(no subject)

[labellementeuse]

collecting smiles

Sunday morning. working in the dark, while the cars pass brilliantly, like rapid angels flourescing down the road. I clean the toilets, wiping the mirror and looking at my own eyes, my tired mouth. the milkybar girls stumble in with pallid hair and burnt eyes. big men in dirty caps and greased-up hands smile back at me and lean on the counter too closely. later, on the way to church, a tongan man in a shouting purple suit grins at me while sun breaks over the coffee machine, pouring into the store with startling ridiculous light. I pump petrol for a samoan family, men in sober black wraparounds, women in dresses that cling to warm wide hips. two little boys run into me with $10. a little asian man ducks and bows to me as he passes over money. when he looks up he surprises me with the curve of his lips. the woman who I know is a prostitute asks me how my week has been. in the afternoon I fill a gas bottle for a man who tells me he was born in palestine and grew up in jordan. it is not like christchurch there, he says. there are more hills.



I'm in the market for a new title for this.

Comments

[eavanmoore.livejournal.com]

Huh. If I were titling it, I'd pull out the phrase "ridiculous light" and use it for the title. Never have liked inventing titles for pieces, it seems so limiting to have a little phrase at the top telling you what the poem is about.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

I usually kick my titles around until they add something, or at least until I think they add something. (Occasionally they add something useful like a reference to another poet.) but "collecting smiles" bores me stupid, and I like "ridiculous light" but I want to preserve the idea of smiles in the title because it gives a hint as to what connects the people in the poem, so you get the idea of all of these people smiling, even the ones I didn't mention explicitly.

*sigh* so, I don't know!

[disturbed-kiwi.livejournal.com]

Howsabout just smiles then?


I'm a fan of words that are only tangentially related to the poem as titles myself.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

equally as trite as the original, unfortunately.

I like the tangential thing too - but only because I think it adds a dimension to my understanding or to the meaning. by singling out a phrase in the poem that's not a major phrase, or picking something tangential, what that says is "and also, think about this." or it makes the minor phrase more important. or it impinges on the reading of the poem - that's what titles do, like it or not, in some ways they become the lens through which the poem is seen. IMO.

[eavanmoore.livejournal.com]

I really like your attitude toward titles.