first: an aside: I do write on your actual copies, but most of my notes are to myself (word definitions, etc.) and nothing that would be of any help to you in a poetic sense. and I prefer to keep your poems, for my own reference in looking at your future work, etc. I much prefer to respond on a seperate page, or here in the fleeting realm of hypertext, where perhaps someone will respond to something I say and then more and more feedback resounds and my silly rocks gather constructive/collective moss.
thus:
on Jacob—
yes, yes, long overdue. you’ve been asking, politely. perhaps I have been too weather influenced to think poetically—this thunder on Tuesday eve through me for a freakin’ loop. “air-stream constricted to produce fiction…we this distinction made between the tip and the back of the tongue.” “we” does not use the tongue per se, and is of course the first pronoun. (though the distinction is really meant to refer to the constriction of certain phonemes, but the grammatical ambiguity works for you here). its moments like this in your work that I find most interesting. small glimpses of conflict/or, as Laura would say, rule-breaking. up to this point, the piece is dealing with the large scale—weather and language—both huge topics. WE--a grounding. where did people come from and now there are two? shit. like Laura said in class, weather is such a huge subject, that it helps when there is something else to connect to: in this piece you connect very strongly and consistently to the language metaphor, and for this reason it seems to me the strongest of your poems. I am not sure if the quotes as titles works for me in this case though—I find that I’m searching for a stronger connection between the quotes themselves, either biographically or textually. they may have served a great purpose as your muse, but their relation to the actual finished piece of the poem may be less essential. Since you said this was going to be a collection of pieces, they may serve better individually untitled with a collective title.
on Jen—
Language so rich that I am inclined to look up words I know just to learn other (4th, 5th) meanings to (idealistically) fully appreciate all available options. Ex: Warner Brothers and bison in the title/first line of the first poem from an SF thrift store “hipster” (used loosely and hopefully unoffensively, and probably only because a friend was talking about a book which satirically categorized hipsters into 6 apparently mutually exclusive categories) who, from the looks of her, would shun all things corporate and where is there a good thrift shop in Wyoming? Thus, a deeper look--and I already mentioned in class that I saw this as an attempt to relate a new landscape to something previous. Oh the richness of language. Bristled: so many meanings I wouldn’t have realized had I not looked it up. Errant: #3—moving in an aimless or lightly changing manner—interesting knowing what I do (and what I don’t) about your geographical history. Cataract: waterfall/deluge; cloudiness—both meanings so beautifully fit here. I could fill the page of all the language so skillfully exploited. A divergence from the simple pastoral/natural poem—a kick in the ass follows and it contemporizes the form.
more on Laleh and Dillon to come later...for now I want to spend time writing my own poetry...
thus:
on Jacob—
yes, yes, long overdue. you’ve been asking, politely. perhaps I have been too weather influenced to think poetically—this thunder on Tuesday eve through me for a freakin’ loop. “air-stream constricted to produce fiction…we this distinction made between the tip and the back of the tongue.” “we” does not use the tongue per se, and is of course the first pronoun. (though the distinction is really meant to refer to the constriction of certain phonemes, but the grammatical ambiguity works for you here). its moments like this in your work that I find most interesting. small glimpses of conflict/or, as Laura would say, rule-breaking. up to this point, the piece is dealing with the large scale—weather and language—both huge topics. WE--a grounding. where did people come from and now there are two? shit. like Laura said in class, weather is such a huge subject, that it helps when there is something else to connect to: in this piece you connect very strongly and consistently to the language metaphor, and for this reason it seems to me the strongest of your poems. I am not sure if the quotes as titles works for me in this case though—I find that I’m searching for a stronger connection between the quotes themselves, either biographically or textually. they may have served a great purpose as your muse, but their relation to the actual finished piece of the poem may be less essential. Since you said this was going to be a collection of pieces, they may serve better individually untitled with a collective title.
on Jen—
Language so rich that I am inclined to look up words I know just to learn other (4th, 5th) meanings to (idealistically) fully appreciate all available options. Ex: Warner Brothers and bison in the title/first line of the first poem from an SF thrift store “hipster” (used loosely and hopefully unoffensively, and probably only because a friend was talking about a book which satirically categorized hipsters into 6 apparently mutually exclusive categories) who, from the looks of her, would shun all things corporate and where is there a good thrift shop in Wyoming? Thus, a deeper look--and I already mentioned in class that I saw this as an attempt to relate a new landscape to something previous. Oh the richness of language. Bristled: so many meanings I wouldn’t have realized had I not looked it up. Errant: #3—moving in an aimless or lightly changing manner—interesting knowing what I do (and what I don’t) about your geographical history. Cataract: waterfall/deluge; cloudiness—both meanings so beautifully fit here. I could fill the page of all the language so skillfully exploited. A divergence from the simple pastoral/natural poem—a kick in the ass follows and it contemporizes the form.
more on Laleh and Dillon to come later...for now I want to spend time writing my own poetry...
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