Page Index Toggle Pages: 1 Send TopicPrint
Hot Topic (More than 10 Replies) Untitled under glass (Read 480 times)
peach
Supreme Member
*****
Offline


I Love Cafe Poetica!

Posts: 1511
Joined: Apr 21st, 2009
As Seen
Reply #12 - Jan 1st, 2010 at 5:56am
Print Post  
this deserves another look, and although I am liking it as it is, I agree with some of the prior statements. That said, and spurred, by Demi's cover, I'll share my own take, as how it affects me...MY THOUGHTS ONLY !


Oh what gentle, 
surreal study, is this?
this swollen orb, at its core
burgeoning, 
coming to fruition, 
observed,
beyond curved, edge,
a bevelled lense, 
observed, discovered, prepped
and matted,
as delicately wrapped,
as fragile flesh,
blankets, anew, 
swaddles, close and warm,
slow of motion, as black on white,
trapped in photographs,
rarely caught precious seconds,
preserved, unhatched, snatched,
as snapped,
unmatched
not left to pass, unnoted,

I wonder, at my take, on this
whether thin as misty innocence
or ripe as this thickening,
blossom,
the bloom enhanced,
by bounty, 
accented beauty, ascends, 
seen as perceived,
preserved?

fleet as thought, likely each
heart, as mind, focuses, 
differently,
when the individual eye, 
takes pause, reflectively,
each pose, provokes, as 
every intimacy, 
as near a rendering,
of the act itself, proof, 
as the aftermath, of love,

less striking, perhaps, supposed,
sketched,
as an etching, or an image,
composed of charcoal
more palatable, 
placed as ink to parchment, 
or pulled apart in parts 
stretched onto canvas

exactness, far more troubling,
more tangible and moving
as arms clinging to reality,
as to the fortune of dreams,
yet to be,
dreamed.
« Last Edit: Jan 1st, 2010 at 1:35pm by peach »  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
Rick
Full Member
***
Offline


I Love Cafe Poetica!

Posts: 154
Location: Scotland, UK.
Joined: Aug 22nd, 2008
Re: Untitled under glass
Reply #11 - Oct 23rd, 2009 at 9:18pm
Print Post  


Hiya Mr Lee

It may simply be the way we pronounce things over here but two parts don't seem to read quite right for me.  A comma at the end of line one would have helped me to read correctly the first time.

Likewise in line 9 the comma after charcoal threw me off.  May I suggest that it would serve better either removed completely or at least repositioned to the end of the line.

I know I'm being a bit cheeky but I also didn't feel that 'black and white' quite fits with the gentle nature of the piece, it sounds harsh.  'Shades of grey' to my ear sounds more in keeping and helps strengthen the uncertain nature of the future, if that makes sense.

I love the distorting glass though.  The sense that although we know what the subject is and what it will become, the future is mottled and unclear.

I'm sorry, I agree with the other critiques that the final line spoils the flow.  I think it sounds awkward and detracts from the piece.  If you really want to make it clear that this is about a photograph then give it a descriptive title. 8x10 comes to mind.

Thank you for sharing this with me. I'm richer for the reading.

Rick
« Last Edit: Oct 23rd, 2009 at 9:19pm by Rick »  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
Just_Daniel
Supreme Member
*****
Offline


Slow down; things will
go faster. ~ djr

Posts: 8988
Location: South West New Jersey
Joined: Aug 2nd, 2003
contemplating my arsis...
Reply #10 - Sep 30th, 2009 at 1:02pm
Print Post  
As always, Eric, you're way ahead of me down the road of learning the specifics of meter.  I merely have a FEEL for it, but I'm trying to learn the details piece meal, as my soggy old brain allows.  I deeply appreciate your lessons, though I absorb them slowly.


stress in my arsis
bought that cat a Lexus...
Doc Ictus smoothe

Lightly contemplating, Daniel  Cool
« Last Edit: Sep 30th, 2009 at 1:04pm by Just_Daniel »  
Back to top
WWW  
IP Logged
 
dericlee
Topic Starter Topic Starter
Gold Star Member
*****
Offline


"Shiny!  Let's be bad
guys."

