(untitled for now)

She sways in one sweeping movement
and we all see and gape.
the feathers of Her hair-
the tremble of Her red brown red.
flaunting and floating, firmly rooted in the sky;
soon She'll have neither hair nor colour to cajole.

and by the jealour cold, the impatient frost,
she'll melt in pieces:
preciptating loudly
RED GOLD RED BRONZE RED FLUSH RED
coaxing her admirers back before the jealous blanche
washes the world white in ice.

her resplendency in pieces before her; a
train of life and dealth that crunches
crunching and crushed to ash

ash makes us forget.

and we, her wayward lovers
will find ourselves entralled and terrified by her white ghost-
her vengence in null colour
"remember me, remember no more
a year away until i return"

woohoo my first dps poetry post :) hiya, i'm valerie for those in the dps that i may not have met yet.
i wrote this thinking about the drumlin at Trent (LEC overlooks it and i am a LEC-dweller). i was thinking about the colours of the trees and it really takes my breath away, but lately the leaves have fallen down. it reminds me of Dorothy Livesay's poem "Fantasy in May". Livesay personifies tulips as harlots, and it made me think of the autumn leaves as something similiar-in the way that the colours are there, then they're blown away, and all that's left are bare branches.
so in my poem, i also personified the autumn trees as a woman who draws attention and love to herself through her colours.

the winter can be understood as either the worser side of herself, or another "woman". i didn't really intend to have this dual meaning, and would like to stick with one (i like the former). in the text i highlighted, particularly the jealous cold verse in the second stanza, do you think i should delete it completely, and hopefully eliminate that "second woman" perception of winter?

also, i really don't like the word "flush" in the second stanza. i'm looking for a colour word that's more metallic (in consistency with "gold", "bronze") but i'd like to keep the monosyllabic pattern.

in the last stanza, what do you guys think about the word "white"? i was thinking maybe "ice" instead, b/c the "null colour" sort of already implies white.
and in the last two verses, i'm trying to write that as what the autumn trees are saying to us, who forget about autumn b/c we're so caught up with snow. the way that i ended up writing these two verses, it sounds as though there should be a rhyming couplet, but i'm terrible with rhyming. do you think that i go w/ a rhyming couplet? either way, i really need to change that word "return". and the first-person "i" doesn't have to be there.

thnx :) see you guys on Thurs

Prometheus stole the fire...

In Greek mythology Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to humankind. This enraged Zeus because it gives men the power of gods. So Zeus sentenced Prometheus to be tied to a mountain and have his liver eaten out by an eagle every day, only for it to grow back every night. The sentence was to last 50 000 years, but Prometheus was later set free by Zeus' son Hercules who was allowed to kill the eagle to show Zeus' power.

...

Stealing the Fire:

An open letter to Prometheus:

When Zeus looks down into your eyes
He'll seal your fate, and all your fame,
If you're going to steal the fire
You'll have to touch the flame.

...

Was it one year or one second? It's so blurred in my mind...

I made it....finally

Hey Guys and Girl,
I finally made it onto the site. It looks great. Cindy and I held our own DPS on Wednesday night at midnight (so really it was Thursday morning). So ha. Though it wasn't official since everyone wasn't there, we discussed T.S. Eliot's Portrait of a Lady (as transcribed by Cindy), some personal poems by said attendees, and Emily Dickenson's This World Is Not Conclusion. Fun was had by all. Being me, and Cindy. And we also discussed attire for the upcoming Halloween Parties. Chocolate was consumed vigorously and quickly. We partook
(please check spelling on this) of Cream Soda and became overly hyper. The transpiring of the evening resulted in Halloween decorations being constructed and displayed in the windows, harkening the arrival of dark festivities. MWAHAHAHAHA. (I'm sure you heard Cindy's evil shriek from there). Signing off on my first of a never ending line of posts...
me (Caroline)

Doubly Blind

Doubly Blind

The quiet heart amidst a sea of noise
Peace, tranquility; it is alive.
Empty stares pierce the blind
Such rush, its a wonder they don't trip.
O yes, it is in a different sense,
What danger then, to be blind
And not know.
Let dirt and spittle fly!
Perchance to hit the eye
And now doubly blind they'll cry!

-the bard

Meeting #3 Minutes

Dead Poet's Society Meeting #3 Minutes

Present: Cindy, Caroline, Venessa, Valerie, Noah, Todd.

Motion for name change: Cancelled again due to the absence of our beloved Jerry

Todd
1. Yeats The Second Coming
-spent time focused on the 'gyre' image, which was created by Yeats. A general encouragement was pronounced that Poetry should be something unique. Create images and symbols, invent words and ideas (but always be ready to explain them!)

