the truncated version
Sep. 13th, 2006 11:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ffloDidja ever hear tell that at one point Marianne Moore, in her varyingly-long versions of "Poetry," thought maybe it should stop after not just the first 4 lines, but only the first part of the first line---
I, too, dislike it.
? I think I heard that some time. Anyway the idea's been coming back to me recently, as the title I've had in my head has had more than one poem (or beginning of poem, anyway) attached to it in these past coupla weeks, but all that's sticking is the first line. Should it stop there, I ask myself (and now the poetry people among ya), or could the struggle to flesh it out be worthwhile? It's such an aesthetic minefield, its milieu all heavy/Big. (I like to think I could keep it from the maudlin/mawkish, trite, general/Big, but I might be kidding myself about that.) Here 'tis:
Valediction, Overdue
Finally, it's just a town
("Scrap the whole thing" is certainly also a suggestion I'd not be offended by.)
I, too, dislike it.
? I think I heard that some time. Anyway the idea's been coming back to me recently, as the title I've had in my head has had more than one poem (or beginning of poem, anyway) attached to it in these past coupla weeks, but all that's sticking is the first line. Should it stop there, I ask myself (and now the poetry people among ya), or could the struggle to flesh it out be worthwhile? It's such an aesthetic minefield, its milieu all heavy/Big. (I like to think I could keep it from the maudlin/mawkish, trite, general/Big, but I might be kidding myself about that.) Here 'tis:
Valediction, Overdue
Finally, it's just a town
("Scrap the whole thing" is certainly also a suggestion I'd not be offended by.)
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Date: Sep. 13th, 2006 05:09 pm (UTC)I like poems (or songs) that have only one line besides their title. It makes those single lines seem extra weighty, yet they have a nice breezy feeling because there's so much "negative space" (so to speak) around them.
My favorite is a translation of Basho's frog haiku that reads:
The old pond
A frog jumps in
Plop!
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Date: Sep. 13th, 2006 05:21 pm (UTC)yeah, i do dig the pregnancy of the understated. so much so, sometimes, that i fear i overstate by the size (or stage?) of the pregnancy of the understated. esp in lj entries... !
one good thing about being finished with it there is that i'd be finished with it now. you know, add a period & call it done.
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Date: Sep. 13th, 2006 05:42 pm (UTC)I'd elaborate, but... Eh, I'm done. :)
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Date: Sep. 13th, 2006 06:12 pm (UTC)