Posts: 757
Location: Arizona Mountains
Joined: Mar 19th, 2004
Re: Untitled under glass
Reply #9 - Sep 29th, 2009 at 5:01pm
Print Post  
(referring back to the lessons in Sonnet Central-)

It's important to remember that accents don't just come in HARD and (soft)...there are softly accented ictus, that do not strike the reader as a STRONG beat, but are an ictus, nonetheless...and a verb nearly always draws an ictus unless followed by a strong modifier.

The line in question (if the text-tools can accomodate it) would read  did Demi pass through his thought?


I don't mean to sound defensive, but y'all need to relax your view of iambic...it's not such a black&white issue in meter.  (I think it was Frost who said "There are two meters in poetry; iambic and loose iambic.")

In that light, Dan'l...your read is pretty nearly dead on.  The accent on 'did' is a very mild stress.  Still a stress...just not one that requires a big, bold DID.


I recomend re-reading EBBrowning...see how she makes the various levels of beats in her iambic.  It may help a little.

(Or maybe I'm just whistlin' Dixie.)

Wink
« Last Edit: Sep 29th, 2009 at 5:01pm by dericlee »  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
Just_Daniel
Supreme Member
*****
Offline


Slow down; things will
go faster. ~ djr

Posts: 8988
Location: South West New Jersey
Joined: Aug 2nd, 2003
Or...
Reply #8 - Sep 29th, 2009 at 1:39pm
Print Post  
It caused me a hiccup of a different sort on my first couple of reads, Eric.  In fact, if I read it the way you seem to, it would feel VERY awkward, rather unnaturally beginning that particular question with an accented syllable DID.   I read it this way, Eric:

...caused
such furor.   (Did Demi pass through his thought?)


Lightly swallowing my hiccup, Daniel  Cool
« Last Edit: Sep 29th, 2009 at 1:41pm by Just_Daniel »  
Back to top
WWW  
IP Logged
 
dericlee
Topic Starter Topic Starter
Gold Star Member
*****
Offline


"Shiny!  Let's be bad
guys."

Posts: 757
Location: Arizona Mountains
Joined: Mar 19th, 2004
Re: Untitled under glass
Reply #7 - Sep 29th, 2009 at 11:03am
Print Post  
Hi Wally

It's always been a puzzle to me how two people can read the same line so differently.  As I read it, the natural stresses, (including how Demi Moore pronounces her own name) fall thusly

...caused
such furor.   (Did Demi pass through his thought?)


The iambic holds; I have to literally force myself to see it in any other metric pattern.  Other lands, other accents, I guess...but I do promise you that Demi Moore does, indeed, pronounce her name deMI.

I guess I have to resign myself to a strcitly American audience of mainly film buffs.   Embarrassed

Thanks for looking in, always!
  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
Thoth
Full Member
***
Offline


Of desert and Mountain

Posts: 62
Location: South Africa
Joined: Aug 24th, 2009
Re: Untitled under glass
Reply #6 - Sep 23rd, 2009 at 7:47am
Print Post  
Hi Eric,
That L6 also bugged me and it's not just the demi bit but the leading stress. Just the way we pronounce things differently in other lands I guess but I keep wanting to read it as follows;

such furor? / (Did De /mi pass through / his thought?)

This lumpy line spoils what is otherwise an excellent and very enjoyable sonnet. Not sure how it would stand on its own without the explanation or better still a supporting graphic.

Regards,

Wally
« Last Edit: Sep 23rd, 2009 at 7:51am by Thoth »  
Back to top
YIM  
IP Logged
 
duetsdove
Supreme Member
*****
Offline



Posts: 9328
Location: Somewhere near a pebble
Joined: Aug 2nd, 2003
Re: Untitled under glass
Reply #5 - Sep 22nd, 2009 at 10:54pm
Print Post  
Think I can see it, Cowboy.  : )  Wish I had so much more time to comment. . .