2. Todd Doubly Blind
-Contrast of spiritual and physical blindness
-Use of a punctuating rhyme scheme at the end of free verse.
-Idea that human kind will never cry out until they recognize they are blind spiritually.
-Allusion to Jesus healing a blind man by putting mud in his eyes.

Caroline
1. Caroline (possibly: Walking on Dragonflies)
-Contradiction of terms makes for an interesting comparison in thought.
-One can't literally walk on dragonflies.
-A sense of the fantastical. Good use of imagination and originality to help provoke thought and ideas.
-Is poetry limited to what we can understand of it?

Vanessa
1. Vanessa Selina Pierson (graveyard poetry)
-Very unique style of poetry, which is a fantastic addition to the group.
-Very vivid descriptions, which assault the senses.
-Good perspective. The graveyard perspective is one where good and bad memories flow just as easily.

Valerie
1. Valerie Al Purdy "Rhodedendron" inspired this poem > Celestial Citizens
-Description of Heaven, with a very different mix of elements.
-Based on Revelation 7:9-10. Some example are the "glass sea" and "tongues of fire"
-Elaborate description of simple concepts (or specific concepts) heightens the poetry.

Noah
1. Noah To See Lines in Her Name
-Very honest love poem about his future wife, whomever that may be.
-this woman is the most beautiful poetry to Noah. *sniff, tear* :)

Transaction
-language controls us (specifically English)
-Is that a positive or a negative thing?
-unique use of enjambment throught the poem (When a line is carried over the the next line in a poem)
ie. The dog ran toward
my house.
And ate my slipper.
-the bard

2. T.S. Eliot Journey of the Magi
-Superimposition of three different periods: Christ`s birth, death, and return.
Noah`s Essay on Journey of the Magi
-Closure - Birth of Christ leads to the death of other Religions
-Closure for the Magi
-What kind of closure is there for the reader?

Cindy
1. Gerard Hopkins The Caged Skylark
-Musical nature to Hopkin`s poetry.
-moved from being a Protestant to being a Catholic... his wife was not pleased...
-Comparison of Bird and Man
-Body is a cage for the soul, just as a bird is caged from flying away.
-Death is freedom from that cage, freedom for the soul.

2. Cindy Fallen
-Allusion used in this poem. Leaves falling from a tree synbolic of... I`m not sure what.

Yellow Ball
-good style. Very descriptive look at a walk.

Next Meeting: Novemeber 03, 2005.

Next meeting:
- poem from an artist/poet
- personal poem
-There will be some general discussion about Literary Terms in Poetry (ie. metaphors, polysyndenton, etc...) as well as discussion on Poetic formats of meter and rhyme (Iambic Pentameter, couplets, sonnets, etc..)

Have a great reading break one and all!!

-the bard

Meeting #2 Minutes

Dead Poet's Society, Meeting #2 Minutes

Present: Caroline, Cindy, Noah, Todd

Motion: Change the name of the club to: The DPS
-since the motion was to be nominated by Jerry Bolton it will post-poned until next the next time Jerry is at the meeting.

Caroline
1. Analysis of On Monsier's Departure
-interesting discussion on whether it was written by a male or a female.

2. Caroline's Poem
no title given - "... it is so easy to forget."

Some thoughts to consider about this piece:
- do not let this be one in a series of mistakes.
-instant gratification brings some consequences.
>Caroline played a pun with the word "deja vu" (very sneaky)

General thoughts flowing from this discussion:
-What is the purpose of poetry?
-Should it be purely the author's interpretation, or the reader's? Or should there be balance?
-What about ambiguity/understanding?
((btw, the bathroom is a creepy place for pictures of your friends!))

Cindy
1. Gerard Hopkins: The Caged Skylark (to be discussed next week)

2. Friend's Poem: Christ - The Sunrise of My Soul
-Discussion about Structure in Poetry ensued
-Noah commented that he tends to be cynical toward poetry

Noah
1. T.S. Eliot
-Influenced by Fascism and Christianity

The Hollow Man
-Allusion to Julius Caesar, Heart of Darkness, and Gunpowder plot.
-A hollow man is basically a man with no character.
-"not with a bang but a whimper"
- party bang, or destruction bang?

((the unknown exists between the reality and the thought))

2. Silent in Your Car (Noah Salo)
-As long as you've been in a car and in love this poetry should be fairly straightforward.
-the key to this poem = Noah

Todd
1. Beloved Derek Webb

2. 10 O'clock



sorry about being late folks, i'll get on it quicker next time. Jerry i want to here what you got. Assignment for this coming thursday:

1 poem from an artist/poet
1 personal poem

(just like last time except a different piece to discuss)

-the bard

To See Lines in Her Name

Hmm... It appears as though Todd is slacking and not putting up the minutes. Just kidding, no big deal. Toddy's probably busy with a billion essays right now.

