litlog2011

[Senna Jawa]

I had started the original PF&D blog. It has fallen a victim of a domestic PF&D war against the three moderators. Strange. I myself didn't like the idea of moderating this board. I was at odds with the original moderators at the time. But I didn't say a word. I just had vanished for a long while.

Anyway, yearly blogs may be easier to handle. You get an immediate sense of time.

The original blog was intentioned to free all other threads from non-poetic stuff. Such a goal was not realistic. The need for blah-blah among the participants of PF&D is too overwhelming, it will always overflow any constrains. Thus this time I'd like to suggest that some one third to two thirds of this blog will be devoted to poetry. I am still trying to increase the poetic content of PF&D, but this time directly.

Some stuff can be para-poetic. I love trivia.

Enjoy,

 

[Senna Jawa]

Conversations

I'd be glad (granted that time and energy permits) to have conversations with PoetGuy, but as long as s/he is using that phony third person grammar about her/himself, it's out of question.

 

[Angeline]

Hi Senna. I remember that blog and especially Wicked Eve's posts in it, which were like little gems of poetry to me (and wickedly funny, too).

I know there's a danger in spending so much time chit chatting about poetry that one doesn't invest time in writing it. On the other hand this is the only place in my world where there are people who are actually interested in reading and talking about poems. It doesn't all hold value for me and I certainly don't agree with everything that's said, but mostly it gets me thinking and motivated to write again. Why do you come here?


Who are you reading these days? Any new (or not so new) poets you'd recommend?

 

[Senna Jawa]

On demand

Ten days ago a receptionist at the care facility, where my father lives, came to his bedroom and asked me if I would meet a mother and sister of a dying Polish American. She said that they would like to have a poem for him. "In which language?" I asked. The receptionist said that in Polish. I followed her and met the two women in the reception area. Actually, they thought that I may be able to find a proper poem, they were surprised that I was willing to write one, like that would be too much to ask for. Thus I asked them about their son/brother, Henio.

I kept the task on the back of my mind for the next few hours of the night at the care house, and later at home, so the poem was ready in the morning hours. Since then I had contact only with the sister, at the facility and by email. I emailed her the link to the poem, it took a day to get the email connection working. Her reaction was that the poem is beautiful. That was kind. Her brother died five days after the meeting near the reception desk.

Henio was a talented man, had several advanced hobbies. Has died quite young, way too early. He was ill for the past four years. At least he's resting in peace now. I am sorry that I am writing so much around his death, and so little about him. I simply don't feel having an authority to write more about him. I am a stranger who was asked about a poem.

Later Henio's sister wrote me that she will read the poem at his funeral. This time it was more than a polite compliment. She's also thinking about translating my poem into English. Actually, if I was told to write it in English, I would. It's harder for me to translate a poem than to write it directly in the target language.

Digression: one of my daughters is an incredible born translator of Polish metered poems into English. She is unfortunately taking her unusual unique gift for granted, is not giving it justice, in short--she's mostly wasting it. She made some attempts at publishing, but extremely unprincipled businessmen (thieves) turned her off (her translation of a classic was used in a movie without giving her any credit, not to mention any money). I am sure that she'd translate my poem if she were not too busy with our own family medical problems and her many other pressing chores. End of digression.

It was not the first time that I was asked to write a poem. Each time I have to brace myself, it doesn't feel easy. Each time I don't know how and what I will write. On the other hand I have learned to be somewhat confident (not cocky, just hopeful). Each time I collect some basic information needed for the poem, to make it meaningful. I remember a Black improviser in Las Vegas, early 1970s, who would make up a poem on spot, on any topic proposed by the audience. But when my friend asked him to make one about AMS (American Mathematical Society), then he asked him to say something about AMS. My friend, not too gracefully, said that it is a bad society. To this the performer responded with a poem which made fun of my friend. After reciting his improvisation, he made sure that it was all for jokes in good nature.

By the same token, when a woman asked rec.arts.poems to provide a wedding poem for/about her daughter, then Marek Lugowski had asked her to tell us about her daughter. That sounded tricky, since Marek was known for his romances with r.a.p. poetesses, but he was obviously right. No true poet wants to write a generic "fits all" poem.

This is a depressing post, sorry, while life goes on. I don't mean any disrespect in the face of a personal or otherwise tragedy.

 

[Senna Jawa]

Hi Senna. I remember that blog and especially Wicked Eve's posts in it, which were like little gems of poetry to me (and wickedly funny, too).

