I am so stupid about poetry

[still.trucking]

I carried her selected poems around for a million miles over the road and read and read this poem for thirty years before I got it.
It ain't really about a truck at all.

...
I am small
and you hold me.
You give me milk
and we are the same
and I am glad.
No. No.
All lies.
I am a truck.
I run everything.
I own you...

http://books.google.com/books?id=AZoc-C ... on&f=false

[happytrails]

I guess I am stupid about poetry too, but as I am now 66 years old, I am not going to spend 30 years trying to understand it. Life is too short.

[still.trucking]

My existential strip tease continues...



Professor Bernadette tells me it is a lousy poem. But it meant a lot to me in 1974 when I was on the run after My three scarlet letters, Acid, Abortion, and Adultery.



Yes time is short I have heard it said
And I am a short timer for sure.
I will be seventy if I live another month


, I am happy to have been born, even if I have wasted my life on cheap talk and wine.

For some reason this poem by SG brought Sexton's poem to mind.
http://www.studioeight.tv/phpbb/viewtop ... =2&t=19572
I read your reply to that poem

For me it is Not so much a fear of death
as a dread of what is in store for me
here and now

I have nightmares about Depends and other indignities.


As stupid as I am about poetry, I am a poetic genius compared to my stupidity about women. That is why I study on their poetry. I never learned a thing from Plath's or Sexton's deaths. It is their life's work that learned me.

Thanks for the reply.
sorry about the ramble. That is why I should not reply to other peoples poems. I am autistic, Aspergers I think. I am clueless about what is appropriate in a casual conversations.

· When Bad Poems Happen to Good Poets:
The Dreck of the Greats Kate Bernadette

Featured Poet: Anne Sexton
When I began writing poetry in the early 1970’s Anne Sexton was a literary star. Her star went out almost as soon as I’d discovered her work, though; she committed suicide at the age of 44 in 1973. Young literary women like myself went into mourning, for we adored Anne’s poetry. She had brought certain “women’s subjects” to the fore--motherhood, love affairs, female anatomy—and also wrote revealingly about her breakdowns and her spiritual quests. At some point, I will feature Anne Sexton in my Lectio.

Her early work was metrically tight; later her style became looser and more conversational. Overly clever phrasings and fanciful similes and metaphors began to run rampant. “Rampant” is as good a description as any for this poet’s exuberant excesses.

Anne Sexton believed her “God” poems would make her reputation. True or not, this month’s poem is one that might unmake it. I’m all for a little irreverence in poetry, even heresy. But this poem, envisioning the baby Jesus at Mary’s breast, seems merely inane, not to mention theologically clueless. To be fair, mockery is the intention in this poem and others in her “Jesus Papers.” But mockery without trenchancy is childish stuff.


Jesus Suckles
Mary, your great
white apples make me glad.
I feel your heart work its
machine and I doze like a fly.
I cough like a bird on its worm.
I’m a jelly-baby and you’re my wife.
You’re a rock and I the fringy algae.
You’re a lily and I’m the bee that gets inside.
I close my eyes and suck you in like a fire.
I grow. I grow. I’m fattening out.
I’m a kid in a rowboat and you’re the sea,
the salt, you’re every fish of importance.

No. No.
All lies.
I am small
and you hold me.
You give me milk
and we are the same
and I am glad.

No. No.
All lies.
I am a truck. I run everything.
I own you.

[mnaz]

me too!

[happytrails]

Ramble on ST, It costs nothing, and those who don't wish to read what you write can move on without doing so. As for me, I kind of enjoy your meanderings.

[still.trucking]

Maybe you are stupid about womankind mnaz I don't know.
but you are most assuredly not stupid about poetry.
I am going to repost this later after I edit it some more.
I think I am short a couple of dots to connect.
Who am I kidding Even Manet could not draw enough dots to paint a picture of the entangled thoughts that stream across my mind.
in the meantime:
I thank you for taking the time to reply to my rambling. I wanted to post that Anne Sexton poem to another thread on the poetry board but decided to post it on a separate string because I did not want to tag her poem with my inanities. It has been months since she posted a poem on S8 and you know how paranoid I am. I thought she was avoiding the studio because of me. Well maybe it is just my vanity not paranoia to think it had anything to do with my rambling replies.

