She by Saul Williams
On Poetry by Glyn Maxwell
---
A snippet of my annotations from She:
poem 1:
- what is the use of the “...” ?
- perhaps it is to say that there is something else before it, that has occurred and this poem starts after it
- the crowd is fearful -> may symbolize that the speaker is alone in his/her opinions or ideas
- “wounded sanity”: Is the speaker insane? Trying to hold back from being insane?
- “knotted tongue”: inability to speak is ironic because the speaker is technically using words in a poem to describe the feeling of not having a voice or say
- the rhythm of the last three lines flows smoothly:
calamity kisses an utterer
stuttered breath retreats
with withered desires
poem 2:
- “Most relationships are built on faults” is truly brutally honest. It is a beautiful phrase, as arguments often end with even more outward affection. Every part of a relationship should have good intentions as well.
- The connection to stars is both popular yet unique in the context of the poem. The speaker spins that to his/her use. There is a sense of belonging yet difference and rebellion and independence, as in most relationships.
- The ending wraps up with a summary of a relationship.
poem 3:
- starting with “but” suggests an argument/obvious starting point
- main idea is that women have found inner strength and the speaker is seeing his/her light
- prose form gives an idea that the poem is much more like a story
- “safe journey” suggests that there has been obstacles in the speaker’s life but none unspeakably difficult
poem 4:
- “forecast” suggests the relationship is like weather, perhaps unpredictable
- all kisses being parting kisses gives a sense of sadness, of leaving
- “it hurts even more to write it” means that upon reflecting and writing about the circumstance and relationship, a new wound opens up and it hurts to remember.
- the speaker understands that the words about the situation hurt more than the actual actions because writing it all down memorializes the sadness.
---
A snippet of my annotations from On Poetry:
Chapter 1: White
- Aesthetic preferences originate not in what we find makes life enjoyable but in what makes life possible
- A blank white paper is half of everything; it does not mean nothing.
- Write anything down. It can be music lyrics… but music lyrics look foreign in whiteness because it is not its natural element.
- Silence parallels (background) music in songs. “Songs are strung upon sounds, poems upon silence” therefore writing poetry may be harder.
- “A poem on a page is linear.”
- As someone reads further into a poem, a reader starts to feel, read in the speaker’s voice, encompass that voice.
- “You master form you master time.”
- Assess different poets’ forms/get a sense of the forms the poems take
- “Poems are responses to needs, urges, hungers, thirsts, they have sprouted forth in moments like the moments we know, passing beside us now”
- “there’s a moment in which the poem takes over from the self, becomes the self for now.”
* Look at how how stanza-breaks affect a poem. some “are cuts, some are fades, some are dissolves.”
* Change the format of the poem- change a poem into a screenplay, into prose
---
I was also vastly inspired by both these texts. Here are some of the poems I wrote based on the texts:
Inspired poetry based on She:
Good morning, good night, my darling. That’s all I ever really get to say to you. I crave your goodnight kisses, your personalized little goodbyes willing me to sleep. I hear your voice gracing my dreams and wake up to your caresses giving me such tempting tremors.
/
we are all scraps
trying to mend together
too late but yet not-
to be recycled and formed anew
/
I relish in these early mornings
Of strong Earl Grey to inhale
And a silence before even the birds sing
I just sit, big breaths and dark skies
I watch the sun rise over suburbia
/
I hide my clutter in boxes. My desk gives off the appearance of being clean, but in reality, my boxes just hold too much junk, too many souvenirs. They range from tickets to the Empire State Building to Pao de Acucar tickets in Brazil. I have old trading cards: Yankees, Star Wars, Harry Potter. Keychains from vacations. Thirty or so postcards.
/
i felt the sunlight
gaze into the room
melting and fading
everything in its
path but leaving the
eerie silence of the
mornings past.
/
the only thing i need
my goals and my everything
is to die happy
a heart content
with all life has— or hasn't—
to offer
/
there are
no exit signs
to escape life
---
Inspired poetry based on On Poetry:
Meow
the most rational thing about him
is his obsession with cats.
he purrs with pleasure
and meows annoyance, hello.
slyly, he charmed his way into
my life and slinks away into the
night every time i bid him goodbye
at the train station. he leaves me
starry-eyed with his bright ones
and he blinks at me slowly
like he can take me in as well as
the whole environment around.
delicate yet demanding, he is
always ready to play with my hair
and whisper words i feel i don’t deserve.
his radicalness makes him
all the more exotic and it is
a facet of his nature, who he is.
he took their identity, their adjectives,
made them his own. he is himself,
he is others, he was what i had
always defined as more.
No comments:
Post a Comment