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Sep. 25th, 2010 03:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darchildreHey, so, y'know that Richard Siken poem about a week ago? Well, the library delived his book Crush to me today and I started reading it on my break. (And by "started" I mean, "I read "Little Beast" out loud to myself to see how it felt in my mouth, and then started reading the other poems.)
I don't always do well with poetry. I feel about it much the same way that I do about fine art or classical music - I like some of it and some of it I like a great deal but I don't really understand it and I often feel under-educated when I am confronted with it, as though I ought to have been taught to understand it better. I am slightly better about poetry than the other two because poetry is made of words and I get words, much better than I do visuals or music*, but once you start talking about meter and why a poem is laid out the way it is and different kinds of poetry, I am again quite lost.
Despite that, though, Richard Siken is definitely going on the list of Poets I Like a Great Deal. So I'm giving you another of his poems:
I take off my hands and I give them to you but you don't
want them, so I take them back
and put them on the wrong way, the wrong wrists. The yard is dark,
the tomatoes are next to the whitewashed wall,
the book on the table is about Spain,
the windows are painted shut.
Tonight you're thinking of cities under crowns
of snow and I stare at you like I'm looking through a window,
counting birds.
You wanted happiness, I can't blame you for that,
and maybe a mouth sounds idiotic when it blathers on about joy
but tell me
you love this, tell me you're not miserable.
You do the math, you expect the trouble.
The seaside town. The electric fence.
Draw a circle with a piece of chalk. Imagine standing in a constant cone
of light. Imagine surrender. Imagine being useless.
A stone on the path means the tea's not ready,
a stone in the hand means somebody's angry, the stone inside you still
hasn't hit bottom.
Which is why this post was about singing, rather than actually about music. Because, in a lot of ways, I don't get music that doesn't have a sung component.
I don't always do well with poetry. I feel about it much the same way that I do about fine art or classical music - I like some of it and some of it I like a great deal but I don't really understand it and I often feel under-educated when I am confronted with it, as though I ought to have been taught to understand it better. I am slightly better about poetry than the other two because poetry is made of words and I get words, much better than I do visuals or music*, but once you start talking about meter and why a poem is laid out the way it is and different kinds of poetry, I am again quite lost.
Despite that, though, Richard Siken is definitely going on the list of Poets I Like a Great Deal. So I'm giving you another of his poems:
I take off my hands and I give them to you but you don't
want them, so I take them back
and put them on the wrong way, the wrong wrists. The yard is dark,
the tomatoes are next to the whitewashed wall,
the book on the table is about Spain,
the windows are painted shut.
Tonight you're thinking of cities under crowns
of snow and I stare at you like I'm looking through a window,
counting birds.
You wanted happiness, I can't blame you for that,
and maybe a mouth sounds idiotic when it blathers on about joy
but tell me
you love this, tell me you're not miserable.
You do the math, you expect the trouble.
The seaside town. The electric fence.
Draw a circle with a piece of chalk. Imagine standing in a constant cone
of light. Imagine surrender. Imagine being useless.
A stone on the path means the tea's not ready,
a stone in the hand means somebody's angry, the stone inside you still
hasn't hit bottom.
Which is why this post was about singing, rather than actually about music. Because, in a lot of ways, I don't get music that doesn't have a sung component.
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Date: 2010-09-26 01:33 am (UTC)UGH! That poem is kinda perfect. I've been slowly layering together a post about how I've been lately, and had commented that Poetry hadn't given up any words. And here is this poem! man, between this and that other piece, I think I'm developing a poet!crush on Siken too. Would you mind if I snagged this poem as well?
Tangentially, The line about the electric fence cracked me up. It made me think of this Gary Larson cartoon:
That poem comes to mind whenever anyone, including myself, is being too earnest about their poetry. I've been known to mumble 'Damn the electric fence!' under my breath at poetry readings.