I moved this one for the comments section. Add you workshop cents to the comments section. We'll have to yell at Scottish so that he'll hopefully start adding other authors. This one is by Ross. Again sorry for any formatting inconsistencies. Let fly - d.l.
"There are Usually Understood Chord Progressions"
Vapid resonance I see.
Ah the day glow rays underneath every curve, or
helicopters in strato-silence filming docudramas for mamas.
My purse kills your purse girl, no way.
Why don’t we find ourselves someone stacked with guidelines and cooking lessons?
I hear that’ll give us something to eat in between vomit sessions behind open doors,
Mostly so we can be pretty by the pool before July.
Tiles burst; they do, during white coat festivals in Memphis hotels, where the cigar chompers lace their catgut boots with plantation cotton, softer than cotton swabs at the doctor’s office, and each of us can swallow. Barely legal we cavort about puffed like cockatoos, dusk-light centering on the outside heat. Clouds cover my view from the top of the penthouse garden where the ducks sleep for supper. Dark clouds, I see, flexing morals inherent only to men with wedding bands, and wives that give head.
Aeroplanes now fly encumbered, slightly covered in balming gloss which makes your face shine.
May as well slap some butter on there and heave a hammer in your direction.
Attention is the cornflake-caked casserole flushed between two servings of eggplant seared with custard. Locking doors skirting around like some garden dancer drenched in clay paint.
We will find you, even if the discovery baffles you, everything gets around you.
Even if you were a scaler of hilltops, or a kisser of Blarney stones, your sun dresses love that shine, and your times of troublesome getting-to-know-you’s eventually stop, I hear.
Not enough for the real people here, do I hear.
Parting with great guitar solos and even quieter I do’s, I hear you getting off the bus below.
Walk, walk to the organ donor office and ask for a cheese sandwich.
He might be able to take time off for soccer practice, maybe even screw the bolts down on the new deck you just bought for the backyard, equipped along the neighbor’s garden spot, but I hear there are problems here, unforeseen early birds caught eating those silk purses your friends had at festivals last July,
But you were too busy eating sandwiches by gardens, helping little Lucy into her first sundress.
- Ross Tagendal
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6 comments:
well, talk about images huh? so, there is the intended Irish overtone here. the Joyce like use of stream of con. & the connection of images & ideas through disconnection shows some use of tradition, without the bogged down tactic of simply mimicking. it has its own freshness. TS Eliot would love it.
i like the movement of it all. i'm not so equipped with the technical language of "discussing discussing literature" as the critics say. i tend to respond to the physicality, the subtleties and i try to read for (in a work shop setting) what the particular author is attempting to do. that said, i like the speed, the stop and go. i perceived a sense of disconnect which, if i'm right, helped control the stops and go's. is it a materialism? an americanism? a posing ex-pat? i'm not sure yet because some of the details that could be useful seem to be glossed over, or hurried past. but i assume Ross, that is because you want the focus to be away from the details of the specific persons involved and more on the disgust that is felt. kind of like saying, this is what i think of you, but why is not important.
i would consider maybe cluing in the reader a little more, providing some framework for why, but not if you are intentionally going away from that. either way, i'd be sure to consider the consequences and implications of each direction.
if you do anything with it though, i would keep the strengths in mind: the novelty of a new geography/culture.
the wonderful experience of seeing foreign bullshit as bullshit, getting past the "isn't this fuckin' brilliant" energy of new places and things.
the honesty of the vomit, purse, morals, giving head type stuff. its not dirty, but fleshy, human, and certainly different than 'natural'. In fact so much of the behavior discussed in the piece seems to leave a bad taste with the speaker of the poem precisely because it is somehow artificial, put on, unreal.
thats all i got for now.- john p
hey guys,
i just remembered that a blog wasmentioned so i went back and found the old e-mail that mentioned it. i hadn't-until tonight, relized we had one up already. so please do not feel like i was intentionally ignoring. i was just fucked up like. i had no idea my poem was postred much less that i got fed back from Dan. so, anyway, i'm on board now. i spell terribly and it will be distracting at times and i'm wondering if we can just shoot the shit on here too?
Obie how ya been buddy? i'm gonna shoot Pat an e-mail with the link. he too like me was working off e-mail. when there was only his response to my 'offering' of a poem, and then a followup of a blog mention i thought i did something that maybe upset the applecart and caused some problem or something. god, the blog link just slipped past me. so, sorry for that. but i'm glad to be at it! lets organize & get after it!
later- john
oh yes, i'm not listed as a contributor, so i think i can only post comments, not anything "original" if you want me to have that kind of access it will have to be explained to me. later,
nontechnoboy
There does seem to be some very interesting images at work. I can tell you've been all up in that southern gothic goodness. The piece sides (if disjointedly) between vignettes and relies heavy upon the reader to know very congenial references to both literature and the experience of the American South. The language is highly elevated. There are a good number of very solid lines.
The single largest bit of advice i could give you for this piece to create a more approachable stature for the reader. The first line offers an interesting juxtapostion, but does not seem to flow well into the following lines. Would stanzas help with flow? Possibly. If anything it may help with organization which will in turn help with flow. Think about arranging this poetic piece more in lines with a smooth flowing soul piece, where certain sounds resonate in the following lines. This would also help with the lack of coherence. Slant rhymes work well here. You could pick a particular chord and develop it based up its particular tonality. (high, med, low). Plath did this well as does Kaufman. Just some ideas. I'd love to see a second working of this piece.
well, again, i'm probably off more than before, but here i go... Ross, i still get the feeling this poem starts off in a sunny metro US city (like LA?). it moves through the southern US,this all seems agreed upon by myself & Dan. but, i perceived a move to a foreign country. the usage of "soccer practice" "Blarney Stone" "garden" & because of my own low budget trips to Ireland : ) "cheese sandwhich". but also, and maybe the most leading for me was the line "i hear you getting off the bus below" this lead me to the very Ireland/UK iconic image of double decker buses & the voice (and ear) of the poem sitting atop it listening down, feeling sort of somewhere else. this is most likely because the perceived departure at the bus s proceeded by the "getting to know you's end eventually" line.
so, i hope i didn't read into what wsn't there. if i did sorry. either way, it still possesses a movement of images and geography (location), which i feel is effective. i think anytime you can take a reader on a trip/walk/ride with you, then we've accomplished something as a writer.
i'd be curious to hear what ya think of it all, and again, great work on Read This!
take care,
john
Gentlemen, believe it or not, I wrote this poem while I was in Memphis last summer. I saw all the pretty girsl flirting around in their sundresses, and my buddy told me I should write a poem about it. John hit on the head...I was trying to show that these women felt they were greater then they really were, grander and more affluent then they really were. The beauty is that they just "are," and I reconcile that by the end. However, it is also a cycle which perpetautes, a chord that doesn't have progressions. I felt the need to take them on a journey, a walk through the world to accentuate their mediocrity amidst a facade of beauty. I love the feedback, and am already working on another draft. After I'm done here I am going to post a new one for everyone. Thank you John for the READ THIS support, and Dan for always pushing me to work just a bit harder. You both mean a lot. Also, send me some poetry for READ THIS...next issue coming in December. Peace fellas.
--Ross
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