On Sat, 16 Sep 2000, robert kennedy wrote...
> INSIDE THE WORLD
Rob,
I can't say I liked this poem - it seems far too abstract for me to
connect with it. I take it from the initial explanation that it's a
personification of pain, in the voice of pain, as it were. If that's the
case, then it seems odd that pain is denying its own existence in the
penultimate line.
I suppose what I did like about the poem is that it sounds well (except
for the first line, which is over-alliterated, IMO) but the sound has
over-ridden the sense. For example, in the third line, I don't know what
the 'chamber of the holocaust' refers to. Does it mean a gas-chamber, in
which case, wouldn't it be better in the plural? And why should pain (or
whatever is speaking) die there, rather than anywhere else? How can it
die 'until all connection is removed'? Does it get resurrected then?
Connection of what to what?
I realise that one doesn't have to make literal sense in a poem, that a
piece might be more concerned with juxtapositions of words and phrases.
In this poem, though, I didn't find links that sparked off interesting
images or ideas.
Sorry I couldn't be more positive about the piece.
All the best,
--
Peter
http://www.hphoward.demon.co.uk/poetry/
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|