Thank you for your reply happytrails
I am Happy if I can amuse you.
True nobody has to read it when it is on a separate thread like this, but if I post in reply to anther's poem it is right in their face and are stuck reading it.
You know I still tagged her poem with my reply about Biocentrism.

But I found a quantum of solace in the thought that time does not exist as I try to imagine a time when the world will go on with out me.
I was hoping she might find some comfort in it too.

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 "the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." Life is just one fragment of time, one brushstroke in a picture larger than ourselves, eternal even when we die. This is the indispensable prelude to immortality. 

The following has nothing to do with all this except I wonder about the phenomenology of a woman's perception time, they have such intricate biological clocks.

I spend a lot of time in my head thinking about and longing for women and children. So I read poetry and do thought experiments to distract me from a regressive desire which gnaws me. I try to imagine a world without women and children. And without "a disease called man."

Ana Maria, protests. "When we're down to
eating our ancestors," she asks, "what is left?"

Monkey Koan

[happytrails]

ST, I frequently read what ever response you put on a poem, but then skip a couple of other ones, either because I am not following the gist of what they are saying, or I am in a hurry , or I just want to move on to something else. My point is you don't need to apologize for rambling. People will read it or they will move over it. If I hand you a book open to a page, are you obligated to read it?

[still.trucking]

Ten four.

I don't know for sure why I apologize so much. Conflict avoidance I suppose..

Sometimes a poem is like an iceberg to me, so much of it is below the surface of consciousness. I may not get it intellectually yet it still resonates with something subconscious.

Yes moving on is good. But sometimes I like to dwell on beauty.

[SmileGRL]

i loved reading this thread. it's beautiful. it reminded me of how human and godly we are at the same time. compassionate. wise. afraid we're not enough. funny. sad. creative (loved that first quote!)

your thoughts are valuable jack. sometimes we read them and sometimes we skip over, but we would be poorer if you didn't share them. and i'm a believer of "we get the messages/thoughts we are meant to get at that specific time". so, be who you are. we love you.

as for a yearning for women (lovers/companions, etc) and children. i think it's a universal thing. if you don't have it, you yearn. you know how i've tried to get pregnant for years and years, and nothing...it's a hole, a yearning so big it eats me sometimes.

and what would the world be without us...just a shell. it needs us, even though we abuse it and ourselves without end. whenever i get sad about how we hurt each other and the world, i just remind myself that there must be balance. good. AND bad.

that's all for now. have a peaceful weekend.

[stilltrucking]

Thank you for reading and taking the time to reply.



"we get the messages/thoughts we are meant to get at that specific time"

I think so too,
cosmologically speaking everything is on time on schedule

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velvet night
without wind,
only flow

great --
cosmic --
flow

aligned
attuned
in the groove
in the zone

stars,
deep sky objects,
false crosses, and
us

flowing
toward Vela...

WhiteBird Sings
Sun Aug 02, 2009 12:02 am

Image Source

[happytrails]

I love that time in a bottle picture. I am a sucker for anything to do with water. And yet, I have never written a single poem about water or my love of it. Hmmmmmmmmm. I'll have to give it some serious thought.

[stilltrucking]

I gave it the title time in abottle thinking about the Jim Croce song. the picture was from the iching on line. My my question asked was "why am I constantly apologizing" The answer was hexagram 60 Chieh Limitation. and it included that picture. Which was The Abysmal Water over the Joyous Lake.


http://www.ichingonline.net/


Happy you liked the picture.

“Human beings were invented by water as a device for transporting itself from one place to another.” Another Roadside Attraction.

[happytrails]

I didn't realize you had named the picture. I love Jim Crocé. And all of his music. We must be in the same age bracket. So many of the younger set have no idea who he is/was. We have lost so many talented artists through the years. And I don't know If I am just waxing nostalgic, or is really true that all the ones who are gone were so great? I am not saying that all the greats died. Obviously they didn't, but that all the ones we lost were great. Or is it really just me? And now I am rambling. It seems you have met your match in me. I could go on at length, but I guess I should go to bed. Gotta work in the morning.