Rainey,
Thank you for this beautiful and much-needed respite from some of the other topics being discussed on this site. Your words evoke a less-complicated, slower-paced past and although the tone is bittersweet, it is the sweet that is the focus, at least as I experience it.
Lovely.
Just what I needed today - many thanks.
Heh-heh, yes the other topics can get to be a bit much I’ve noticed. Probably why I mostly hang out here in CW. But you seem to do just fine, and I like your style, Anita. Don’t let ‘em get you down.
I’m glad I could brighten your day a bit.
You’re art is truly wending before my eyes. “wending its way” and everything else . . . the whole mood, the archaic words, images, the refrains – everything is sublime. This does not need a critical reply as it is intuited like all worthy art is directly intuited and felt. I’m just honored to watch an artist bloom before my eyes. I don’t know if you’re going to continue down this path, but it really looks like you’ve honed your craft to perfection (no jinx). Meanwhile, I’m still searching for a style and end up everywhere which is really nowhere… Ah well, effort, right? And what a title! I’ll bet you you might get this into Harpers or something close (it’s on the same level of what they publish). “mammoth oak” …wow.
TUM, thanks so much. You know, I really do feel as though my work has evolved and it’s very gratifying to hear some confirmation of that from somebody who’s pretty much followed my progress from the beginning, and from somebody who obviously appreciates and takes seriously this very strange art form in which we express ourselves. I still have a long ways to go yet I think, but I’m in no hurry really.
Yes, this idea of finding a style is kind of tricky. I bounced around a lot as you know, especially early on. I’m thinking that one’s style is there, always there…just waiting to be discovered. Like most things in life, when you hit upon the right thing you just kind of feel it. It’s as though while you’re searching for your style, your style is trying to find you, too. I think you have one, by the way. When a TUM poem is posted (which is not nearly often enough) you can just tell it’s a TUM poem. And I mean that as a high compliment. Who else could have written this?:
And to you shall light deny
All the glaciers of her eye;
And the city shall have a stench
Which shall bolt you like a wrench.
Great stuff. That poem’s a gem.
At any rate, thanks again for the kind words and the confirmation.
Wise words my friend. And I actually wondered whether the first two lines you quoted would be appreciated, so thank you for the confirmation to a terribly insecure spirit.
Your poem’s imagery came to me last night right before I was about to enter the dream world. I must say, and this is no insult, it helped me fall asleep. There is such a soothing quality that remains relevant, especially when juxtaposed to modern society bombarding us with its excesses. Seventeen traffic lights, my friend, that is seventeen too many, and I often walk through Times Square. It is one of the most powerful images I have encountered in many months (and Colin’s orange juice was also a very powerful one), an image that my imagination simply refuses to let go off - I turn off one light, only to have another flash from some dark corner of my mind.
Now, If you have not seen my work posted here it is because my waters have dried up for a very long time, but I have a precipitant feeling that such a stale state of affairs is soon to change. For now, I’m honing my skills while fully plunging into the endless wells of others. It isn’t even a question of inspiration, but very much an attempt to understand what it is precisely that I am trying to convey, or what is it that is thrusting out of me which seeks to be expressed that has not already been expressed by someone else. I, like the current American Poet Laureate Kay Ryan, am increasingly growing skeptical of “inspiration” and seriously seeking to gain a command over my passions.
The other night I was fortunate enough to see an interview on Charlie Rose with this years American Poet Laureate Kay Ryan, which can be seen here http://www.charlierose.com/shows/2008/11/06/2/a-conversation-with-kay-ryan-u-s-poet-laureate-and-james-billington-librarian-of-congress (incidentally, do you know how to condense an url?), where she said something very interesting; if we want to read a poem, we first must silently read it to ourselves, and if we like it or something in it strikes us, it is only then that we make the decision to really read it. This is not the first I heard this, one poet - forget who - said that when he reads a poem he reads it five times aloud, every time one does so one understands it better. Well, this is certainly true for me, not only do I understand it better but with every successive spoken reading the intonations change and the poems entire meaning sometimes shifts before my eyes. Just so you know, I’ve already decided to really read yours, though I haven’t yet. Schopenhauer also said something very similar, a poem must be read out-loud to have the musical power or “Will” which only comes out on an spoken reading.
Weee,
tum
Thanks for that link, TUM. I just finished watching it. Excellent. Yes this inspiration thing is rather overrated I think. I don’t often find myself in some kind of magical moment of inspiration where I feel I need to get some ivory-tower thoughts down on paper. It’s more of just trying to put across some idea or other in a coherent way and often times it’s a struggle to do so. But if you can find a moment where you’re somehow able to get yourself out of your own way, sometimes something decent gets produced.
I related to the way poetry ought to be read. Kay Ryan says one ought to read it to oneself and then - and I like this qualifier - if it strikes you in some way, then you reread it (really read it). It has to grab you somehow first. There has to be something about it that intrigues you, and you find yourself wanting to know more. No different, I suppose, then how we regard other people when you stop and think about it.
At any rate, keep at it my friend. You’re young, and the whole world is before you.