Richard McGowan's Blog: Smashed-Rat-On-Press - Posts Tagged "octopus"
Ruminations Upon Poetry
For reasons I don't completely understand, poetry is something I have a hard time taking "seriously" anymore. That's not to say I dislike poetry, because in fact I do like some poetry, even a lot of poetry. And admittedly, I was raised on poetry, particularly the poetry of Richard Brautigan and E.E. Cummings. (Purists might claim they were not real poets. Real poets were people like Bill the Bard, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, John Keats, Sappho, and Sara Teasdale*. But I'll include "my" poets anyway in the pantheon. There are certainly enough laurels to go around.)
I've written my share of poetry, too. Most of it free-verse, much of it rather bad, and frequently resulting from youthful folly. A few bad sonnets, too, and some serious smooshy love poetry, which I am unlikely to share in public any time soon... Although, to plug more of my own more recent works haha because this is my 15 minutes to flaunt it... The Last Minstrel from Chaos actually contains seven strictly metered formal poems in middle Elysian (all painstakingly translated into modern English with explanatory material and specially commissioned erotic illustrations), as well as a couple handfuls of bawdy song texts in actually rhyming meters, in English. In case that's something you're dying to hear about.
Poetry was also kind of a first love in my literary life. Before I wrote much prose, I lived for poetry. I was raised almost entirely on a diet of Richard Brautigan until the age of fourteen, and I have an approximate ream of youthful sheets somewhere stashed away that are filled with bad Brautiganspiration to prove that assertion. And that has made all the difference, as Frost would say. I can't immersively read Browning or what have you without thinking inadvertently of Brautigan's essential irreverence for formality and The Establishment.
Too much of English poetry seems to be rooted in despair and angst. I'm not a big fan of despair or angst, so that kind of poetry doesn't usually do much for me... Too much seriosity makes me think of Anna Russell and The Rubens Woman (minus the anorexic images, sorry).
Aside from the function of poetry as a basis for song, what works best for me in silently reading or hearing poetry read aloud is really word play. I adore the juxtaposition of syllables and resulting synaesthetic marvelonymy.
This topic only comes up today because I have been working a little more on the decipherment of those recently discovered Shenanigan Cheesefield poems, and SROP is planning an early-summer release of that volume. So I had the opportunity to share the current State of the Decipherment with an artistic colleague of SROP who will eventually be doing some illustrations for the volume. And there you have it.
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* OK, as long as we're here on True Confession Sunday, I'll admit: I love-a-dove Sara Teasdale. I've read all of her work and I've set more of her poems to music than any other poet. For those keeping track at home, the score stands currently at Teasdale:7, W.S.Gilbert:4, Brautigan:1. And no, I can't really share the songs, sorry. That would be way too embarrassing.
I've written my share of poetry, too. Most of it free-verse, much of it rather bad, and frequently resulting from youthful folly. A few bad sonnets, too, and some serious smooshy love poetry, which I am unlikely to share in public any time soon... Although, to plug more of my own more recent works haha because this is my 15 minutes to flaunt it... The Last Minstrel from Chaos actually contains seven strictly metered formal poems in middle Elysian (all painstakingly translated into modern English with explanatory material and specially commissioned erotic illustrations), as well as a couple handfuls of bawdy song texts in actually rhyming meters, in English. In case that's something you're dying to hear about.
Poetry was also kind of a first love in my literary life. Before I wrote much prose, I lived for poetry. I was raised almost entirely on a diet of Richard Brautigan until the age of fourteen, and I have an approximate ream of youthful sheets somewhere stashed away that are filled with bad Brautiganspiration to prove that assertion. And that has made all the difference, as Frost would say. I can't immersively read Browning or what have you without thinking inadvertently of Brautigan's essential irreverence for formality and The Establishment.
Too much of English poetry seems to be rooted in despair and angst. I'm not a big fan of despair or angst, so that kind of poetry doesn't usually do much for me... Too much seriosity makes me think of Anna Russell and The Rubens Woman (minus the anorexic images, sorry).
Aside from the function of poetry as a basis for song, what works best for me in silently reading or hearing poetry read aloud is really word play. I adore the juxtaposition of syllables and resulting synaesthetic marvelonymy.
This topic only comes up today because I have been working a little more on the decipherment of those recently discovered Shenanigan Cheesefield poems, and SROP is planning an early-summer release of that volume. So I had the opportunity to share the current State of the Decipherment with an artistic colleague of SROP who will eventually be doing some illustrations for the volume. And there you have it.
__________
* OK, as long as we're here on True Confession Sunday, I'll admit: I love-a-dove Sara Teasdale. I've read all of her work and I've set more of her poems to music than any other poet. For those keeping track at home, the score stands currently at Teasdale:7, W.S.Gilbert:4, Brautigan:1. And no, I can't really share the songs, sorry. That would be way too embarrassing.
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