David Lee's "Loading A Boar" was a particularly fun read. Lee writes in the style of composing the poem just the way a person taking part in the 'loading' rather than what is considered the "traditional style of poetry. Lee's step away from the conventional provides a glance at how poetry is more than just lines, rhymes, and, stanzas but instead merely a blob of personal information, plopped on the page in the shape of its own choosing, in the dialect of its own choosing. Lee's poem provides inspiration in itself to grab a pen and paper and just write, go beyond the limitations of grammatics and punctuation and let the world speak to us, let it plops itself on our page as it sees fit.
"The Pathos of Charlie Brown" by Matt Bondurant takes a look into one of Charlie Brown's many bad days. Though bad luck is no stranger to Charlie Brown this particular work seems to speak to the Charlie Brown in all of us. Chuck's "easy" spelling bee word plays with that moment all of us have experienced when the gods of good graces seems to be smiling on us and victory is closely within our reach but then we get in our own way and it all comes crashing down. Bondurant's vivid descriptions of the ride home (the moon in the window/the color and shape of a cashew nut, the mournful tune played by Snoopy on the harmonica) set the scene for what could be the tearful moments, the moments when the previous events replay in our minds.
When Charlie Brown gets home in the middle of the night, there are no left overs for him to heat up from an earlier dinner. Charlie is left to wallow in his grief with a bowl of soggy corn flakes. Charlie Brown can't even have crunchy cereal. The closing line "This is no gift of resolve or insight,/no cartoonish god-machine/ no possibility, for any of us, to rid ourselves/of this one simple thing. Is when the work stops being just about Charlie Brown and speaks to all readers.We all have those moments when luck isn't on our side and world makes it its mission to continuously remind our of our failures. But like Charlie Brown, we have to eat our soggy cereal and get out there and hope for better days.
Good attention to how untraditional Lee's poem is -- shows us the range of what poetry can be, What about Bondurant's descriptions make them "vivid" -- as a writer, you want to figure out HOW good and vivid writing works so you can mimic it...
ReplyDeleteAny ideas on the Olds poem? Or how you'll apply any of these ideas or techniques to your own writing.