'sposed to be working on a 20 page paper that's barely begun. . .

but wanted to stop and say I'd read. . .and it was good to see you here. . .and

I love the new pic!  : )

Rene
  
Back to top
WWW  
IP Logged
 
dericlee
Topic Starter Topic Starter
Gold Star Member
*****
Offline


"Shiny!  Let's be bad
guys."

Posts: 757
Location: Arizona Mountains
Joined: Mar 19th, 2004
Re: Untitled under glass
Reply #4 - Sep 22nd, 2009 at 5:07am
Print Post  
Hi, Doug.  Regarding line 6, (and my speech in general) furor is two syllables.  I'm forced to wonder, are you pronouncing Demi as DEmee, or as deMEE?  Pronouced as the latter (as Demi Moore pronounces her name), the meter feels pretty strong to me.  Not exactly 'spot on'...but I've been sorta hounded lately about being too strict in my iambic, so I've been trying to loosen up a bit.  (I gotta tell ya, it's HARD to be intentionally loose about meter!

That was my first thought on seeing the photo...that maybe the photographer had staged his own version of that infamous Vanity Fair cover of a nude and pregnant Demi Moore.  I hoped I'd given enough clues to bring it to mind, anyway, but I imagine not everyone scopes the rags at the checkout stand like I do. (Hey...I get bored waiting in line!)

Thanks for picking up on the double-entendre!  I hoped someone would catch that.  Glad you appreciated the coda as well...but I can't take credit for that internal rhyme.  Sheer dumb luck ...


...but sometimes I get lucky.

Wink
  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
D. Allen Jenkins
Supreme Member
*****
Offline


All I got was a rock

Posts: 1118
Location: Columbus, Ohio
Joined: Sep 18th, 2003
Re: Untitled under glass
Reply #3 - Sep 21st, 2009 at 11:26pm
Print Post  
dericlee wrote on Sep 21st, 2009 at 3:24am:


Eric,

I don't know if it was the fact you are using the sonnet form or your use of words itself, but I thought you were writing about a pregnancy. On the whole, my thought are below,

Doug

Untitled 
(Sonnet plus one)


I liked this title because the Plus One alludes to the unborn baby as well as the addendum to the sonnet form.

eric lee


Untitled study through distorting glass
of life wrapped 'round a life that's yet to be.
In black and white, a moment, swift to pass
I wonder,  looking on, what did he see?

A magazine?... a cover that had caused
such furor?  (Did Demi pass through his thought?)

L6 throws me in its rhythm. It is one foot short if you count furor as one foot. If you count it as a pair, it really throws the iambs off kilter. The iambs are shaky regardless with the "through his thoughts" part of the line.
I guess not; my heart says he never paused
but reached to capture what a love had wrought!

A scene that well might be  in charcoal, sketched
adoringly, realms captured in abstract
on parchment, or  a canvas, tightly stretched 
across reality; arms in the act

I like the internal rhyme of adoringly and reality.

of holding dear a hope of days to be,
lives entwined, a oneness built of three.
               ~*~
He's photographed the future. 

Again, I like the appendage. Creatively done.[

Doug





Allow me to set the stage, please.

I'm currently taking a writing class in college, titled "Image to Imagery"...in which we do the very familiar exercise of looking at an image and writing from it.

Our last field trip was to the college Art Gallery, to an exibit of work done by members of the art faculty.  We couldn't take photographs, and the works we saw are not available online...hence this lengthy intro.  Amid a lot of really interesting work (and some pretty boring "abstracts") I was taken by a simple 8x10 black and white photo, untitled, of a nude pregnant woman standing behind the sort of distorting glass used for shower doors.  That's my inspiration for this piece...a picture that, sadly, I can't show you. 



« Last Edit: Sep 21st, 2009 at 11:26pm by D. Allen Jenkins »  
Back to top
WWW  
IP Logged
 
dericlee
Topic Starter Topic Starter
Gold Star Member
*****
Offline


"Shiny!  Let's be bad
guys."

