are the first and last stanzas:

The six foot high television
in the center of his living room
smooth, plastic
gleaming there triumphantly
A symbol I do not understand.


But it works. Somehow.
So tonight we will speak English
and eat American pizza
probably even in front of that ridiculous TV.


1st and last scenes, same setting.
1st scene, one person, an icon (symbol) Des's I almost overshadowed by that symbol
last scene, person not alone, icon almost crowded out

we know what happens in the middle, person found love, conflict-resolution, something good happens. we just don't the details.

reverse situation, two or more people, icon, at first, someone missing at the end, something bad happened.

there are countless variations to this, and for some reason they almost always introduces a sense of pathos in the viewer (reader).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What Des does in the first stanza is very tricky for the reader to get a quick fix on, she assigns two tasks to the relationship of the I to the symbol, it is his (foreshadowing), and it something she has to understand coming to America (remember the title).

she then takes us on a divergent path of familial conflict (2 stanzas), that have nothing to do with either the television or coming to America, postponing the resolution to the beginning line of the last stanza

But it works. Somehow.

Coming to America? 1,2,3, we will speak English, eat American pizza, and here it is that ridiculous TV. Resolved, Resolved.

This can be a very powerful structure, it effectively destroys the straight line read through (the reader cannot get ahead of the writer)
Des is also very good writer, she establishes a very strong "I" that is likeable, with the use of two "I"'s, one "my". The reason for the I is the other.

How powerful and good? this is a chick flick, folks, and i missed some of the weakness in the middle. now about the cat?

Desejo?

there is another observation, I'd like to make that is in the realm of the theoretical. it has to do with the use of pronouns.

twelveoone said:

even though the hedge word "probably" is used, we'll ignore it for purposes of illustration; this is a rather common technique done in the movies, here are the first and last stanzas:

The six foot high television
in the center of his living room
smooth, plastic
gleaming there triumphantly
A symbol I do not understand.


But it works. Somehow.
So tonight we will speak English
and eat American pizza
probably even in front of that ridiculous TV.

Click to expand...

If I was inspired by a movie tactic it was subconscious. Movies have not held much appeal for me for years, though I will very rarely indulge in 18 hour marathons to watch an entire season in one go (Breaking Bad being the latest one. Man, I love that show).

But you may be right. It's important to remember that this poem was the result of the 5 senses challenge - and the words given to me by Remec were:
scent: flowers
sight: television
sound: child crying out
taste: cheese pizza
touch: smooth

I had to find a way to tie those words together. It just happened to be sitting right in front of me, blaring away. I've had more arguments about TV than I care to think about, and it is unfortunately one of America's addictions that has been exported worldwide and one of the very first things people buy when they have money. It is much, much, easier to find a TV than a book in most parts of the world.

The middle part of the poem is simply about being honest. I hate TV culture. I don't see a giant screen as being an indication of having "made it" in the world. He hates cats. The melodrama of giving flowers, screaming split up families etc ran its course, but - fortunately - we came to our senses to realize we don't buy into long term bashing of each other. He gets his TV, I get my cat. We can use his language, or mine. Everyone's fine. America is supposed to be about compromise. It often is not.

I don't know if this is what you were looking for - but it's as close as I can get to explaining the process of writing it.

Desejo said:

If I was inspired by a movie tactic it was subconscious. Movies have not held much appeal for me for years, though I will very rarely indulge in 18 hour marathons to watch an entire season in one go (Breaking Bad being the latest one. Man, I love that show).

But you may be right. It's important to remember that this poem was the result of the 5 senses challenge - and the words given to me by Remec were:
scent: flowers
sight: television
sound: child crying out
taste: cheese pizza
touch: smooth

I had to find a way to tie those words together. It just happened to be sitting right in front of me, blaring away. I've had more arguments about TV than I care to think about, and it is unfortunately one of America's addictions that has been exported worldwide and one of the very first things people buy when they have money. It is much, much, easier to find a TV than a book in most parts of the world.

The middle part of the poem is simply about being honest. I hate TV culture. I don't see a giant screen as being an indication of having "made it" in the world. He hates cats. The melodrama of giving flowers, screaming split up families etc ran its course, but - fortunately - we came to our senses to realize we don't buy into long term bashing of each other. He gets his TV, I get my cat. We can use his language, or mine. Everyone's fine. America is supposed to be about compromise. It often is not.