Wicked was unbelievable!--unbelievably funny, and profound at the same time. It's a very special bonus for the PF&D participants to read her blog entries.

I know there's a danger in spending so much time chit chatting about poetry that one doesn't invest time in writing it. On the other hand this is the only place in my world where there are people who are actually interested in reading and talking about poems. It doesn't all hold value for me and I certainly don't agree with everything that's said, but mostly it gets me thinking and motivated to write again. Why do you come here?

My experience with PF&D is mixed, and the balance is negative. PF&D did motivate me to write some poems, but did more to stifle me. In the past I'd go away, then come back with new enthusiasm to be destroyed by this board fast. It's a pity since I don't know nor care to find any other place to be active in English language poetry. Rec.arts.poems used to be a great place before anonymity and crude irresponsible masses have entered Internet. Thus I have switched back to Polish. The situation in the open Polish Internet is not any better but Polish is my native language after all. I put my Polish poems on some pages, and also for a semiprivate group which poetically is neutral. In old days that's what I was doing, I was posting my poems on general boards, for a general audience, who didn't pay much attention to my pieces. It's like a musician playing in a bar where people have their conversations loud, without paying much or any attention to the musician.

And still, I felt sorry over many years now that I have stopped writing in English. English gave me special personal experience. My poems show it somewhat.

Who are you reading these days? Any new (or not so new) poets you'd recommend?

I've never read much. I did pay special attention to some pieces though. Reading poetry takes some discipline, it's not all pure pleasure. It takes hard work over a time to get some pleasure just sometimes. In my case reading poetry (in any language) for real requires that I am in decent shape, it requires peace of mind, concentration, I can't just read and enjoy, except for rare occasions. Other people are natural, for them it is easier.

Best regards, Angeline,

 

[Senna Jawa]

no change yet

I've changed the title of this blog to lower case:

litlog2011​

but it shows in the index the old way (as "LitLog2011"). Can it be corrected?

 

[Angeline]

Senna I think your post about the young man and your poem is lovely and though I know it wasn't your point in telling it, it again tells me things I've always sensed about who you are. Sometimes you piss me off (though that hasn't happened for a very long time), but that's only because I am so always trying to be polite and you are very honest.

My mother died this past November. She was in assisted care and had lived a very long life. Her death was not unexpected, but losing a parent is traumatic especially when it is the last member of your childhood family like was the case for me. So it was a very hard journey to spend those final hours with her and then deal with everything that had to be dealt with. My partner was and is wonderful, my children too but it felt very lonely to me. Anyway when I was sorting through her belongings I found a photo of my grandmother, her mother, with a poem my mother had written on the back of it. It wasn't very good, as poems go. My mother never thought much of poems or writing poetry and I'm sure it was an emotional outlet for her more than anything else. But it is a poem about acceptance, and finding it when I did felt like a message from her to me to say that loss is not so hard as it may first appear because the person you've lost is, in a way, always with you. It was incredibly comforting to find that poem and to think, too, that poetry was something that had meaning for my mother, however briefly or sporadically. It was kind of a little miracle, finding that poem.

Anyway now I've increased the depressing factor of your thread and for that I apologize, but I wanted to share that with you. And knowing you, I'm sure you dismiss the idea but you really did a good thing for those people. Am I allowed to be proud of you?

 

[Senna Jawa]

difficult poems

My mother died this past November.

I am so sorry to hear it. You have my deepest sympathy.

She was in assisted care and had lived a very long life. Her death was not unexpected, but losing a parent is traumatic especially when it is the last member of your childhood family like was the case for me. So it was a very hard journey to spend those final hours with her and then deal with everything that had to be dealt with. My partner was and is wonderful, my children too but it felt very lonely to me.

A parent's death must be one of the most difficult personal experiences. After my mother died in 1982 I felt over the next few years like a tank run me over and broke all my bones. Even a couple of years ago I had a series of dreams. Some were nice, but all of them sad and some were even nightmares. For tens of years I don't remember my dreams, I hardly recognize that I have any, but these were standing out.

when I was sorting through her belongings I found a photo of my grandmother, her mother, with a poem my mother had written on the back of it. It wasn't very good, as poems go. My mother never thought much of poems or writing poetry and I'm sure it was an emotional outlet for her more than anything else. But it is a poem about acceptance, and finding it when I did felt like a message from her to me to say that loss is not so hard as it may first appear because the person you've lost is, in a way, always with you. It was incredibly comforting to find that poem and to think, too, that poetry was something that had meaning for my mother, however briefly or sporadically. It was kind of a little miracle, finding that poem.

