Deborah: Hello again! I agree completely about reading into or out of
poetry. I think that writers and readers will never overlap completely —
and there's no reason why they should. Who knows exactly what WCW saw in
"The Red Wheelbarrow". Can he predict what readers will see in it? I
think that when a poem is well-written — and I am not making a comment
on my own poem — the reader will more or less forget the technical
aspects of poetry, and launch into .... reading! And their minds will
travel, and that's the point. I agree: this poem could be an anti-war
poem. It could also be a poem about the ravages of commerce. I'm not a
pacifist nor a protectionist, but not everything that happens in the
world is good. It could also be a poem about the wonders of maps and
diagrams. Many poems do not reasonably admit of such a range of
interpretation, but I suspect this one does. I'm not one to subscribe to
the Rorschach theory of poetry; a poem must have meaning and be integral.
But, once there, the reader may indeed take it in new directions.
*********
aberrant circles
she draws a line
on confusion
deborah russell
**********
Hello Christina! I suppose turpentine has never reminded me of coffee
either.... but old cold coffee sure reminds me of turpentine!! :-) The
sound is jolly, but if I were to pick some other metaphor I'm sure it
too could be made to sound sweet. Language is so flexible. I'm happy
that you sense some virtue in my phrasing.
Hello Bob! Yes, I meant to post without the caps on each line. Here is a
fresh copy without that distraction.
Thanks to all who comment(ed)!
Trade Colors
Dirty turpentine of coffee
slowly stains the beige enamel
cup without a drain, awash
in slurried color rinse. Magenta
rings the sky that shortly pales
to clustered films of milk: grayed-out
lands, throttling oxbows stilled,
slip-off slopes, escarpments. Far-off
tribes long colonized provide this
sweat, this oily slick, a stray hair
cuts a bridle path, or coastline,
or bristle torn from tracing jaundiced
buy/sell zigzags in olive and carmine.
_________________________________________________________________
Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
|