Posts: 757
Location: Arizona Mountains
Joined: Mar 19th, 2004
Re: Untitled under glass
Reply #2 - Sep 21st, 2009 at 6:00pm
Print Post  
Hi, Joe.

I'd actually considered that...using the final line as a title...but it seemed to be giving away a punchline.  I felt I'd held my meter tightly enough through the sonnet-proper that I could be forgiven abandoning it for the coda (which is how I see that final line...a coda.)

I feel, though, that the very concept of photographing the future carries such a sci-fi "hey, that's not possible!" feel to it that I couldn't resist using it with reference to a picture of his unborn child.

What I will do, though, is move that stage-setting to a subsequent position so it doesn't intrude on the first look at the poem.  That might help a lot...I was so concerned about not being able to show the picture that I guess I got ahead of myself.  Thanks for the look and your thoughts!

Eric
  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
josephfinkleman
Full Member
***
Offline



Posts: 396
Location: Sacramento, CA
Joined: Sep 7th, 2005
Re: Untitled under glass
Reply #1 - Sep 21st, 2009 at 11:42am
Print Post  
I think that the 'stage setting' dissipates some of the power in the poem. That and the last line also dissipates some of the power.  The poem is a dense almost 'abstraction' in its own right and makes the reader work a bit to get it, and then you give the reader the crucial clue that it is a photograph, in a way if you changed the last line to he saw or embraced the future, eliminating the photograph reference people would probably not know it is a photograph. Or if that is really important to you, you could have put the word photograph in the title such as "Untitled 8x10 Black & White photographic study of a pregnant woman"  and then just eliminate the last line.
The last line is a rhythm buster, very abrupt.  But reading just the first four stanzas with no information, making the reader work a bit (I like to work a bit, the poet does not have to give me everything, let me get it)  WOW, it is a very powerful piece of writing, of observation, of information about the poet, I know more now than I did before, the writing is dense and spare and flows beautifully.
Like I said if you just have to tell everyone that it is a photograph use the title to do so, Use that last line as the title "He's photographed the future" and then the first four stanzas.
   
The art of writing about art making poetry about art is called Ekphrasis, it is a difficult art form and I think you can consider yourself very successful in this endeavor.
As an aside, most college courses in poetry writing involve students of varying skill levels but I would think that you are of a level far above the rest of the class, if you are not it must be one really exciting class.
A wonderful poem, thank you.  Joe
  
Back to top
WWW  
IP Logged
 
dericlee
Topic Starter Topic Starter
Gold Star Member
*****
Offline


"Shiny!  Let's be bad
guys."

Posts: 757
Location: Arizona Mountains
Joined: Mar 19th, 2004
Untitled under glass
Sep 21st, 2009 at 3:24am
Print Post  
Untitled 
(Sonnet plus one)


eric lee


Untitled study through distorting glass
of life wrapped 'round a life that's yet to be.
In black and white, a moment, swift to pass
I wonder,  looking on, what did he see?

A magazine?... a cover that had caused
such furor?  (Did Demi pass through his thought?)
I guess not; my heart says he never paused
but reached to capture what a love had wrought!

A scene that well might be  in charcoal, sketched
adoringly, realms captured in abstract
on parchment, or  a canvas, tightly stretched 
across reality; arms in the act

of holding dear a hope of days to be,
lives entwined, a oneness built of three.
               ~*~
He's photographed the future.  





Allow me to set the stage, please.

I'm currently taking a writing class in college, titled "Image to Imagery"...in which we do the very familiar exercise of looking at an image and writing from it.

Our last field trip was to the college Art Gallery, to an exibit of work done by members of the art faculty.  We couldn't take photographs, and the works we saw are not available online...hence this lengthy intro.  Amid a lot of really interesting work (and some pretty boring "abstracts") I was taken by a simple 8x10 black and white photo, untitled, of a nude pregnant woman standing behind the sort of distorting glass used for shower doors.  That's my inspiration for this piece...a picture that, sadly, I can't show you. 


« Last Edit: Sep 21st, 2009 at 6:15pm by dericlee »  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
Page Index Toggle Pages: 1
Send TopicPrint