Clarity in poetry

[Tzara]

I first started trying to (well, seriously) write poetry about six years ago. I started working on this in part because what I was trying to do was understand some of the poetry I was reading and not understanding well--my thought was that if I knew something about the conventions of writing poetry (by actually writing it), some of the mysteries of reading it would suddenly become as transparent and bulletproof as a Lexan window.

I'm not sure that worked very well, frankly. But that whole issue of clarity and comprehensibility came back to the forefront of my thought recently with this poem by greenmountaineer. Now, if y'all have been paying attention, you probably know I hold gm's poems in great regard. I really liked this poem, but was very interested in the comment made by another poet whose opinion I also hold in considerable regard, Senna Jawa, who basically said (I am paraphrasing here, so may be misrepresenting his opinion somewhat) that the poem was not comprehensible to him, due to the the number of terms, names, and/or references that were not familiar to him.

I'd like to discuss this in a general sense. What, in terms of reference or specifics or even particular words, is OK in a poem? Obviously, that depends at least in part on the poet's intended audience. For example, I once used the word "piezoelectric" in a poem. Piezoelectricity is a property of certain materials (quartz, for example) where an electrical charge is generated when the material is physically stressed. If I remember correctly, I was using it as a metaphor for love/sexual arousal by being hugged/squeezed. Seemed the perfect metaphor.

Yeah, yeah. Geekish and juvenile. And probably limited the poem's audience to engineers or physicists. (The wonderful, and missed, Sabina Tolchovsky, who was trained in, I think, electronic engineering appreciated it, anyway. Or said she did. Same difference.)

Anyway. I'd like to talk about how clear the rest of you think a poem needs to be. The Moderns (e.g., Eliot, Pound, Zukofsky) seemed to get a charge out of being as obscure as possible, and that worked out pretty well for them, though I still read Pound with a 700 page reference book at my side and, despite several tries, have gotten nowhere with Zukofsky. On the other hand, you have poems like Bashō's

furu ike ya
kawazu tobikomu
mizu no oto​

which has been translated a zillion times, but is rendered in English something like (according to Wikipedia):

an ancient pond
a frog jumps in
the splash of water​

a poem in which basically the only even potenially questionable term for the general reader is "frog," and that only if the reader has only lived somewhere frogs do not exist.

I will have more to say about this, of course (can you possibly doubt that?), but would like to give some of my fellow poets a chance to say something before I being to bore you all with my own opinions.

To start, take a look at gm's poem linked above and the comments he, I, and Senna Jawa made on it.

Or just say whatever you think on the general topic. That's good too.

 

[Angeline]

I always figure that if a poem I'm reading is reaching me and connecting, I'm willing to research anything it throws at me. I can't think of much poetry I've read (well mebbe limericks and verse in cards and such) that hasn't caused me to get a dictionary or wiki something or read a lot more poetry and prose in attempts to understand better.

I'm also conscious that poetry I read in translation represents what the translator thinks the poet is saying. It's all very nuanced, but as a writer of poems I vote for clarity being a smidge less important than my inner sense that the words are the right ones.

 

[bogusagain]

I'm not sure that worked very well, frankly. But that whole issue of clarity and comprehensibility came back to the forefront of my thought recently with this poem by greenmountaineer. Now, if y'all have been paying attention, you probably know I hold gm's poems in great regard. I really liked this poem, but was very interested in the comment made by another poet whose opinion I also hold in considerable regard, Senna Jawa, who basically said (I am paraphrasing here, so may be misrepresenting his opinion somewhat) that the poem was not comprehensible to him, due to the the number of terms, names, and/or references that were not familiar to him.

Maybe there is some cultural obscurity in the poem but I don't see how you can get round that but when I read GM's poem, my immediate thought was Quasimoddo and the bells of Notre Dam.

I had to read the damn book at school, though fortunately in English unlike my daughter who had to read it in French while attending a Dutch school.

 

[Senna Jawa]

Gm's poem and the issue in general. Part 1.

In a few hours I'll be on my way to an airport (which I am dreading--the last time I flew was ten years ago). Thus I am writing under some pressure. I'll be back in two weeks unless I try to visit Literotica during my visit to Michigan.