When a small child suddenly loses its contact with its parents, it may get strongly, even hysterically attached to an item, like a cloth or blanket, and will carry it everywhere, will never allow for it to go. That poem was your thing to get attached to, and it is an extra special item. For me it was still something else during the first weeks. I am not spiritual, but that summer of 1982 I nevertheless had a feeling, a taste of reincarnation, even without believing in such things, despite being a skeptic.

 

[Senna Jawa]

If I only...

If I only were controlled by my brain I would be in good health, filthy rich, blindingly successful, and I would write a bunch of happy porno stories. Oh, well...

Initially I thought about asking my recent q-s about poetry here. Then I felt that separate threads will serve the purpose of such discussions better. At least this blog was helpful and motivating .

 

[Senna Jawa]

welcome

Did I forget to mention that this blog is for all participants of poetry forum? I thought that it's obvious. Go ahead, post your entries.

My computer, computer system and/or connection has a problem, is slow. Very annoying and energy/enthusiasm sapping. (And I still have a cold). I have to start taking advantage of the "Quick answer" option, so I won't have to wait for the editor to load.

Now a big plus. The poetic level of the board is these days about the highest ever. Much of the credit is due to the new participants (to me you are new ). And in addition, Angeline is in her top form!

 

[Angeline]

Did I forget to mention that this blog is for all participants of poetry forum? I thought that it's obvious. Go ahead, post your entries.

My computer, computer system and/or connection has a problem, is slow. Very annoying and energy/enthusiasm sapping. (And I still have a cold). I have to start taking advantage of the "Quick answer" option, so I won't have to wait for the editor to load.

Now a big plus. The poetic level of the board is these days about the highest ever. Much of the credit is due to the new participants (to me you are new ). And in addition, Angeline is in her top form!

Well we can certainly say that you know how to get me into a thread, can't we?

I tried something different with the Jazzstory poem and the unfortunately named Dance Trance. I think Jazzstory did it better but I was enjoying trying to make words sound like music.

Right now I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of two books: How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One by Stanley Fish and The Art of the Poetic Line by James Longenbach. Both of these books deal with the syntax of lines and how layers of meaning are used. I've been thinking more and more about what poems don't say outright and how to say something without being overt or so flowery you could die of sugar poisoning!

I also read this wonderful article whose name I can't recall, but it was about inflected metaphors and how they work in poetry and prose. The author gave an example of a poem where a bat is like a brochure and also like the poet. Sounds like the Mad Tea Party, huh? "When is a raven like a writing desk?" But a bat and a brochure both unfold, their shapes are similar in a way and a poet and the brochure (and the bat) also have things inside them, often amounting to very little. So this one line of poetry, three or four words, had multiple layers of meaning via metaphor, from outright physical comparison to something universal that can be extrapolated. I believe if I keep reading and thinking about this stuff it will sink into the way I write.

I am getting to the point where I want more and more words to come out and only keep them if they are absolutely adding something. So many words do nothing or, worse, get in the way of the poetry that is there. And I am battling to not tell my stories in my poems as if they are my stories. That one is a daily battle.

Also I am very pleased that there are people here who are writing different kinds of poetry these days, good but different voices, expressed differently. The forum was suffering when everyone was trying to do the same thing the same way.

If anyone has read either of those books and has anything to say about them I'd like to hear it.

 

[Senna Jawa]

I am over my cold

Hey

In six days I lost six pounds or one per day. If I stayed sick for six more weeks my weight would be perfect. Now it will go in the imperfect direction again.

 

[butters]

Hey

In six days I lost six pounds or one per day. If I stayed sick for six more weeks my weight would be perfect. Now it will go in the imperfect direction again.

glad you're well again, SJ - have a cake

 

[Senna Jawa]

dream

glad you're well again, SJ - have a cake

Delicious! Thank you, chipbutty!

A couple of days ago I had a short but symbolic dream. A woman and I were leaving my ground level apartment in a nice apartment complex, with nice outdoors. The weather was great, sunny, and we were in a perfect, cheerful mood.

After I woke up and thought about this dream I recognized that the apartment from my dream was like one from the Fort Lauderdale metropolis (Davis, I think) or a similar one from Boca Raton. There was no clear view of the woman or of her face in my dream, but I knew who she was very well. I lived with her over twenty years, but not for the past twenty years. Now let me go back to my dream.

