I Guess Morning Is The Time For Waxing Poetical
Rethabile has put to those who want to participate, these questions about poetry. I will try to answer them the best I can. He's also tagged several people to do this as well. I wasn't tagged, but chose to do it anyway. I'm not going to tag anyone, but if you would like to participate, that would be way cool. I'll put my Mr. Linky thing at the bottom so you can leave your link if you choose to put this on your blog. You can also answer these questions in the comments if you like. Be sure to leave your link in your comment so we can all come and check out your poetry and what all else there is to discover on your blog!
# Question one: Why do you write poetry (or literature) at all?
Answer:I started writing poetry when I was 14 years old. I think it was mostly out of a need to express feelings that I couldn't express any other way. An outlet. In my family, any expression of anger or for that matter, any expression by me of anything other than total submission to my parents was verboten. I got kicked, beaten, punched, slapped, hit with anything within convenient grabbing range (my mother once beat me with a 5 inch stilletto), choked, and physically immobilized in any way my parents' twisted rage could think up. This also came with scathing and ripping verbal abuse. I can't even describe it here. It might trigger someone, it's just disgusting to think about and I might trigger myself. That would be a bad thing.
So poetry, for me, was and is, my savior. My own private world where I can make things be the way I want them to be, where I can sit on my pity-pot as long as I want to, be as creative and imaginative as I want to be, as short or as long-winded as I care to be. It makes me free.
# Question two: What is your favourite poem? You know, the one you'd have loved to have written, the one by whose standard you base all other works of art. If your life depended on answering this question, what poem would you suggest to the person holding the knife to your throat?
Answer: ~The Raven~Edgar Allan Poe It was the first one I ever read. I think I was about 7 when I read it. It made such an impact on me because there are so many things in it to think about. To puzzle out. Everytime I read it I come away thinking something different than I did the time before.
# Question three: According to you, what is the state of poetry today? Is poetry flourishing or dying?
Answer:I think poetry today is more of an underground surge than a mainstream society thing. As for myself, I prefer it that way. It's not that things in the mainstream of society are bad, it's just that it's hard to be creative on your own level and with your own rules when you are in the mainstream. It's a much freer feeling to not have to be bound by what someone else thinks is "good" or "bad". I think creativity should flow freely. Like air.
# Question four: What kind of poetry (or literature) do you dislike, and would not consider buying?
Answer:I am open to reading pretty much anything, although, considering the things that have happened in my past, I can say with some surety that I would have trouble reading poetry that was overtly sexual. By that I mean, something that was written from the point of view of someone overpowering someone else physically or sexually. I don't know, I guess it would really depend on the poem. I suppose I'd have to read it and then decide whether or not I would read it again. I guess I'm trying to say that all poetry deserves at least one read.
There is some poetry I've read that just doesn't appeal to me or that I can't relate to, but that doesn't make it "bad poetry". It just means that I don't like it and you know what "they say" about opinions.
# Question five: Between the styles of Come (by Makhosana Xaba) and word speaks (by Kojo Baffoe) which do you prefer? Care to tell us why? Obviously, Makhosana and Kojo aren't required to answer this question.
Answer:It's hard for me to answer this question. I've read both poems a couple of times each and I don't know if I like one better than the other. They're just different. In "Come", I like the intimacy of the what the words infer. For me, it says "I want to be close to you. I love you." It's so nice to be loved and that conjures for me emotions and images of the mother figure I always wanted, but never had. In "word speaks", though in the end it is about MOTHER, as if "mother" were a word that has life and breath of it's own, I find sadness. This is asking me to choose whether I like apples better or oranges. I can't tell you. I like them both.
# Question six: What was the last poetry book you bought?
Answer: I've never bought a poetry book. The one's I've read have been my mother's and one's I got from the library.
# Question seven: Where do you go for poetry on the web?
Answer: I don't really search for poetry on the web. Maybe I should. I don't know. I just sort of let it come across me.
# Question eight: Do you talk poetry (or literature) with friends and family? "Hi honey -- Hey, I read this incredible poem today..."
Answer:No, I don't discuss poetry or literature with anyone I know. Even my best friends don't really "get it". That's not a bad thing, it's just that they are more concerned with other things. So, I keep it to myself.
# Question nine: What one piece of advice would you give to a beginning poet (or writer in general)? One. What would you tell them to do or not to do?
Answer:One piece of advice? I've heard it said that the worst "vice" is "advice", but if I were pressed, I suppose I would just say, "Write what's in your heart."
# Question ten: What line comes to you after the following two verses (in other words, please write the third verse -- these are spontaneous lines from me and are no part of any poem I'm writing or will be writing).
When the light from the lantern
beamed and fell upon the child,
psychological wounds manifested themselves from the shadows onto tenderchildflesh
I watched as the child's body was opened, seared, cut, and ripped
The tiny body bled and bled
and I tried to staunch the bleeding
but hands are not bandages
hands are not love.