I took on "King's Justice at Montfauçon" by greenmountaineer again. This time I patiently checked what I could using Google. This was some doing. Things cleared up 99% I hope, the poem became clear to me, and nice, how nice!

Now it's even hard for me to understand that I had any problems

Thus I am even a bit confused by the events. One thing--a conclusion--is clear: when you--as a reader--suspect that a poem deserves extra effort then go for it! Most of the time it's worth it; and the chances for it are especially higher when you know that the author of the poem is good.

Once I have read about the terms which appear in the poem I got its syntax easily, I was able to scan it and to understand without any problem. In fact this poem is simple (but for the terms). It does require some knowledge of the involved terms. E.g. "Tibet" is given, and rightly so (since it's a part of a proper name), as in French, while it's tibbet in English. I know now "charnel", and of course I know "sin", but the phrase "Charnel sin" I can only guess since I didn't find it on Internet with the help of Google.

I am not quite sure of the meaning "hanged for half the lords"--perhaps British Monsieur Olivier le Daim was hanged because he himself hanged half of the lords of France. Perhaps he persecuted other lords on behalf of the king, so now king makes a kind gesture after Olivier's death to honor his favorite Olivier. But other interpretations are possible. One should refresh his/her history of England and France. I vaguely remember that Olivier was very powerful, he was almost like a king himself.

For the poem the exact historical picture is not too important. King wants Olivier's body be reburied in a nice place. However instead of Oliver's body they find a skeleton of a poor hunchback woman. The bells are supposed to honor people who died. But in the face of lie and deceit they stay silent in Paris, the capital of France, where Olivier's attrocities were committed but justice, after all, was not delivered.

If I am right then this poem is a success. If I am wrong than I am a failure.

Let me make a general observation. When I understood even less than now then the situation for me was still harder because I didn't believe even what otherwise I did understand. I was not brave to believe my partial understanding (or the poem itself) when I was missing other items. Pieces were not gluing together for me. It's hard to imagine this now but I remember that that's how it was.

 

[Senna Jawa]

Gm's poem and the issue in general. Part 2.

I am crazy, I should really prepare for the trip and then I should rest a bit

Now about the Tzara's question about clarity in poetry. My comment below does NOT relate to GM's poem anymore.

One of the reasons for obscurity and lack of clarity in many poems is a common misunderstanding. Some poems are recognized as great, and they are hard to understand. Thus many authors. after they write a messy poem, they decide that their poem is great. Those poor readers who don't get it are not up to the task. All this is a blatant logical error. There should be a poem in the first place. At least the author should understand his/her poem. Often, when you press authors, they are not able to say anything coherent. Instead, they often offend those who question their poem. But of course, there is nothing to explain. The rest contains some metaphorical garbage which does not add up. It's a bluff.

Another reason is similar. An author has just one idea which is not sufficient for a whole poem. On the other hand, the author is under an illusion that s/he has a wonderful writing technique which allows pulling a poem anyway. So they puff the text up and again they surround a minor idea with obscure garbage.

And a variation. You squeeze a poem and you see that it's trivial, there is nothing to it. except that its author decided to make it difficult for the reader to understand. Once again we deal with a bluff.

The authors themselves rarely understand that they are bluffing. They would not call their actions a bluff. But objectively it is. There is a pretense of something greater than it is.

And why authors choose complications as a way to impress us the readers? As I said, they think that complicated equals advanced.

The truth is that the difficulty of a poem is NEVER its advantage. At the best, it is a necessary and justified evil. It better be justified (by the poem)! Even when a poem must be difficult to understand, you as an author should do everything in your power to minimize the difficulty of your text.

Now I should list reasons why some poems must be (reasonably) difficult to at least some or even all readers. But I need to be on my way

 

[greenmountaineer]

My thanks to Tzara for raising the topic because it's something I think about from time to time and frankly I enjoy theses kinds of threads on Literotica.

When I thought about Senna Jawa's comment, I suddenly remembered how Elliot's epigraph in Greek for one of his poems left me frustrated because I didn't know what it meant and then realized in a manner of speaking I did the same thing with "King's Justice at Montfauçon." In the interest of self-disclosure, the more I thought about Hugo's novel, the more interested I became in attempting to represent the horror of it. I think that was a legitimate goal, but in retrospect, the poem was much too short. For example, the gallows of Montfauçon was on a prominent hill, and I'm sure it sent chills down the spines of most Parisians. It was a killing machine, an edifice built for multiple hangings to occur at the same time. My point is the mere mentioning of "Gibet of Montfauçon" in the poem would not elicit the horrific response it did for me when I saw a drawing of it on Wikipedia.

