What Do You See? What Do You Hear?

What is the last word I heard?
Lost on the avenue, waiting for the bus.
The blue security of the cop,
Turns his back on me;
Traffic regrets its next song.

I listen to the voices weeping at the corner,
Seeping into the penny-a-day drains of their hearts.
I wander from Columbus to the Trieste
Deranged by the dankness of my dreams.
I live in a cellar hidden on the roof.
The insects swarm like Easter-egg children
Not a morsel of grain left deserted.

Masters and apprentices discuss rewriters and dice throwers –
Or lean, discerning journalists, looking for a job,
Push the latest scheme for redemption:
A free education, working for free,
Freedom for both restraint and liberty.
It’s so hard to fit in when you’re a loose cannon.

It’s all preamble. A cup of coffee before the heart attack.
A return to the bottom of the hill for one more climb up the long stair case.
Lost on the avenue, adrift in the world.
The yogi mesmerized by his umbilicus.

Pete, it seems to me that most poets move us in one of 3 ways:

1. The way they say things.

2. The way they see things.

or 3. The way they make us feel about things.


The mastery of the individual poet determines how well his/her work is received by the reader. Your poetry most definitely falls into the category #2 above. You have a distinctive way of looking at the world which helps us enjoy your written words.

Write more.


Les

Les,

I like your categories, especially the word 'most,' which leaves room for other alternatives.

Peter

Peter, any categorization is inherently flawed, but the three I listed seem quite obvious to even the most casual of poetry readers. Of course many poets fit into more than one category, and what about the story tellers? Where would you place them?

A fun exercise if you're up to it is to think of poets from this forum, or some of your own favorites and see into which of the 3 categories you'd put them; for instance:

Ogden Nash is definitely a one.
Edgar Allen Poe is definitely a two, though some would suggest his longer works are all about number three.
Wilfred Owen was definitely a three.

It's fascinating once you try to categorize your favorites, you soon realize that each of us is drawn to prefer one category/style over the others.


Les

Les,

I thought about my three favorite Twentieth Century poets: Pound, Stevens and Dickinson – and found all three of your categories fit each in a different way. Category ‘3. The way they make us feel about things’ seems to merge into the first two categories whenever I think about them. I guess one or the other category dominates often, as the ancients distinguished Poetas, maker, from seers, Vates, in the function of the poet. Composition and inspiration are the ways I distinguish my own generation of works. Still, even these are almost always intermingled. But it is a useful exercise to distinguish separable qualities of the process, as long as it helps get the work done.

Amo et avanti,

Peter

Peter, "categorizing" anything inherently brings to the fore the bias of the categorizer. I began this little exercise merely to explain (to myself) the popularity of rap music and poetry slams, which invariably rely on word play and definitely fall into category one on my short list of poetry styles.


Les