We were already some ten-fifteen yards away from the apartment door (it was still open, no problem), when I saw in my hand a shiny silverware knife, which you can use when dining or buttering a piece of bread.

After I woke up I recognized that knife. Some three months ago they have replaced the old silverware with a new, solid and shiny, at the care facility where my father lives. That was pleasant.

Thus--in my dream--I jogged a few steps back and threw the knife to the toilet bowl, then continued for two more steps to flash the toilet, and turned back. I already saw with the corner of my eye that the toilet was about to overflow but I reached my woman anyway. We were joined by a neighbor, a lawyer. He went toward my apartment, he had to check it, perhaps already had a legal case against me on his mind. I turned back too. One fountain of water was pouring from the dishwasher in the kitchen, another from the kitchen sink, a third one from the toilet itself. The day was beautiful but it was a nightmare. And that lawyer on the top of it.

And that was the end of the dream because my radio-alarm clock woke me up. It was time to go to the care house (at the first moment I had no idea what time of the night or day it was). I was very glad that I didn't have to experience the knife+toilet incident any longer (also, that it was a dream, and not a real situation ). I decided to rest an extra couple of minutes, and had overslept my time to get out, but only by a few minutes.

===

The symbolic meaning of my dream is to me simple: a turn from perfect happiness to hopeless oppression can be very abrupt, fast, swift, and due to a triviality.

===

I have a consolation--in my dream the pouring water was crystal clear, like in a mountain creek of my childhood. I am glad .

 

[Lauren Hynde]

I've changed the title of this blog to lower case:

litlog2011​

but it shows in the index the old way (as "LitLog2011"). Can it be corrected?

Done.

 

[Senna Jawa]

Thank you

Done.

Thank you, Lauren (it's much nicer now ).

 

[Senna Jawa]

merit but also proportions

The recent grievances by theognis about the rating show that proportions are as important as merit, and sometimes even more so. Merit wise, if I understand properly, theognis was right--fridayam instead of simply voting on t's poem had voted exaggeratedly. Fridayam's goal was to rectify the situation. In F's opinion, the poem was overrated, hence he decided to pull its rating down. That's obviously wrong, because nobody should play God, nobody should attach to their vote more weight than that which is meant to be given to every single participant.

However, the loud and mean rhetoric used by theognis way out-weighted the merit of his complain, especially that the issue at hand was so trivial. We got one more illustration of a well known wisdom about an understatement being more powerful than overstatement.

BTW, the common tendency of not using the full scale 1-5 but only the top grades 3-5 shows that the idea of rating is not working.

 

[theognis]

The recent grievances by theognis about the rating show that proportions are as important as merit, and sometimes even more so. Merit wise, if I understand properly, theognis was right--fridayam instead of simply voting on t's poem had voted exaggeratedly. Fridayam's goal was to rectify the situation. In F's opinion, the poem was overrated, hence he decided to pull its rating down. That's obviously wrong, because nobody should play God, nobody should attach to their vote more weight than that which is meant to be given to every single participant.

However, the loud and mean rhetoric used by theognis way out-weighted the merit of his complain, especially that the issue at hand was so trivial. We got one more illustration of a well known wisdom about an understatement being more powerful than overstatement.

BTW, the common tendency of not using the full scale 1-5 but only the top grades 3-5 shows that the idea of rating is not working.

Angry Words
by: Theognis of Megara (6th century B.C.)
translated by John Hookham Frere




Rash, angry words, and spoken out of season,
When passion has usurp'd the throne of reason,
Have ruin'd many. Passion is unjust,
And for an idle, transitory gust
Of gratified revenge, dooms us to pay
With long repentence at a later day.

 

[Senna Jawa]

Angry Words
by: Theognis of Megara (6th century B.C.)
translated by John Hookham Frere

Rash, angry words, and spoken out of season,
When passion has usurp'd the throne of reason,
Have ruin'd many. Passion is unjust,
And for an idle, transitory gust
Of gratified revenge, dooms us to pay
With long repentence at a later day.​

Hey, that's a serious aphorism! For a light, modern, Internet variation, see:

a no win situation​

 

[theognis]

Hey, that's a serious aphorism! For a light, modern, Internet variation, see:

a no win situation​

I should have remembered that poem.

 

[Senna Jawa]

Sisyphus efforts

It's harder and harder, ever harder.

My Mac system allows me to post on Lit only half of the time. Let me see how it's now.