A Quicky

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
My teachers are a little batty,
Hopefully there's more sanity at BYU (unlikely)

The wind fiercely hammered against a star-torn sky!

Have you ever noticed how hard it is to write honestly and interestingly?

I had kind of a cool experience today that I had planned to share tonight. So, when I came home, I grabbed my laptop, sat down in my comfiest couch and began to type. Ironically, I'd only spat out a few lines before actually stopping to read what I had written.

"What an interesting story!" I thought. If only it had reflected at all what actually happened. I seemed to remember something like a feeling "flaming down into my belly," but certainly wouldn't have used those words myself.

Whoops!

I'll admit that there's a time to stretch the action a little bit and blow readers away with powerful and overwhelming verbs. Persuasive essays seem like a great place for this; who can think about refuting your argument while they're trying to visualize Emerson unleash a lionlike roar?

However, the writing about my life could sure use a nice taste of subtlety, of verb use that tells it like it is. A dose of Emily Dickinson.

On this wondrous sea
Sailing silently,
Ho! Pilot, ho!
Knowest though the shore
Where no breakers roar -
Where the storm is o'er?

In the peaceful west
Many the sails at rest -
The anchors fast -
Thither I pilot thee -
Land Ho! Eternity!
Ashore at last!

Solve You! Pt. II

A strange kind of excitement washed over me yesterday when I realized I wasn't entirely alone in thinking about poetry as something to solve! In fact, while perusing the library shelves, I found a book, and I'm not kidding, titled The Complete Poems to Solve. Although May Swenson, the author of the book, doesn't quite take the "Seward" approach to poetry, I certainly drew some parallels. Here's an excerpt from the introduction.

"Each of the poems in this selection, in one way or another, is a Poem to Solve. A characteristic of all poetry, in fact, is that more is hidden in it than in prose.
...
Solving a poem can be like undoing a mysterious package. The identity or significance of what's inside may be concealed or camouflaged by the dimensions or shape of its 'box.' Sometimes, nested within a first discovery another may be found - which in turn contains still another - and so on. And if then you explore all the notions in the poem, you receive the added pleasure of seeing how they relate to each other in surprising ways, while at the same time combining to create the whole design of the 'box.'"

Don't you just love that analogy?

So here it is, a poem for all of you to solve! It's from a section of the book titled "Some Riddle Poems."

Hypnotist

His lair framed beneath the clock,
a red-haired beast hypnotic in the room
glazes our eyes and draws us close
with delicious snarls and flickers of his claws.
We stir our teacups and our wishes feast
on his cruelty.

Throw the Christian chairs to him,
a wild child in us cries.
Or let us be Daniel bared
to that seething maze his mane.
Loops of his fur graze the sill
where the clock's face looks scared.

Comfort-ensnared and languorous
our unused daring, roused, resembles him
fettered on the hearth's stage
behind the iron dogs.
He's the red locks of the sun
brought home to a cage.

Hunched before his flaring shape
we stir our teacups.
We wish he could escape
and loosen in ourselves the terrible.
But only his reflection pounces
on the parquet and the stair.



Can you solve the riddle?

Renfield!

Last year I performed in what turned out to be one of my favorite roles ever.
Dr. Seward came to life in 1897 when Bram Stoker published his now famous, Dracula. I, of course, didn't meet Mr. Seward until much later, but scarcely after meeting him he shouted something I'll not soon forget.

"I shall solve you Renfield!"

Over and over again, "I shall solve you! I shall solve you!" After the lunatic had finally exhausted himself, he slumped into his chair, a wooden, uncomfortable looking contraption, the type with a tall, strict back which looms far above the head of its victim. After panting for several minutes Seward finally collected himself somewhat, apologized and sat silently. Without warning he began to tell me of Renfield, the Doctor's obsession, his folly.

