Johnny Consulo: can you tell me if you can tell me if this is a poem or a meditation? Anyone else want to offer an opinion? I had to decide if I she post it as a topic or as a poem, but I also wanted comments on it as a poem, if it is a poem.
Thanks in advance
I woke to dream:
“Take pleasure in each thing,”
and I woke to wonder,
“what could that mean?”
The ache I feel in my heel right now
is not, for sure, a pleasure..
“To “Take pleasure” in such a thing as pain
“Take pleasure against the pain,”
the voice somewhere said, again.
Don’t be a logic sot, it made me think
Go beyond the word and its expression;
go (you) in back of what you may think.
Don’t be tricked to think, I thought, that
now you must address the general condition,
what everybody does. You are not everybody.
Start over, if you wish:
I thought, I woke to dream:
“Take pleasure in each thing,”
and I woke to wonder,
“what could that mean?”
And I pursued that thought to pain.
But each thing is more than that,
and each pain is not the common experience:
it is this pain, now, here, beyond which
the general condition is a chatter in the wind—
not our concern, you and I,
as you know I will tell you,
the feeling in my finger is gone.
“Take pleasure” in that.
How does it mean?
Take pleasure in each particular sensation:
not the putrid—persevere.
Not that, stiff upper lip stuff, but
respect the quality of the experience.
Go into it, I think it means,
pass through it, to the fact of being alive,
however the moment might express itself.
Perhaps. Not the general thought,
not the ’as a rule’. But, Now-- now,
that each thing is as it is, its own.
Nor is it just “seize the day.”
Yes, though there is knowledge
beyond the present, it says --
“Take pleasure in each thing”:
Do not be content, merely,
I think it says, to be discontent.
The voice, if that was what it was,
did not come to preach, just to remind.
“Take pleasure in each thing.”
ok, its a poem because:
it looks like a poem
it has stanzas
it has meter
it has metaphoric and alliterative elements
now, the repetetive elements, common in poetry, is also what makes this a meditation, the mantra of the repeated thought. One purpose of meditation is to relax and clear the mind, but are we not also doing that when we release thoughts into words and make poems out of them?
I tend to be analytic, but I also tend to be intuitive. While I don't think they are necessarily at loggerheads, bying intuitive is my prefered mode. Finally, I'm not quite analytic enough to carry off some lines of thought, so I tend to cover that over a kind of muddied thinking that I must be pretending is intuition, but which only sometimes is. I find your thinking, wit, sharper than mine. That is why I address this general question to you. Also, if you decised to dodge the question, I knew I'd at least get a chuckle.
Thank for the straightfororward answer this time. I don't think poetry and meditation are any more seperate in actuality than are intuitive thought and analytic thought; they're just two aspects of the way our minds find themsevles in action.
Peter
Peter, I have no doubt that what many people call poetry are meditations on varying topics. I think one would need to be a nit picker to decipher which is which.
I agree with Johnny's assessment and would only add that many meditations are indeed poetry.
Take this simple poem by Sappho from our own classical archives. It is a poem, but is it not also a meditation?
Words
by Sappho
Although they are
only breath, words
which I command
are immortal.
Les
I guess the opposite number to the meditative poem would be the didactic, one which consciously sets out to teach a lesson. But even then, there is a chance for meditation on the part of the "student."
Peter
A Valentine for aLady
--Lucilius
Darling, at the Beautician.s uoui buy
Your (a) hair
(b) complexion
(c) lips
(d) dimples &
(e) teeth.
For a like amount you could just as well buy a face.
*******************************************
from POEMS FROM THE gREEK ANTHOLOGY, tr. Dudley Fitts
I pinched the criteria below from someone else a while back because they seemed to be well thought out:
-Metaphor and figurative language
-Imagery and sense impressions
-Allusion
-Line and stanza
-Diction and syntax
-Rhythm and sonics
-Theme and argument
A work having all of the above is definitely poetry. The more that are lacking, the more prosey it becomes.
By those definitions wake to dream qualifies, but I am unable to judge the others, since I infer they are translations.
Your eyes are like pools......Cess pools
Your teeth are like stars...they come out at night
Do not be content, merely,
I think it says, to be discontent.
Everyone talks about the poetry, but no one does anything about it?
KQ had a good point when she questioned the need for imposed restrictions.
but I don't agree fully, we all have our own way of approaching the writing...some as a task, some for enjoyment, some like myself to tap into something deeper or hidden.
In the movie Repo Man, the term "Plate of Shrimp" is used...it refers to the phenomenon of encountering a word or phrase or item within moments of having thought or said it.
An example from a few hours ago... I said 55 gallon drum and the TV said 55 BC not even one second later.
This is the realm I have chosen to explore. I have a base of operations. Is this what you seek for yourself?
I just sometimes like to hear a voice, even if it is my own, out of whatever imagination, originating some new, perhaps joyful, variant on what can be. That's why I like poems and jokes and exchanges of wit, becaue it is so hard to anticipate the next line in each.
entropy isn't what it used to be
Post Edited (10-05-04 08:56)
The poem should set some guidelines for the wide range of good, interesting , personal interpretations.
the poem should set
and guidelines get
the wide wide range
of in ter pret
I N T E R P R E T A T I O N S
P E T E R N S R A T I O N I T
I N T E R P R E T A T I O N S
P E T E R N S/R A T I O N/I T
R A N T/R E P E T I T I O N S
R E N T/T I E/A T/P R I S O N
P R E T T I E R/N A T I O N S
P E N I S/T R A I T O R/N E T
T R I/P E N E T R A T I O N S
Post Edited (10-05-04 11:41)