ENTRY #4
Three poems / three criteria
In a poem I look for language, meaning, and feeling.
Language that includes internal rhyme is my favorite. To my ear pencil, spent and intention form a sound cluster; to hear such rhymes, I must slow down my reading and give the poem space to grow.
Meaning depends on the poet’s skill and the reader’s experience. I once wrote a poem that described exactly my yearning to visit a European castle; my professor said it was “an aesthetic ink blot.” A definite lack of skill...
As to feeling, I want a poem to open like a Japanese fan, each rib revealing more until the scene is complete and my heart grasps the ineffable. This, of course, is totally subjective.
Now for these three poems…
The strength of Martyrs’ beach’s is in its meaning. Knowledge of aboriginal history isn’t required to understand the slaughter or the irony: because they were killed, little was known of them. A touching insight diminished by the pedestrian language, perhaps chosen to underline casual slaughter and to match the quotes. The single flourish is the blood red seaweed foretelling the massacre.
Posthumous is an extended metaphor – a poet’s life, starting with his hopes and moving ever deeper into failure. The quickening movement -- driving, hit by a speeding car, then flying -- feels like time speeding up towards the end of life. The final line, “the sudden pleasure of beak on eyeball,” nails an image he has been lacking. The quotidian language – traffic, engine failure, the left turn at an exit – plays nicely against the metaphors – the circling shadows (critics, buzzards) or the small fertile section in the field of poems. When I reach the end, the fan is open and I understand his struggle. What is more, I care about it.
Camera Man was my favorite. Each stanza had a falling sensation in its rhythm and the poem was lit by humor. Again, to my ear, the language was pedestrian, except for “the stone was placed here in the dreaming”, but it led me quickly forward to the sky of the ending. The two similar lines -- “danced for an instant” and “laugh for a moment” -- were disappointing in such a short poem. That said, the meaning was clear and the ending unexpected. This is a poem I would share with friends.