At the risk of embarrassing him, I'd like to point out how Tzara's marvelous poem, "What I Learned of Love in Troy" makes liberal use of characters from the Greek classic, but you don't have to Google everyone's name in order to appreciate the poem. You can, of course, it you want to do so, but you can figure out their roles within the context of the poem itself, and every schoolchild has a basic understanding of the story.

I do wonder sometimes if future poems will become more obtuse in a world of high speed Internet where the windows we look through in a digital sense are a click away. Maybe I'll click and drag on Elliot's Greek epigraph, paste it in my browser, and finally figure out what it means.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Ps

Here's Google's translation of Wikipedia's Gibet de Montfauçon if anyone is interested.

 

[butters]

good morning, ladies and gents

thanks for this thread, tzara, since i got to read a couple of poems i've so far missed - and lovely pieces they are.

ok, clarity: re gm's write, sure there were names i wasn't immediately familiar with but the whole is made sense of in the 'hunchback' and 'bells' references. to understand the write further, it is a simple matter of googling the names. i like it when a poem teaches me something (and one learns it the faster looking it up and finding it out for oneself), as well as doing the other stuff a good poem does. the use of 'charnel sin' lent dark and bloody tones to the write, and i especially enjoyed gm's use of 'grave men' in his last two lines. a nice turning of phrase and meaning.

in general: i like to understand what i'm reading, but get a great deal of pleasure from discovering more obscure meanings. having said that, the nature of the write needs to suit the poem - it has to be right for the poems' own truths. if that makes sense you used basho's froggy poem as an example - pure simplicity of language, conveying crystal-clear imagery - but the meaning of it spreads like ripples in that same pond. we bring to the table as readers.

what i don't enjoy is use of befuddling language to muddy the waters for the benefit of the author rather than its use as depths to a write. there's a world of difference between 'oh look at me, aren't i smart?' and 'peel back my layers (poem's voice) to discover all that's waiting for you beneath' sorta thing. i suppose the main problem for the reader lies in discerning which is which - and we all know our intentions as writers can be so easily misconstrued. my own piece 'and you and you and you' was never meant to confuse or display some sort of 'look at me, not the poem' thingy; the language i chose as i wrote was all about what was inside the head of the person being addressed in the poem - a scholar of myths and legends. looking back at it, there's no doubt i could have omitted some of the stuff, but as i wrote it they seemed right. a lot of the references i didn't find obscure, and others i had been delighted in discovering as i had looked through pages on google about the subject. i suppose i'd hoped (after the act of writing since none of that stuff concerns me as i write, whether it should or not) that anything a reader found they didn't know they'd look up and find it worth the effort. naturally, some readers will do just that and others don't want to, believing a poem should be there for them without having to go hunting about for references they don't get. every reader's different - that's something we DO know! and i certainly ain't saying one way's better than the other, only stating my own preferences.

personally, i've been stumped more often over the meaning of a short, apparently simplistic piece of writing than i have over a longer piece where all the references give more clues. i think real haikus can be the best/worse for this - and maybe because i have to come at them not from an intellectual point of view but from an opening up to feel the undertow, their ripples. once i get it, the discovery is as wonderful as all the rest.

 

[hmmnmm]

Nearby table. Sipping a beer. Just gonna sit and listen.

 

[Tzara]

Thanks, everyone, for your comments. I'll be back this afternoon to add to the discussion. (Or detract from it, as the case may be.)

Best wishes to SJ on his trip to the Wolverine State. Pack some warm clothes--it looks cold there.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Nearby table. Sipping a beer. Just gonna sit and listen.

May I join you? I have my own wine....

 

[hmmnmm]

May I join you? I have my own wine....

Oh you most certainly may. Do join me, please.

 

[Koba]

I find many poets to be incomprehensible to me. Dylan Thomas for one. With the exceptions of Don't Go Gently and the Mischievous Dog poems I can't understand a single thing he says and I have tried. I gave up on him.