Here's a poem I wrote at 1:30 am a few days ago. It's probably the most authentic "love" poem I've ever written... and I don't even think its bad. Funny thing, there isn't a "special someone" its aimed at... it's a general expression of that feeling I get when I really fall for someone. It's what I want to feel for my wife someday. The quotation is from Amber (though again, the poem itself is not about her). She told me that when I talk I don't just speak, instead I make essays in my head out of ordinary things. Interesting thought.

To See Lines in Her Name

She said that I
"speak
like an essay"
and "weave
arguments"
in my brain.

But I
think
like a poet
and see
lines
in her name.

Obituary For A Dream

This is one of my favorites:

this dream has breathed its last
and now it flickers and fades
into a collage of invisible things
hiding beneath vulture's wings

and the carrion shall feed
and my heart will mend
and the world will change
and this dream has come to an end

I'm trying to be like Gertrude Stein

When I read a poet I've never read before, I like to try and get inside his or her head a bit by writing a poem in his or her style. So here's my attempt to be like Gertrude Stein, with all my "they're killing us" intact...

foot note # 40:15

shiny elephant hippopotamus broken bloody split skip
rope
esophagus
filthy hippotopamus tales like tails like see dar's cedars feeders feed
her's
behemoth elephant hippopotamus
phil the phil the fill the philanderer philander her fill and her
philandher phil and her
split body
broken gore apple core

Meaning

This is one of Caroline's poems. It is about meaning disappearing. It was her goal to skew the meaning of the poem as much as possible in order to create the effect of meaning disappearing in the structure of the poem itself. She enlisted me to do some grammatical / line editing. We collectively worked on the line breaks and punctuation (while she most likely should have been helping someone sign out books at the Trent Library):

Meaning; why
have
you left this waste
land devoid
of sense and
nonsense
where one
cannot
be found without
the
other?

PS: Caroline, this is my favourite poem of yours. Keep it up.

Coming on board.

Greetings. I'd just like to point out that Todd and Noah are stand-up fellows, and that this society needs a new name... maybe it can be just "THE DPS". Works for me anyway.

Will edit to add something poetical.

More Meeting #1

Quotation from Meeting #1 Minutes:

"Jerry pointed out that it disrupts the flow of the rest of the poem by drawing the reader's mind to a song in which these lines are used at the ending."

Actually, not a song. It's from the poem "The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot, though Project 86 alludes to it in the song "Hollow Again."

Allusion seemed to be the topic of the day. The main question was: When does allusion cease to be effective and become plagiarism?

In a way all allusion is plagiarism, but it is also a form of respect. For a poet to effectively use allusion as a poetic device the poet must have a thorough understanding of the text being alluded to, and the allusion itself must be appropriate. A forced allusion shows a shallow understanding of the source text as well as immaturity as a writer.

We all go through this stage, and I'm sure in six months I'll blush reading my current work.

Next week I intend to discuss Eliot's "The Hollow Men" since it became a point of interest.

Prepare to have your work thoroughly edited. Ideally, bring a typed manuscript of your work so we can peer review.

I'll Allude to You

I'll Allude to you
However I like;
Unpublished and unknown.

But you will never
Understand the effect;
Detached and all alone.

Fresh thoughts found under the sun;
Fresh verse which brings such joy;

If you can find it,
I'll allude to you.

-the bard
(October 06, 2005)

Meeting #1 Minutes

Dead Poet's Society, Meeting #1 Minutes

Present: Carolyn, Cindy, Jerry, Noah, Todd.

1. William Carlos Williams
Red Wheelbarrow (56) Selected Poems --->see Noah
To have Done Nothing (42) Selected Poems

-what can I say? we tore apart a couple of his more loved (and hated) poems. Noah and Jerry were torn on whether a wheelbarrow was too ordinary a concept to be the primary subject of a poem. Noah also provided some key background information and a semi grueling (though I always love it) grammatical explanation of "to have done nothing".

2. Walt Whitman
Birds of Passage (181) Leaves of Grass -Part 1---> see Noah

-just a light read, no analysis given.

3. Noah Salo
specific analysis of:"Un-Deliever"

-As a group we analysed the validity of Noah's middle stanza, with particular reference to the structure. Jerry made some very interesting comments about the discord between the bold lines (as seen below) and the rest of the stanza. Jerry pointed out that it disrupts the flow of the rest of the poem by drawing the reader's mind to a song in which these lines are used at the ending. (Sorry guys I forget the song) Some interesting discussion ensued, but ultimately it is up to Noah to decide what to do with it. (i also like the revision to include 'irate')

Closing with a bang
And a whimper!

