Topic started by Udhaya (@ 63.89.188.114) on Tue Jan 2 16:37:51 .
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.
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This thread is for English poems whether they be free verse, sonnets, or other metered poems. While wondering how to state the purpose of this thread, I was struck by all that this thread isn’t meant to be. So let me state what it isn’t and leave it up to participation to continue to define what it is.
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Responses:
- Old responses
- From: aruLaracan (@ psiphi.umsl.edu)
on: Mon Mar 26 19:11:13
wow! udhaya: i didn't read your poem (the title seemed so trite, i didn't care to read the body). your take on my favorite target (uncontrolled capitalism - this is a redundant usage :-) ) was really inspiring and sweet :-) (i like to say:
workers of the world
unite
you have to make
certain people
rich :-) )
- From: robin (@ 203.197.55.12)
on: Wed Mar 28 13:55:21
28-5-1996
POEME : NO : 7 .
The first woman I fell in love with
was my mother.
For when I suckled my
mother's breasts
and held on to it
and clanged on to it,
touched and licked it.
I bodied her body
with my body
heir’s was the odour and warmth
I recorded into my
unconscious ____
Surely, I couldn’t defy Freud;
She was the woman, I fell
in love with, first
I mean it.
If I say no
I would be a liar
If I say yes
then,
would I then be a man ?
And the women I first saw
were my mother's friends;
when they took me
for the first time
and kissed me.
I felt the features,
and the wide eyes
of her friends,
my second mothers.
And when I placed my head on
their shoulders
holding their breasts tightly
the women I saw ____
loved me.
I saw them in my mother's
costume
and saw their graceful
hips ____
and erect bodies
I saw their sensuously flowing abdomen
with sensually curving waists and flanks.
and as they took me
in their arms and clung me
to their bodies
I sensed the grooves on their stomach,
And thus formed my concept of sexuality.
The women I fell in love with; first,
were my mother's friends
and my mother
If I say no
I would be a liar
If I say yes,
then, I would be Oedipus Rex. ____
then,
would I then be a man ?
Let me ask me, then
why then the repression ?
why the denial ?
why try to make me man?
Why try make me a cryless being?
To create a child out of a man,
or a man out of a child. ?
If I say no
I would be a liar
If I say yes
I would still be a liar.
then,
would I then be a man ?
what is man? A myth? ----
a myth, What for?
Man role? Woman role?
Man? Woman?
Why cant I be human ?
by- ROBIN (1996)
- From: Udhaya (@ 63.89.188.118)
on: Wed Mar 28 14:16:12
vj,
Sorry for the delay in reacting to "Us". I remember reading this before. This is a vivid scene that lives in the instant it happens. It works well in what it aims to be, immediate and arresting.
Robin,
This one is my favorite of yours. Man, you always go after mammoth issues. This is more coherent than your other works. It kind of grabs a hold of and immerses the reader in a tough to handle issue. Very nicely done. Were I to view it as a poem, I might pick on it here and there, but since you view them as music, I will too. Good work.
- From: robin (@ 203.197.44.110)
on: Wed Mar 28 14:39:34
Hey udhaya, you can still pick on it. please do.
- From: dhana (@ figment3.gs.com)
on: Fri Mar 30 11:53:30
Robin,
This is truly one of the poem, which I was able to appreciate much and decipher the meaning.
"The first woman I fell in love with
was my mother.
For when I suckled my
mother's breasts
and held on to it
and clanged on to it, "
What is the LOVE you mean by the above sentences?
"I bodied her body
with my body
heir’s was the odour and warmth
I recorded into my
unconscious ____ "
I don't think the above sentences mean much in reality. I doubt so much 'recorded into my unconscious'.
Would you be able to dig into your unconscious level and get back the memory of those childhood days. I don't guess so.
I believe it is what we see with other babies and we relate that to our own experience.
"If I say no
I would be a liar
If I say yes
then,
would I then be a man ? "
This I guess is a hypothetical question.
If you ever ask the baby did you make love to your mother, it wouldn't be able to decipher the question.
But later, when the baby matures, we cannot quote, this is what you did in your earlier childhood, and now ask him/her to answer did you make love to your mother, seems absurd question.
The reason why I feel so is :
The sequences you relate are in two different walks of life, and the instances were performed for totally different reason without even knowing how it is performed, I don't think you can relate them.
If for sake of it, I just told a man/woman, that he wasn't breast fed in his child hood, he can't get back against me, telling his memory was strong and he could remember he/she breastfeeding and when doing so, he really made love to his mother.
so the sequences you were getting in the poem were when an adult relates or rather imagines his earlier childhood and relates those sequences to his present life.