So
I could do nothing for the child
despite my poking fingers and shielding hands
like the boy with his finger in the dike
the streams of blood continued to flow
unabated
unprotected
the child was me
the child is me
# Question one: Why do you write poetry (or literature) at all?
Answer:I started writing poetry when I was 14 years old. I think it was mostly out of a need to express feelings that I couldn't express any other way. An outlet. In my family, any expression of anger or for that matter, any expression by me of anything other than total submission to my parents was verboten. I got kicked, beaten, punched, slapped, hit with anything within convenient grabbing range (my mother once beat me with a 5 inch stilletto), choked, and physically immobilized in any way my parents' twisted rage could think up. This also came with scathing and ripping verbal abuse. I can't even describe it here. It might trigger someone, it's just disgusting to think about and I might trigger myself. That would be a bad thing.
So poetry, for me, was and is, my savior. My own private world where I can make things be the way I want them to be, where I can sit on my pity-pot as long as I want to, be as creative and imaginative as I want to be, as short or as long-winded as I care to be. It makes me free.
# Question two: What is your favourite poem? You know, the one you'd have loved to have written, the one by whose standard you base all other works of art. If your life depended on answering this question, what poem would you suggest to the person holding the knife to your throat?
Answer: ~The Raven~Edgar Allan Poe It was the first one I ever read. I think I was about 7 when I read it. It made such an impact on me because there are so many things in it to think about. To puzzle out. Everytime I read it I come away thinking something different than I did the time before.
# Question three: According to you, what is the state of poetry today? Is poetry flourishing or dying?
Answer:I think poetry today is more of an underground surge than a mainstream society thing. As for myself, I prefer it that way. It's not that things in the mainstream of society are bad, it's just that it's hard to be creative on your own level and with your own rules when you are in the mainstream. It's a much freer feeling to not have to be bound by what someone else thinks is "good" or "bad". I think creativity should flow freely. Like air.
# Question four: What kind of poetry (or literature) do you dislike, and would not consider buying?
Answer:I am open to reading pretty much anything, although, considering the things that have happened in my past, I can say with some surety that I would have trouble reading poetry that was overtly sexual. By that I mean, something that was written from the point of view of someone overpowering someone else physically or sexually. I don't know, I guess it would really depend on the poem. I suppose I'd have to read it and then decide whether or not I would read it again. I guess I'm trying to say that all poetry deserves at least one read.
There is some poetry I've read that just doesn't appeal to me or that I can't relate to, but that doesn't make it "bad poetry". It just means that I don't like it and you know what "they say" about opinions.
# Question five: Between the styles of Come (by Makhosana Xaba) and word speaks (by Kojo Baffoe) which do you prefer? Care to tell us why? Obviously, Makhosana and Kojo aren't required to answer this question.
Answer:It's hard for me to answer this question. I've read both poems a couple of times each and I don't know if I like one better than the other. They're just different. In "Come", I like the intimacy of the what the words infer. For me, it says "I want to be close to you. I love you." It's so nice to be loved and that conjures for me emotions and images of the mother figure I always wanted, but never had. In "word speaks", though in the end it is about MOTHER, as if "mother" were a word that has life and breath of it's own, I find sadness. This is asking me to choose whether I like apples better or oranges. I can't tell you. I like them both.
# Question six: What was the last poetry book you bought?
Answer: I've never bought a poetry book. The one's I've read have been my mother's and one's I got from the library.
# Question seven: Where do you go for poetry on the web?
Answer: I don't really search for poetry on the web. Maybe I should. I don't know. I just sort of let it come across me.
# Question eight: Do you talk poetry (or literature) with friends and family? "Hi honey -- Hey, I read this incredible poem today..."
Answer:No, I don't discuss poetry or literature with anyone I know. Even my best friends don't really "get it". That's not a bad thing, it's just that they are more concerned with other things. So, I keep it to myself.
# Question nine: What one piece of advice would you give to a beginning poet (or writer in general)? One. What would you tell them to do or not to do?
Answer:One piece of advice? I've heard it said that the worst "vice" is "advice", but if I were pressed, I suppose I would just say, "Write what's in your heart."
# Question ten: What line comes to you after the following two verses (in other words, please write the third verse -- these are spontaneous lines from me and are no part of any poem I'm writing or will be writing).
When the light from the lantern
beamed and fell upon the child,
psychological wounds manifested themselves from the shadows onto tenderchildflesh
I watched as the child's body was opened, seared, cut, and ripped
The tiny body bled and bled
and I tried to staunch the bleeding
but hands are not bandages
hands are not love.
So
I could do nothing for the child
despite my poking fingers and shielding hands
like the boy with his finger in the dike
the streams of blood continued to flow
unabated
unprotected
the child was me
the child is me
Labels: navel gazing
posted by Anais Nin at
6:51 AM
3 Comments:
And like a bad penny, he keeps turning up. :)
I did these questions but left the answers on Rethabile's blog.
I relate in nearly every way to all your answers. I am very hopeful that your poetry will help you heal someday.
Thanks so much, Brian. It means a lot to me that you keep "turning up like a bad penny". You're not a "bad" penny, though. You're a good one. The one you find on the street on a day you're feeling superstitious, look down see the shiny new penny, pick it up and say to yourself, "Find a penny,pick it up, all day long you'll have good luck!"
This is so cool.... I'm going to lift the link and plug it onto my blog, like the other ones.
Your replies are thorough... Thank you for the insight.
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