Falcon’s Sorrow
--for Walt Whitman, pure song
One wing high
The other dipped into the sun,
I watched you fly
Over Medieval ground.
I soared, fell fast,
Retraced the moment,
Caught the eons in your eye.
I sing the ancient song of our kind:
Lost, joyful and unrestrained.
I touch the elm, the oak, the pine.
I scent the dew on your breast.
Take note, my friend, for keening--
Note for touch.
Take note for frailty
In the morning.
Take wind to east and north and west.
Let scholar and fool and madman praise.
O love o life of New Jersey poet--
Print alpine forgotten train.
Let each touch melody.
With no hope for harmony
Let each the one last moment stay.
The composition process
of this poem.
What the words first, according to their sound, lyrically, like a song.
Capitalized like sentences in a poem’s form.
Made the words make the sense I wanted.
Made the sentences grammatical, mainly by adding the punctuation last.
Did not punctuate as I wrote, only after all the words were on the page.
Added title and dedication after the body of the poem was written.
Corrected typos.
Read the poem out loud, then, for the first time, for sound and to check the SENSE.
I consider him a Long Island poet, so right away i have issues.
Ok, Peter, when thinking about your poem, your explanation of the "process" for writing it, and your request or invitation for others to do the same, I feel as though you are making a point. Maybe that's not the case, but going back to what Percival said (and I probably concur more than disagree with him), I still have no idea about the "sense" of the poem.
For starters, I'm not familiar with Walt Whitman's poetry. Some questions I might ask or comment I might make in response to the poem, unanswered by your explanation about the "process" of writing it would be:
1. Is this in response to a particular poem of Whitman's (if so, could you post it?) or Whitman's writing in general?
2. What are your thoughts about Whitman's poem or poetry?
3. I don't understand some of the references, although they seem significant to what you hope to convey with the poem:
Medieval ground.
ancient song
Print alpine forgotten train.
With no hope for harmony
4. I will also say that the first couple lines of the poem and the last are bumpy for me and I wonder if it's just me or if you put "effort" into making them so for a reason.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that your explanation of the process for writing this poem seems to be more about how you constructed the poem or literally "wrote" it, not about the inspiration behind it....which I guess would be better answered by "why" you wrote it or what you are conveying with it (its meaning, if you will). There you go Percival. Am I on the right track?
Marty
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/2021 09:06AM by Marty.
Superb! Bravo! Applauds!
Peter, In your explanation, why did you capitalize 'SENSE'?
I liked the poem. Good visuals. Wind, Soaring. A spirit feeling. Ethereal. It flows so well. The last line is great.
The train in the last stanza is unexpected.
In the last stanza 'O love o life of New Jersey poet' Are two 'o's correct?
H.
Re: Falcon’s Sorrow
Posted by: Marty (192.168.128.---)
Date: December 09, 2021 05:04AM
Ok, Peter, when thinking about your poem, your explanation of the "process" for writing it, and your request or invitation for others to do the same, I feel as though you are making a point. Maybe that's not the case, but going back to what Percival said (and I probably concur more than disagree with him), I still have no idea about the "sense" of the poem.
For starters, I'm not familiar with Walt Whitman's poetry. Some questions I might ask or comment I might make in response to the poem, unanswered by your explanation about the "process" of writing it would be:
1. Is this in response to a particular poem of Whitman's (if so, could you post it?) or Whitman's writing in general?
- Whitman’s collection, ‘Leaves of Grass’, which he revised throughout his life, stirred this poem.
This is a response to Whitman’s poetry which reflects the fact that I am a reader of the works of Ezra Pound. Ezra wrote a poem entitled ‘A Pact’ in which he admits to a lifelong inability to come to terms with Whitman’s work. This poem is my “Pact with Whitman.’
Pound’s poem is:
A PACT
I
MAKE a pact with you, Walt Whitman--
I have detested you long enough.
I come to you as a grown child
Who has had a pig-headed father;
I am old enough now to make friends.
It was you that broke the new wood,
Now is a time for carving.
We have one sap and one root—
Let there be commerce between us.
Pound is talking about the idea that it was Whitman’s poetry that made 20th Century American poetry possible. When I taught the History of American Poetry, Whitman and Emily Dickinson were the only two poets scheduled to be taught both semesters. I am a devotee of Emily’s work, but I had to ask the students to read Whitman on their own because I felt I might make an unfair presentation of his poetry since I cannot really read him myself without giving up in frustration.
- What are your thoughts about Whitman's poem or poetry?
- There are two points about his poetry that form the background to this writing.
He writes with an open-ended lyrical style. That is, unless you count the strophe in Greek, about which I know far too little, I am not aware of many other poetries in English that flow so freely in form from line to line. It is as if his single stanza is the invention of a new ‘poetic form’ each time. But though he is repetitious in his phrasing and images, he is never mechanical. It is that freedom from the mechanical that I felt in this poem as I wrote the lines.
I was writing a poem in which I felt free. The spirit of the poem was more important to me than either its style or content. I wanted to let inspiration be the inspiration. I think Whitman’s poetry is always about letting inspiration, spiritus, be the inspiration, subject, of the poem. The poem in alternately, always about breathing, spirit.
- I don't understand some of the references, although they seem significant to what you hope to convey with the poem:
Medieval ground. >ancient song
Whitman was expressly rejecting the old poetic forms, try to make something new (which Perce seems to think is impossible for some reason)
Print alpine forgotten train.