The poet I find most difficult is Rimbaud. I have read much of his stuff and find most of it unclear. Yet I don't give up trying because I find his imagery to be so maddenly beautiful that I keep going back for more. I have spent a lot of time studying The Drunken Boat. At times I think I have it down. I even reach a point where I feel I might write an interpretation, sort of like a college term paper that I was too stoned to do when I was in college. Then I read the poem again and I see new and different levels of meaning and I postpone writing. Maybe someday I'll feel a strong enough grasp to write something but not yet.

The most incomprehensible poems to me are Rimbaud's Illuminations. Yet, again the imagery keeps drawing me back. Read the beginning of After the Flood, the first poem in the series. The created scene and the imagery is stunning. I love it! But I have had to read numerous interpretations by several writers to get an understanding of the poem. But even they disagree. I guess there is truth to the statement that no two people read the same poem.

 

[SweetOblivion]

Some thoughts

First impressions of poems are important I think - if I don't like it at first glance - I will usually just shut it down and forget it.

If I like it I wonder how the title links to the setting described. I look for key or unusual words, especially any unfamiliar to me. I love words and every new one is an exploration for me; and, if it's a half decent poem, I want to get an idea of the aim of the poem.

I prefer rhymed verse as a rule, recognising that good blank verse is often far more powerful than most verse complying to traditional forms for me at least. If it does rhyme - what is its goal - does it add to the meaning or is it just a lazy contrivance ? Likewise does any refrain, restatement or reframing add meaning.

Does the poem have an odd construction to highlight an important thought. Or is it just to get the right syllable count and rhyme? Meter and line length sometimes emphasise words or phrases to carry meaning. And rhythm and cadence can help meaning seep in to make better sense.

I suppose the key thing for me is why am I spending time reading the poem. Do I need to understand the value of the poem? Or do I just want to make sense of an obscure phrase, metaphor or simile.

Anyway - that's my tuppence worth.

S.O.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

The truth is that the dificulty of a poem is NEVER its advantage. At the best it is a necessary and justified evil. It better be justified (by the poem) ! Even when a poem must be difficult to understand, you as an author should everything in your poewer to minimize the difficulty of your text.

'nuff said. Words to write by.

 

[Tzara]

I always figure that if a poem I'm reading is reaching me and connecting, I'm willing to research anything it throws at me.

I'll just note here how much easier this is now (i.e., looking up references) than it was even a few years ago. Even foreign phrases and quotes can be translated well enough for the reader to get the gist of what they say. (Usually. Sometimes Babel Fish gives you back something that looks like a line from a Surrealist novel.)

This makes it more practical to read poetry containing references that the reader is unfamiliar with.

I can't think of much poetry I've read (well mebbe limericks and verse in cards and such) that hasn't caused me to get a dictionary or wiki something or read a lot more poetry and prose in attempts to understand better.

I think this points toward an important issue. Poems that are too clear, too easily understood, are often simplistic or banal. One of the most difficult things for me as a writer is to avoid being trite or stating the obvious--not that I ever really rise above being trite and/or obvious.

I fear that striving to be too clear, too easily apprehended, runs the danger of ending up with essay rather than poetry.

I'm also conscious that poetry I read in translation represents what the translator thinks the poet is saying. It's all very nuanced, but as a writer of poems I vote for clarity being a smidge less important than my inner sense that the words are the right ones.

The problem of translation is another interesting topic. I've been looking recently a several different translations of a Li Po poem probably best known in the "adaptation" by Ezra Pound, The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter. They are all recognizably the same poem, but the nuances and, surprisingly, quite a number of the images are very different among the various versions.

Also, the problem is not just translations, but national or regional differences as well. Pat C. once wrote a poem titled something like "A Girl in Red Hook" that seemed strange to me. Being a Northeasterner, he undoubtedly meant the reference "Red Hook" to refer to the section of Brooklyn by that name. To me, it's a Seattle brewery.

 

[Tzara]

Maybe there is some cultural obscurity in the poem but I don't see how you can get round that but when I read GM's poem, my immediate thought was Quasimoddo and the bells of Notre Dam.

I had to read the damn book at school, though fortunately in English unlike my daughter who had to read it in French while attending a Dutch school.

