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poetreePosted by jjhunter on behalf of Luisa Igloria.
In a few of my beginning poetry workshops, I have students write a single line--- something that conveys with sharpness and precision either an image, an observation, a feeling, or a thought--- many times over. It's harder to do than it sounds. But it is so important, as the line is one of the most basic of the poem's syntactical structures.
How many ways can a line be written? Try five. Or twenty for starters. But the beauty of this exercise is when one begins to realize that a line can take on different forms and ways of saying. It can be declarative, it can be demonstrative; it can meander, or be curt. It can gather and accumulate as it goes.
It can shed weight, aspire toward lightness, or even mystery. One of the ways in which it can do the latter, as the masterful poet Pablo Neruda has shown us, is in the form of a question.
I like the condition of mystery that is at the heart of poetry. That is, I don't necessarily believe that a poem has to work out all the conclusions it aspires to arrive at; or even leave the reader with the sense of having said something final. In fact, I tend to dislike or even mistrust poems which end with too much of the sense of an ending--- much in the same way I liked everything about fables except for the "moral" too explicitly tacked on to the end of the tale. I like poems that leave a little opening to somewhere--- a door or a window that can be jiggled open into further possibility.
This poem, which I wrote in April 2011 as part of the (now) more than 365 days of writing (at least) a poem a day and posting these at Dave Bonta's Via Negativa site, hopefully captures some of what I'm talking about here.
Twenty Questions
Has the darkness lifted?
Is the round bud of the maple not filled with longing?
How close can a room hold two, not speaking or touching?
Does every thought glint, is every fire stolen?
Is everything in the world immersed in the petroleum of desire?
Have the clocks been wound, has the coffeemaker been unplugged?
Has the crying from behind the keyhole subsided?
Do you see where the fabric holds the shape of shoulders?
Do you feel how the music rinses us clear?
Has the rain fed you with riddles?
Have I not been permeable to everything that has come?
Would you tell me where to lay this burden down?
Do you love the sweetness that precedes decay?
Do you love the light behind every green blade?
Do you love me homely?
Do you take me plain?
Have I not met you at every detour?
Can you tell me what it is that brings you back?
Each time, have we bent our heads to drink the water?
Would you lie here with me beneath this ceiling of stars?
—Luisa A. Igloria
04 09 2011
jjhunter on behalf of Luisa Igloria.In a few of my beginning poetry workshops, I have students write a single line--- something that conveys with sharpness and precision either an image, an observation, a feeling, or a thought--- many times over. It's harder to do than it sounds. But it is so important, as the line is one of the most basic of the poem's syntactical structures.
How many ways can a line be written? Try five. Or twenty for starters. But the beauty of this exercise is when one begins to realize that a line can take on different forms and ways of saying. It can be declarative, it can be demonstrative; it can meander, or be curt. It can gather and accumulate as it goes.
It can shed weight, aspire toward lightness, or even mystery. One of the ways in which it can do the latter, as the masterful poet Pablo Neruda has shown us, is in the form of a question.
I like the condition of mystery that is at the heart of poetry. That is, I don't necessarily believe that a poem has to work out all the conclusions it aspires to arrive at; or even leave the reader with the sense of having said something final. In fact, I tend to dislike or even mistrust poems which end with too much of the sense of an ending--- much in the same way I liked everything about fables except for the "moral" too explicitly tacked on to the end of the tale. I like poems that leave a little opening to somewhere--- a door or a window that can be jiggled open into further possibility.
This poem, which I wrote in April 2011 as part of the (now) more than 365 days of writing (at least) a poem a day and posting these at Dave Bonta's Via Negativa site, hopefully captures some of what I'm talking about here.
Twenty Questions
Has the darkness lifted?
Is the round bud of the maple not filled with longing?
How close can a room hold two, not speaking or touching?
Does every thought glint, is every fire stolen?
Is everything in the world immersed in the petroleum of desire?
Have the clocks been wound, has the coffeemaker been unplugged?
Has the crying from behind the keyhole subsided?
Do you see where the fabric holds the shape of shoulders?
Do you feel how the music rinses us clear?
Has the rain fed you with riddles?
Have I not been permeable to everything that has come?
Would you tell me where to lay this burden down?
Do you love the sweetness that precedes decay?
Do you love the light behind every green blade?
Do you love me homely?
Do you take me plain?
Have I not met you at every detour?
Can you tell me what it is that brings you back?
Each time, have we bent our heads to drink the water?
Would you lie here with me beneath this ceiling of stars?
—Luisa A. Igloria
04 09 2011
no subject
Date: 2012-01-18 03:53 pm (UTC)Luisa, yes! Me too. This is, I think, why poetry and theology are such a natural match (for me, anyway -- mileage obviously varies.) My understanding of the numinous is all about mystery. And the same goes for good poetry. Even poetry which is ostensibly simple hints at something deeper.
I love this poem: the way the repeated form of the question takes on so many different nuances and valances as you move through the couplets. The first two lines are especially poignant to me now, enmeshed as I am in a New England winter...
no subject
Date: 2012-01-18 04:46 pm (UTC)thanks for stopping by. I hope your winter in New England has not been too too bitterly cold. Here some trees appear to be budding--- likely they are confused by the alternating cold snaps and weird warm spells.
It seems the idea of the numinous (what is mystery, what is withheld from the surface) is aided by a paring down of sorts in structure or in language. When something is as "plain"-looking as "just" a line or "just" an image, even just the barest gesture or stroke (I'm reminded of a favorite Milosz poem that ends in the speaker gesturing toward the distance), it seems at first difficult to comprehend how much it can hold. This is a lesson I like returning to.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-18 08:07 pm (UTC)2. Understand what I mean, not what I say!
3. Trees shrouded in mist; sunlight on a mountain peak; sun in shadow.
4. Understanding without words.
5. Does pragmatics trump semantics?
6. If only there were a characteristica universalis!
7. Dark blue denim, light blue denim.
8. Contrast makes clarity only within silence.
9. Acceptance does not imply agreement.
10. It's hard to know when two persons say the same thing.
11. When is one line a rewriting of another?
no subject
Date: 2012-01-18 09:50 pm (UTC)