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Oct. 29th, 2006 04:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labellementeuseITP
I think it is a declaration of war:
the body sending red letters under my skin.
they are not easy to decipher,
ephemeral constellations of tiny bruises,
so I join the dots in blue biro.
I find the message still a little confusing,
like maybe it's written back to front,
on the underside of my capillaries.
because it is too difficult to make a settlement,
I send in pale troops every morning;
battlefields flare and fade on my arms, my legs, my chest.
every change becomes a sign;
my nerves fray rapidly.
the body fights back, purple tides rising under my skin.
it is too much for me; please,
I am ready to broker peace.
I am applying for a creative writing poetry course for the first semester next year. It's fairly restricted entry and I am, pretty much, entirely terrified that I'll submit a portfolio and won't be accepted. This probably ties in with an opinion of my poetry that... well, okay. "people who post original poetry on their Livejournals" are pretty much in the same category as "people who blog about their cats" and they're definitely in the same category as "people who talk about cutting themselves a lot" and "people who dye their hair black and wear a lot of eyeliner." (Um, there are people on my flist who do all of these things, and I love them all very much, but you know what I mean.) So I usually strive to make my poetry as non-emo as possible, because god, no-one wants to read amateur Evanescence lyrics, am I right? But there are things that I find intensely difficult to write about without being emo. Illness is one of these, mine and those around me - I've made several starts at writing about my grandfather, who's pretty much off his rocker, and I don't feel like any of them have really transcended my personal experience into being something that might actually speak to others as well - which is what good poetry is about, IMO. Someone said that "poetry should not mean, but be"; I absolutely believe this, but also that poetry that is intensely personal is almost always bad poetry because it might mean a lot to the author, but when it comes to the audience, they may have nothing in common with you.
Which is a roundabout way of saying, I am trying to write a bit about some things that matter to me right now, and I'm not sure I'm succeeding, but I think I have to get rid of them anyway. And if you think this is way too subjective, you should read some of the other stuff I have on my hd. ;)
I think it is a declaration of war:
the body sending red letters under my skin.
they are not easy to decipher,
ephemeral constellations of tiny bruises,
so I join the dots in blue biro.
I find the message still a little confusing,
like maybe it's written back to front,
on the underside of my capillaries.
because it is too difficult to make a settlement,
I send in pale troops every morning;
battlefields flare and fade on my arms, my legs, my chest.
every change becomes a sign;
my nerves fray rapidly.
the body fights back, purple tides rising under my skin.
it is too much for me; please,
I am ready to broker peace.
I am applying for a creative writing poetry course for the first semester next year. It's fairly restricted entry and I am, pretty much, entirely terrified that I'll submit a portfolio and won't be accepted. This probably ties in with an opinion of my poetry that... well, okay. "people who post original poetry on their Livejournals" are pretty much in the same category as "people who blog about their cats" and they're definitely in the same category as "people who talk about cutting themselves a lot" and "people who dye their hair black and wear a lot of eyeliner." (Um, there are people on my flist who do all of these things, and I love them all very much, but you know what I mean.) So I usually strive to make my poetry as non-emo as possible, because god, no-one wants to read amateur Evanescence lyrics, am I right? But there are things that I find intensely difficult to write about without being emo. Illness is one of these, mine and those around me - I've made several starts at writing about my grandfather, who's pretty much off his rocker, and I don't feel like any of them have really transcended my personal experience into being something that might actually speak to others as well - which is what good poetry is about, IMO. Someone said that "poetry should not mean, but be"; I absolutely believe this, but also that poetry that is intensely personal is almost always bad poetry because it might mean a lot to the author, but when it comes to the audience, they may have nothing in common with you.
Which is a roundabout way of saying, I am trying to write a bit about some things that matter to me right now, and I'm not sure I'm succeeding, but I think I have to get rid of them anyway. And if you think this is way too subjective, you should read some of the other stuff I have on my hd. ;)
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Date: 2006-10-29 05:56 am (UTC)Heh, emo... such a stain on quality writers everywhere :P I've recently got my mind back into writing, which led me to write a maddive disjointed kind of rhyming rant about how much society sucks... it's so hard not for it to tuen into teenage political cliche....
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Date: 2006-10-29 10:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-29 10:13 am (UTC)I contemplated posting poetry (prose? I don't even know the difference) on my LJ. I am not deterred.
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Date: 2006-10-29 10:17 am (UTC)Um, prose is anything that's not poetry (well, you also have prose poems, but you;d know those when you saw them) so. :P Do not be deterred! I would not like to deter free expression.
