-simplifying modernism in four easy steps)
Eliot
A mean as a mermaid;
she hit me with a force as great as wist.
Woolf
“I can’t see over the table’s centerpiece”;
“Then you can’t see into my soul.”
cummings
Ohh, moaned he
Oh, said she
;
Ohh, moaned she
Oh, said he
Jo(to the word)yce
Endlessnessnessness;
nessnessnessnessness;
nessnessnessnessness
(Over
Posted Aug 28, 2016, 11:57 PM UTC · edited
I forgot to say how much I like this, because I like this. The idea is clever and likeable, and I adore the way this poem loops back on itself.
The voices themselves are reasonably convincing (it was well advised to only give a 2-3 lines to each to make that easier) and that twist on the presentation introduced more sense of the author and a greater feeling of play.
Good job, Gummy.
Appreciate it, hall moditor!
Do you see Eliot, Woolf, Cummings, and Joyce as the 4 cornerstones of "modernism", or were these names referenced for different reasons?
Also, were these actual quotes of theirs, or is this your distillation of their method & style?
I do like the structural trick of "over-simplifying".
Is "cummings" supposed to be in bold like the other names? If not, why?
It's an interesting poem, a commentary on nebulous defintions, perhaps?
Thanks for sharing Gummy, and please keep writing!
Them and Pound I guess.
Not quotes, but close in some cases.
I didn't want to bold cummings
Somewhat a commentary.
Thanks soich, you questions help me resolve some leaps in thought I need to work on.
Is "wist" a neologism?
I don't think I'm the one to make it, but it's not showing up as anything, but the past tense of wit (it's meant to be synonymous with wistfulness but it this particular case it's personified) eliot is the person version of wistfulness to me. It's the word I most associate with him. I think I just rambled without answering you. I'm not sure if it is.
I can honestly say I find this poetry interesting, even if I don't understand it. Being rather new to poetry in general and never doing well in classes at Uni, this intrigues me. Mind if I ask some of the references you created? I'm assuming you're either making fun of the artists named or possibly satirizing them? Does the order mean anything?
Thank you!
Inspirational pieces for this.
Pound - In a station of the metro.
TS Eliot - Song of J Alfred Prufrock.
Woolf - To the Lighthouse.
e e cummings - says he (Lana mentioned knows the name)
Joyce - it's a quote from Ulysses, but I got it from a quote site. It was changed to fit more like Finnegans Wake (which I tried to read but couldn't understand)
Thanks for reading!
Cummings should be bolded (unless you're making a comment on his style by not doing so). And for Eliot don't you mean As mean instead of A mean? Unless, as with Cummings, this is a comment on his style.
This is really a poem made for students of poetry and/or literature but overall I love it. It's reverent to those great masters but also faintly irreverent, unafraid to poke fun at their strangeness but also conceding that said strangeness is what makes their works so powerful. I also like how the poem works as a coherent narrative, not just 4 mini-poems about each artist juxtaposed in this context.
Great work man. Sometimes I wish I could write poetry like you do.
Thanks for pointing out the Eliot typo. The cummings was on purpose (if do weird things I need to make sure typos don't sneak in). I'm glad you liked it. You've got some interesting pieces yourself and I plan on talking about 'nigger' when I'm not on a phone and can triple check to make there are no miscommunications. I'm a fan of quite a few pieces of yours, so again the praise isn't lost on me.