This line is perplexing to me. When I wrote it, I was remembering that Whitman worked as a printer. But I may be wrong I would have to look that up. But he worked for a Newspaper in New Jersey (Hence JohnnySanCulo comment on ‘Long Island Poets’. And the train was a symbol of the new America of his vision, the Modern world filled with technology -- which he welcomed as it infused the American SPIRIT with life and newness. I had a vision, through my visual imagination, of him working over a print of a train making its way through a dense forested area of alpine forests with the tinniest spec in the sky in thee distance, perhaps an eagle. I know I don’t actually mention that the bird in the poem is an eagle, ---hardly even mention a bird at all.
With no hope for harmony
his lines are melodic without forming any specific harmony.
- I will also say that the first couple lines of the poem and the last are bumpy for me and I wonder if it's just me or if you put "effort" into making them so for a reason.
- One wing high
The other dipped into the sun,
I watched you fly
re: The first couple lines are bumpy, I think, for me they we the jagged edge that cut into my consciousness and my language to get the poem going in terms of its ‘style’ and, perhaps, its content. I did not know yet if they were lines about the narrator or about what the narrator thought. Whether we were listening to an eagle or, as it turned out, watching with him the eagle who turned out to be the poet, What Whitman. So that uncertainty may be why you found these lines bumpy.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that your explanation of the process for writing this poem seems to be more about how you constructed the poem or literally "wrote" it, not about the inspiration behind it....which I guess would be better answered by "why" you wrote it or what you are conveying with it (its meaning, if you will). There you go Percival. Am I on the right track?
Marty, the explanation I gave was of how I constructed or composed the poem. I did not say what it was about. I like the reader to work that out, what the poem says, because I do not believe the author is the only reliable source for that information. I look toward interpretation as a joint effort of the reader and the author. This explanation was to give an idea of how the poem was made, line and stanza and style. I think you are right on the mark in your observations and that you respond to the spirit of both the poem and the explanation. I did not try to say what the poem meant, but how it was made, because I wanted readers to think about how they make their poems. I know they will think about what their poems means without my sticking my nose out into their way of doing things.
Marty
Re: Falcon’s Sorrow
Posted by: hrfarris (192.168.128.---)
Date: December 09, 2021 07:24AM
Peter, In your explanation, why did you capitalize 'SENSE'?
I think process, Holly, is important. I think every artist must be a conscious artist at some level. I also think doing this stuff in a natural way is important, but that is another side of it. I capitalized sense because in the end what the poem means is usually the reason for its existence for both the author and the reader, not the technique or the process. My explanation of the process was a way of clearing the ground so that at the end, the product, the poem, the work could be seen to stand on its own...but god technique is the way we get to what is important in a way that does not burden the reader too much. If stuff like spelling matters it is because when the writer is sloppy and posts a poem he or she hasn’t read carefully there is an extra burden on the reader which keeps the reader from paying attention to what the poem is about. That is why I get mad at myself when I post a poem with typos in it. That poem indicts me. But the sense of the poem, that is what matters. And I would say that it is not fair to the reader if you don’t care what your poem looks like. (I am starting to ramble.)
I liked the poem. Good visuals. Wind, Soaring. A spirit feeling. Ethereal. It flows so well. The last line is great.
The train in the last stanza is unexpected.
In the last stanza 'O love o life of New Jersey poet' Are two 'o's correct?
H.
Holly,
The ‘o’s are ‘correct. Because I wrote them that way the poem became about Walt Whitman, who uses such devises. Usually, I stay away from ‘ah’s and ‘o’s like nits in the night. Not my style.
I think the poem is 'about' the freedom of the poet.
Peter, first of all, let me say that I enjoyed the poem. I particularly liked the last 7 lines.
I understand the references to Whitman and can certainly understand Pound's, or anyone else's, consternation in trying to make sense of the whole body of Whitman's work. Those schooled in the traditional poetic forms of the 19th century especially might have had trouble reconciling his freedom of form and spirit.
The other subject which you've addressed here and in the Friv. thread about the writing process does not really help me to understand, or better come to grasp with the poem itself. In other works, I suppose it might help.
For the record the process I follow in my own writing goes something like this:
1. I begin with a title, or opening line, not always the same thing in my poetry.
2. I construct the poem line by line usually, especially if the poem has any rhyming schematic to it.
3. I search through the creative process for an end. Unlike one of the readers here on this forum suggested, I never know the ending until I feel it.
4. Finally, I read the poem to see what changes, or revisions must be made to it to have it be coherent to my own ears/sense of meaning et. al.
5. Then I revise it usually looking for any words which do not convey exactly the meaning/feeling I wish to convey.
Les
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/2021 07:14PM by lg.
Thanks for reading and responding, Les. I am not always sure the explicit approach to the creative process is so useful either, but it is always worthwhile, I think, to take a look at what you're doing.
Peter
Peter, thanks for elaborating. I had typed a lengthy response to your thoughtful response, but lost it. And now my mind is too tired. In short, I like discussing and thinking about the "spirit", whether of a person, a poem, an event, or an era....etc. Oh well, maybe another time.
Mary
Thanks. Get some rest, Mary. The days can be pretty long.
amo,
Peter
You're right, Peter, he lived in Jersey longer than Long Island....died and was buried in NJ I think.
They have a Walt Whitman rest area, but we have the Walt Whitman Mall
(which in a strange turn of events after the Federated merger, had a Macy*s at both ends for a brief time)
after all, Johnny, he was a man of the people.