I've never read the book, but I'm familiar with the outline of the story from the 1923 movie (the one with Lon Chaney--I may have seen the Charles Laughton 1939 one as well). I think that most Americans, at least those my age or so, would have some knowledge of it, for probably the same reason (late night TV movies). I think it is at least a reasonable assumption for a poet to make that most, or at least many, readers would know something of the plot.

Not everyone will know the plot, though, and those readers would likely be mystified by gm's concluding stanza.

Good to see you bogus. Write a poem and have it post on Friday--I want something decent to review.

 

[Angeline]

I'll just note here how much easier this is now (i.e., looking up references) than it was even a few years ago. Even foreign phrases and quotes can be translated well enough for the reader to get the gist of what they say. (Usually. Sometimes Babel Fish gives you back something that looks like a line from a Surrealist novel.)

This makes it more practical to read poetry containing references that the reader is unfamiliar with.
I think this points toward an important issue. Poems that are too clear, too easily understood, are often simplistic or banal. One of the most difficult things for me as a writer is to avoid being trite or stating the obvious--not that I ever really rise above being trite and/or obvious.

I fear that striving to be too clear, too easily apprehended, runs the danger of ending up with essay rather than poetry.
The problem of translation is another interesting topic. I've been looking recently a several different translations of a Li Po poem probably best known in the "adaptation" by Ezra Pound, The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter. They are all recognizably the same poem, but the nuances and, surprisingly, quite a number of the images are very different among the various versions.

Also, the problem is not just translations, but national or regional differences as well. Pat C. once wrote a poem titled something like "A Girl in Red Hook" that seemed strange to me. Being a Northeasterner, he undoubtedly meant the reference "Red Hook" to refer to the section of Brooklyn by that name. To me, it's a Seattle brewery.

When I worked for a publishing company, we found there are certain colloquial phrases one can't use in textbooks (for example), like "the phone company" because in most cultures (now almost all cultures) there are many phone companies, and people will not get it. We must expect to lose some nuances in translations across cultures or even locales because of such differences. As a reader I bring my own contexts and as a writer, much as I might try to avoid misunderstandings, I have to accept that once my writing is out in the world people will have their own interpretations. That's fine but I do need to try to make you see my vision as a writer.

And, yes, the reason I said I put my instincts for "what sounds right" a smidge above as perfect clarity as I can manage is that I am not trying to share information: I'm writing a poem.

 

[naughty4Daddy]

Anyway - that's my tuppence worth.

S.O.

Careful, or else everyone will be fighting for your tuppence soon - grins.

 

[Tzara]

I'm going to skip over Senna Jawa for the moment, as he is apparently off on vacation, or at least travel, for the moment.

Besides, he poses the toughest questions and I'm always disposed to punt on tough questions. Field position is really important in aesthetic debates.

So let me respond to greenmountaineer, not that his response isn't tough or pithy, but he does complement me, which makes it an easy target for dispute.

My thanks to Tzara for raising the topic because it's something I think about from time to time and frankly I enjoy theses kinds of threads on Literotica.

As do, perhaps obviously, I.

When I thought about Senna Jawa's comment, I suddenly remembered how Elliot's epigraph in Greek for one of his poems left me frustrated because I didn't know what it meant and then realized in a manner of speaking I did the same thing with "King's Justice at Montfauçon." In the interest of self-disclosure, the more I thought about Hugo's novel, the more interested I became in attempting to represent the horror of it. I think that was a legitimate goal, but in retrospect, the poem was much too short. For example, the gallows of Montfauçon was on a prominent hill, and I'm sure it sent chills down the spines of most Parisians. It was a killing machine, an edifice built for multiple hangings to occur at the same time. My point is the mere mentioning of "Gibet of Montfauçon" in the poem would not elicit the horrific response it did for me when I saw a drawing of it on Wikipedia.

For those who are interested, here are the relevant passages (in English) from Hugo's novel. I think particularly the last paragraph is relevant.

Part of what I love about gm's poems is that they are about things. What I mean by that is that his poems are discursive (definition number two)--they enrich my knowledge of the world, of art, of experience.

He might even get me to read Notre-Dame de Paris when I, I hope, retake French in retirement.