You see, the Doctor had a theory. If only he could find the root of one man's insanity, locate the dungeon where even one man languished, and turn the key, he believed he could free them all. If he could "solve" this maniac Renfield's illness, fame and fortune would pour in from all quarters. Perhaps the good Doctor could even find the key to unlock his own soul....

I'd go on but I don't want to ruin the book/play for you!

I guess I remember Dr. Seward so well now because I can relate to him, at least superficially. I've always had this longing to know, a yearning to understand. I guess I've even fallen into the trap of believing if I could solve even this one problem, suddenly everything else would fall into place.

Although this train of thought may seem a little extreme, I believe its only a demented form of the idea poetry's appearance is based on. Interestingly, I don't think I'm alone in this belief...

More on that tomorrow!

I'll "leaf" the puns to the poets

I remember going outside on long autumn nights growing up (I say growing up but I guess it was just a few years ago). My family lived across the street then and we had one of those trees in the front yard that dropped those helicopter leaves. You know the ones I mean? They have a round seed body and a stiff propeller that comes out of one side, almost like the sail of a ship strung from its steady mast.

There was something profound in the way these seeds drifted to the ground. Quietly, often unobserved, they'd meander gently through the air before resting on the ground. There was no protest in their movement; how could there be? Just a soft floating and complacence.

It's that quietness and complacence I think about when I read this, our second e.e. cummings poem. In my experience this piece has been pretty consistent with most of his other work, and in that spirit, this poem is also untitled.


l(a

le
af
fa

ll

s)
one
l

iness


P.S. Mads were awesome tonight! It was... well.. even invigorating! very good!

"cumming" over?

Lately I've been reading a lot of e.e. cummings. I figure if I'm going to understand tough poetry I might as well start with the toughest, right?

Anyway! Turns out I actually enjoy his stuff a lot! Though maybe a little unorthodox (think Picasso, only with words), his poetry has a lot to offer to those who are willing to go out on a limb and put in a little effort.

Here's a piece I particularly liked. It's untitled.


who are you,little i

(five or six years old)
peering from some high

window;at the gold



of november sunset

(and feeling:that if day
has to become night

this is a beautiful way)



cummings loved to play with the visual appearance of his poems and use punctuation in ways... well, frankly in ways it wasn't meant to be used (not to mention capitalization, case in point: "e.e. cummings").

Anyway, inspired by his use (or misuse) of grammar and words, I've started this little game.

Here's how it goes, take the letters in your first, middle and last names, then put them together to create a poem using only those letters. You can use whatever title you want and punctuation is totally fair game.

Here's mine. It's called, "Leaving."

Tak-tap-TiCk, r E (bl(Is)s) V!!
en.

Weird, huh? First one to figure it out wins a prize!

In the begining...

I've had two realizations today. I'll start with the most dramatic...

Realization 1: I'm completely sick of not understanding poetry. Totally fed-up, done, kaput, finished, ready for something new! Just the very idea that a man (or woman) can discover something insightful or beautiful, horrific or true, bury it in a landslide of words and make it completely disappear makes me uneasy to say the least. The only cure for this uneasiness comes in blowing away the dust and revealing these "meanings" for what they are. I need to know what these people are trying to say and why they said it like this.

I like understanding. It's just who I am.

Realization 2: Everyone else is getting a blog and I want in on the fun (on a not completely unrelated note I actually did once before try the blog experiment as a protest against an unfair regime).

All this combines to one simple fact.

I've decided to create a blog for the furthering of poetry comprehension among High School students everywhere (not least of all myself)! I want to create a place where we can all come together and share our favorite works, discuss what we don't understand, and well, even occasionally complain about how hard it all is.

The format for the little experiment is, at this point, by no means set. I think for now I'll just post a poem for thought, perhaps with a brief biography on the author, and open up the comment section for discussion! What don't you understand? What do you like? Dislike? Which influences do you think the author was under (if you know what I mean) when he wrote this piece?

Anyway, this has been long winded enough! Hopefully the whole project will round out with time!

Onward!