The second stanza explaining about mother's friend.
As again, I strongly doubt a child able to relate those things in his earlier age.
"I sensed the grooves on their stomach,
And thus formed my concept of sexuality. "
I don't know how many can deeply sense the concept of sexuality so early in their days.
why then the repression ?
why the denial ?
why try to make me man?
Why try make me a cryless being?
Why should ever be the repression, or denial.
Because the questions raised were not relevant and these are mere illusions covering our thoughts and make ourselves confused.?
To create a child out of a man,
or a man out of a child. ?
These lines were good lines, but I could coherently tie them in the poem.
Do let me know your views so I would be able to better appreciate the poem
Thanks
- From: robin (@ 202.54.92.247)
on: Fri Mar 30 14:18:32
dear, dhana donot try to decipher meaning in poetry. just take the essence. if you were to analyze each line then you are going to get nothing. I am sure by now that, eihter no one has read the poem so far, or shocked by it. No wonder no one has responded to it.
when one writes poetry one is not writing a paper for a scientific journal. lines and their explicit meaning matter for the affirmative construction needed for the writing of theoretical writing needed to publish in journals, NOT in poems.
dear friend all that you DECIPHERED so far was never thought by me while writing it 5 years ago. but if this is the kind of interpretation that one engages in Deciphering poetry. Then I have to assure myself that my quitting poetry was the finest thing that I ever did. I think this will explain also for the dormancy on this thread after I posted my poerty. It was pretty controversial 5 years ago in the so called literary circle of the Literature department of my college. they landed banning it. it was instrumental in me quitting poetry. what I called as the 'pausity of interpretational ability'. (NOT to you dhana, I refer to those that created furor, over nothing 5 years back). in less than a year I wrote my last poem. that was however thrown away by them. I might post that too, before I am probably thrown away from here too. So much so for the Pausity of interpretational ability.
I was right poetry does not make sense. does it!!!!
- From: dhana (@ figment3.gs.com)
on: Fri Mar 30 15:02:01
Robin,
Poems are not like scientific journals, and we aren't deriving any logical statements from them, I accept, but poems still have their coherency.
When you said, the poem by Vj had a good imagination, I guess you DECIPHERED the meaning which the poet tried to convey and that GAVE a beautiful image to you.
So I wouldn't take the fact, don't decipher meaning in the poem. If you don't do it, what is left in the poem, mere words and sentences.
Poems are beyond mere words and phrases, and how a poem conveys a beautiful thought is how the poem deciphers the meaning behind it, how subtly the poet gets them intertwined between the lines.
I wouldn't accept you quiting to write poem, because someone banned your poem. As long as you don't find the reason for them banning your poem reasonable to you, you never have to quit.
If the whole world has to turn against my poem writing, for some reasons totally absurd to me, I wouldn't quit my poem writing. I don't think public opinion should have any interference with my thoughts.
You should have some thoughts which came out as this poem when you wrote this. I wouldn't accept, you didn't have any meaning when you wrote it.
Rather I feel you had thought intensely before writing this.
probably you didn't intend to convey the meaning what I deciphered, which is perfectly fine, but what is that you wanted to decipher? there should be something right.
The meaning behind the lines when you wrote, should be reasonable atleast for you, if not for me. The reply from me pointed out, why it wasn't reasonable for me, and now you got to say why it WAS reasonable for you.
Quiting is not a solution for this.
I had read your views, wherein you had mentioned, that you like music better than poetry for it gets into emotions more than poetry and you had banned poetry altogether for the sake of it.
Which art conveys how much of emotion I would guess is more subjective, and there is nothing like right or wrong about it. For me language is most beautiful to convey something, and at some instances, silences would be the best to get the thoughts. For someone music, and for someone painting etc, etc. We shouldn't compare these arts.
In music you wouldn't try to decipher the meaning behind the notes, I agree, but still you try to get a rythm out of the notes right.
So poems too have some meaning embedded in them. Though they are not logical or mathematical derivations like in scientific journal.
That apart, I see a good poetic thoughts in you, don't let that go dormant because of public opinion
Let me know your views
- From: nalini (@ 169.144.222.22)
on: Fri Mar 30 15:18:30
Robin, please do not let certain kinds of responses or lack of responses stop you from posting your poems in this thread, or worse, stop you from writing them. Not everyone has to like or understand everyone else's poems. You have a unique talent, a unique perspective, just continue to share what you write, and more often than not, you will touch some readers, perhaps silent. There are a number of reasons for a thread to become dormant.
Coming to your poem, of all the ones you've posted here, I too like this the most. A very difficult subject handled with grace. I like the way the poem led to the final rhetorical question.
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