I don't know if this is what you were looking for - but it's as close as I can get to explaining the process of writing it.

Click to expand...

the find a way part, i'm interested in. the rest is emotional resource, that is not transferable.
most of what a writer does is subconscious, the subconscious is trainable, the instinct becomes honed, the edit ties it together.
what where you thinking when you organized the poem around the television? was that conscious?
now that i illustrated what this structure has done (at least to me) would you be conscious of using it if the need arose?

twelveoone said:

the find a way part, i'm interested in. the rest is emotional resource, that is not transferable.
most of what a writer does is subconscious, the subconscious is trainable, the instinct becomes honed, the edit ties it together.
what where you thinking when you organized the poem around the television? was that conscious?
now that i illustrated what this structure has done (at least to me) would you be conscious of using it if the need arose?

Click to expand...

To the extent that television was the main object of the poem that I focused on, and what I started and ended with - yes, I did organize it consciously around the Television.

Editing for me is all about tying things together and finding/ reinforcing linkages - not only with the body of a poem but with the title. I'd say that rather than being inspired from the movies or visual arts - this is a technique I developed in years of writing prose, technical writing and (ha!) Powerpoint. So yes, I'd do it again. It may be more of a challenge to get me to do something ELSE.

Desejo said:

To the extent that television was the main object of the poem that I focused on, and what I started and ended with - yes, I did organize it consciously around the Television.

Editing for me is all about tying things together and finding/ reinforcing linkages - not only with the body of a poem but with the title. I'd say that rather than being inspired from the movies or visual arts - this is a technique I developed in years of writing prose, technical writing and (ha!) Powerpoint. So yes, I'd do it again. It may be more of a challenge to get me to do something ELSE.

Click to expand...

aha, Powerpoint
I do want to thank you. I think it was a year ago I accused you of not being a new writer, something about sophisticated writing technique.

There is a poem bogusagain did about a year ago which makes perfect sense if you look at it in the same way Whistler painted, I'm looking for the quote.


I hope some writers will find some use out of this. As an example, I saw one writer use a colour four times and I thought if only she saw what Neo had done.

The best learning experience for me was seeing what some of the writers here were doing.

twelveoone said:

I haven't forgotten a dream, as it is written happens in the realm of dreams. One forgets a dream, then one forgets one has forgotten, nothing dies of this.
I've lost The Dream. - Hélène Cixous


From a Box of Dreams
byTzara©

I recommend this highly, it is one of the more unusual things you will ever see.
The action in the poem is a ticket dropping out of a book. Linear time sequence, 2 seconds? All of the other and some of it 's lush imagery is generated by a simile and a vision.

There are at least two referents, possibly more, but these are high probables;Proust "madeleine dipped in tea" and Eliot " not from memory but desire"

A ticket from a book...now I have to find the book...quote from wikipedia's article on Hélène Cixous

link to
Intertextuality

OK Tzara, the moment I saw this, I thought it had a very strange structure. the linearity ends at the ticket, something else comes in. The whole world of intertextuality.

My question, who is your reader? Ironic, isn't it?

"iron bed" is a bold move in the home of S&M, B&D, D&D, and m&m's, but I would like to point out the ambiguity in the term.

now dear readers, i did the legwork...


Now if anyone finds any of this useful, stop in on the poem in question think about it leave a comment, it will help you in becoming a better reader and that will help you in becoming a better writer.

Any further comments here on Box of Dreams is closed until Tzara gets back.

Click to expand...

community service
ha, ha

frankly i find this to be one of the more amazing things I've come across. there are significant problems. who is the audience? what will the audience do? without following the pointers, it is a nice poem of no great importance. however if we follow the bookmark back to the book, the idea of Deconstructionism and Intertextuality is introduced. As one critic put it unleashing hell on earth. Your lines:
fluttered to the floor like a moth,

exhausted
from hovering all night
around the light at the foot of the stairs.
take on a much greater significance, it becomes almost like Lucifer trying to get back to some sort of heaven, from the hell on earth. The vision? A heaven on earth?
This bookmark dropping is like an existential crisis.

Here is the problem with that. The book must have been read, that is unclear. Suggest one small change from a bookmark to either the or even better my.

how is that for less than significant?