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Date: 2006-10-29 10:16 am (UTC)Is this ENGL231 with Claire Hero? I did that paper last year and it was FABULOUS! Claire is great- she's very approachable and helpful as a lecturer, and you can always count on her to give decent feedback. She was always very encouraging of me, but she was always good at pointing out areas in which I could improve. And she's edited several major American poetry journals in her time, so she knows what stuff gets printed...
Awesome poem, btw. :) Got some fantastic and very vivid imagery in there.
LOVE this bit:
because it is too difficult to make a settlement,
I send in pale troops every morning;
battlefields flare and fade on my arms, my legs, my chest.
but also that poetry that is intensely personal is almost always bad poetry because it might mean a lot to the author, but when it comes to the audience, they may have nothing in common with you.
Hmmm. I'm going to disagree with you a touch on this one. For me, just because a poem is intensely personal for the authour, doesn't necessarily make it a terrible piece of work. In my opinion, it's all about how you get your message out. If it's a poem that's sloppily written, that's whiny, and spells out too much about how the poet hates themselves and wants to die, if it attempts to be all didactic and ram stuff down your throat, and if it just basically turns out like a shitty My Chemical Romance or Evanescence song as you say, then yes, it's not so hot. However, if you're writing a poem that's personal in a way that's clever and roundabout, shows and not tells how the poet is feeling, uses lots of awesome images, flows well, and is nice n' dark without being all "woe is me", then it's sweet.
Of course, you're right in that you gotta be careful not to put too much of a distance between you and your readers. But, I definitely don't believe that you writing a poem about something close to your heart automatically makes it a bad poem. Oh heck, I don't know...
Have you ever been on
I wouldn't call it emo at all. Although, you could make it less personal by taking out all the "I"s and "my"s, and maybe make it about an anonymous body? Or make it third or second person? I dunno, just an idea...
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Date: 2006-10-29 10:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-29 10:48 am (UTC)omg
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Date: 2006-10-29 10:30 am (UTC)just because a poem is intensely personal for the authour, doesn't necessarily make it a terrible piece of work.
Absolutely, and I think I really overstated what I said when I wrote that. :P What I probably should have said is that this intensely personal work needs a LOT more refining - for all the reasons you mentioned. To get the kind of distance on your own intensely personal emotion to be clever and roundabout about it all... it's something that I, at least, find incredibly difficult. I probably shouldn't have said that almost all highly personal poetry is bad since that wasn't really what I meant at all. :P
I'm trying to avoid using third person for various reasons, mostly because it always rings false to me (although thanks for the suggestion.) I know and you know and we all know that when a poet writes "she sits in her room/and weeps alone" what she really means is HI I'M SITTING IN MY ROOM CRYING. :P I mean, not always, but very often, so I'm trying to avoid that. I love second person but it didn't feel appropriate, but it's definitely something I'll try to address in future.
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Date: 2006-10-29 11:00 am (UTC)To be honest, I gave up on
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Date: 2006-10-29 11:13 am (UTC)I was finding, as I was reading through, that the poetry was highly obscure and frequently opaque. I am a big fan of clarity in both prose and poetry; a beautiful image is a beautiful thing, but if I have to read you five times to figure out what you mean, chances are I'm not interested. :P
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Date: 2006-10-29 10:49 pm (UTC)I am a big fan of clarity in both prose and poetry; a beautiful image is a beautiful thing, but if I have to read you five times to figure out what you mean, chances are I'm not interested. :P
Haha, then I guess you might not be interested in my poetry, since mine can be a touch obscure as well. Hmmm, don't think I've posted anything on here for yonks. Might have to redeem that. ;)
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Date: 2006-10-29 11:15 pm (UTC)What I've read of your poetry, I think I have read a little bit, I remember enjoying. :)
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Date: 2006-10-29 03:27 pm (UTC)That is just my opinion on the subject, anyway. Good luck getting into your program!
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Date: 2006-10-29 08:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-30 02:08 am (UTC)I think it is a declaration of war:
the body sending red letters under my skin.
I love this beginning especially. Because I'm pretty sure anyone who has ever been ill has felt this way about some sort of illness, regardless.
It's really hard to draw the line between emotion and emo, yeah? I tend to stray onto the clinical side in my writing.
Have you read Karlo Mila's poetry? Some of it is really fabulous.
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Date: 2006-10-31 12:05 am (UTC)It's really hard to draw the line between emotion and emo, yeah?
Next to impossible. Bah.
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Date: 2006-10-30 05:55 am (UTC)The difference between you and a lot of the other people who post poetry on Livejournal is that yours is actually good.
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Date: 2006-10-31 12:05 am (UTC)