At the risk of embarrassing him, I'd like to point out how Tzara's marvelous poem, "What I Learned of Love in Troy" makes liberal use of characters from the Greek classic, but you don't have to Google everyone's name in order to appreciate the poem. You can, of course, it you want to do so, but you can figure out their roles within the context of the poem itself, and every schoolchild has a basic understanding of the story.

No, you cannot embarrass me with praise, gm. I kinda wish you could. Might make me a bit more humble.

Anyway, thanks. My idea was that most of the references in that poem would be understandable to people who knew something about the Odyssey, which I would expect (or hope) most people coming out of high school in the USA would know at least something about.

I'm not sure that's true, but I certainly hope it is.

Whether it is a good poem or not is a topic for another thread.

 

[bogusagain]

Good to see you bogus. Write a poem and have it post on Friday--I want something decent to review.

Hi Tzara. I'm trying a few old haunts while I have a lull in the frantic activity of trying to earn a living as an artist. Not the best profession to enable one to remain solvent. It's too late to post a poem for Friday but I'll post a poem for next Friday if you want.

Not everyone will know the plot, though, and those readers would likely be mystified by gm's concluding stanza.

You are probably right. I made a lot of assumptions because I thought I recognized the story the poem was referring to from the off. The last stanza I assume was about Esmeralda and her story is like a story within a story. I suppose I have made many assumptions that are probably not correct but does that really matter? The poem is put out there and if it is misinterpreted or ignored because it is too esoteric or obscure, that's just tough for the poet whose fault it is. Though that would be ignoring the point of this thread I suppose!

 

[greenmountaineer]

The Creation of Eve

Tzara posted a wonderful poem in the 007 Challenge Thread, entitled "The Creation of Eve." Immediately below the title in smaller print, he cites the painter, when it was painted, and where one can view it. He also provided a hyperlink so that the the reader of the poem could see a copy of it on the Internet.

The hyperlink in particular made me think of this thread. Toggling between the poem's narrative and the copy of the painting made the poem easier to follow for me, and I wonder if high speed internet will shape the writing of poetry and the reading of it such that more obtuse, but researchable content will become more prevalent, or, for that matter, modern poetry, often ignored or criticized because it sometimes is so confusing, will become more popular.

 

[Tzara]

Tzara posted a wonderful poem in the 007 Challenge Thread, entitled "The Creation of Eve." Immediately below the title in smaller print, he cites the painter, when it was painted, and where one can view it. He also provided a hyperlink so that the the reader of the poem could see a copy of it on the Internet.

The hyperlink in particular made me think of this thread. Toggling between the poem's narrative and the copy of the painting made the poem easier to follow for me, and I wonder if high speed internet will shape the writing of poetry and the reading of it such that more obtuse, but researchable content will become more prevalent, or, for that matter, modern poetry, often ignored or criticized because it sometimes is so confusing, will become more popular.

With the Internet, one certainly has more access to references. There is an article in this week's Time that talks about how now people, when encountering terms or concepts they aren't immediately knowledgeable about, think first about where they can connect to the Internet, rather than about the actual question itself.

Your comment makes me think of two particular poems, both of which reference a famous painting by Pieter Brueghel, the Elder (though now, it apparently is thought to be a good copy of Brueghel's (presumably lost) painting) that is in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. Both are, I think, wonderful poems:

Musée des Beaux-Arts
W. H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.​

The second is by William Carlos Williams, from his collection Pictures from Brueghel:

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
William Carlos Williams

According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring

a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry

of the year was
awake tingling
near

the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself

sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings' wax

unsignificantly
off the coast
there was

a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning​

Now, I love both of these poems, both of which seem to emphasize the lack of interest that other people in the painting show to Icarus falling into the sea, which is clearly portrayed by Brueghel, and may even the central theme, of his painting, in which the unfortunate youth is merely a leg disappearing into the sea, rather off in a corner of the composition.

Does it aid one's comprehension to be able to see a picture of the painting that the authors are describing? Of course it does.

But should it be necessary to see an image of the painting to understand the poem?

My concern with my own poem is whether the text can stand on its own, without the image that inspired it. While the poem is, essentially, my interpretation of the painting, if that's all it is, and not especially comprehensible without an image of the painting, it isn't a very good poem.

Anyway, I'm ranting, as usual. Carry on.




And thanks, gm, for your comments on that poem.