With a lie
and a shudder!

With an enemy
that's a brother!

4. Jerry Bolton
Project 86 (The hand, the Furnace and a Straight Face)

-The basic interepretation was generally accepted about the lyrics in this song, but the title and the last lines were discussed quite extensively. Many ideas were brought forth as to the meaning, but a general consensus (but by no means a concrete verdict) was that it spoke of God's refining work in our lives as believers. The straight face is an acceptance of the pain (or discipline) that often accompanies sanctification. Props to Jer for unpacking this one.

5. Cindy (I forget your last name and probably should be shot)
King Lear (a poem by Cindy)
Hope
Wood Nymph

-Cindy presented an interesting style of poetry to the group, which excited me due to the growing diversity of the Dead Poet's Society. 'Hope' presented the reader with a clear description of where our hope is found, namely God.

6. Todd
I wrote a poem in the middle of the meeting... I'll post it seperately for comments.

7. For Next Week
-Each person is to bring a poem or lyric from a secondary author as well as one of their own creation. Be prepared to discuss.

-the bard

Two Poems by William Carlos Williams with Close Readings

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

(From "Selected Poems" ed. Charles Tomlinson)

Close Reading:

• Williams uses simple words and objects in an impersonal manner, yet this is subverted by the phase “So much depends / upon” which insists that no matter ho simple the subject matter it is important.
• The poem is a single sentence, stretched over four stanzas, with eight total lines, half of which contain only one word. This elongates the reader’s experience, forcing the reader to focus on each individual image.
• The poem shows the influence of cubism, a French art movement in which the painters would paint the subject from all available angles to create the most complete picture possible. Williams’s poem implants simple, distinct, colourful images in the mind of the reader and effectively becomes a poetic painting.
• James E. Breslin notes “…short jagged lines and long vowels slow down our movement through the poem, breaking off each part for exact observation.”
• There is a clear passion in the poem, developed by the continued study of the subject.
• Charles Tomlinson argues that, “…what depends on the wheelbarrow…is that its presence can be rendered over into words.”

To Have Done Nothing

No that is not it
nothing that I have done
nothing
I have done

is made up of
nothing
and the diphthong

ae

together with
the first person
singular
indicative

of the auxiliary
verb
to have

everything
I have done
is the same

if to do
is capable
of an
infinity of
combinations

involving the
moral
physical
and religious

codes

for everything
and nothing
are synonymous
when

energy in vacuo
has the power
of confusion

which only to
have done nothing
can make
perfect

(From "Selected Poems" ed. Charles Tomlinson)


Close Reading

• Williams wrote in the margins of the manuscript, “I was trying to think out loud.”
• This poem could be seen as Williams’s manifesto: the removal of the person from the poetry to focus on images. Instead of focusing on the Speaker’s interpretation of the subject of the poem, the readers must rely on their own interpretations.
• The poem is an exercise in grammatical deconstruction.
• The phrase “Nothing I have done” is immediately dissected into its components: the word “nothing,” “the diphthong // ae,” (I) and the “first person / singular / indicative // of the auxiliary / verb / to have” (simply, have).
• The main focus of the poem is, as Christopher J. MacGowan argues, the “capability of the infinitive ‘to do’”
• “To do” potentially has “an infinity of / combinations,” but is limited by “moral / physical / and religious // codes”
• This is because “to do is what all verbs, as parts of speech expressing action, do.” (Sherman Paul)
• “Everything / and nothing” become synonymous when the “energy” of the language is destroyed by all the “codes” making “nothing” and “everything” feel the same.
• In this situation, Williams argues that only “to / have done nothing / can make / perfect.” Note that “to have done nothing” is in the past perfect tense.
• The main thesis of the poem becomes not what has been done, but what could be done.

Bibliography:

Breslin, James E. William Carlos Williams: An American Artist. New York: Oxford UP, 1970

MacGowan, Christopher J. William Carlos Williams Early Poetry: The Visual Arts

Background. Ann Arbour, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1984

Mariani, Paul L. William Carlos Williams: The Poet and His Critics. Chicago: American Library Association, 1975.

The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. Ed. Ramazani, Jahan, et al. New York: Norton, 2003

Paul, Sherman. The Music of Survival. Urbana, Chicago, London: U of Illinois P, 1968

Tomlinson, Chirstoper, ed. William Carlos Williams: Selected Poems. By William Carlos

Williams. New York: New Directions, 1985

Williams, William Carlos. The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams ed. Litz, A.

Walton and MacGowan, Christopher. Vol. 1:1919-1939. 2 vols. New York: New Directions, 1991