Interact 9 - Lauren Hynde

[annaswirls]

This is maybe a bad thing to admit because I do believe poems need to communicate, but most references I put in my poems are for me. Yup, me. (I laugh at my own jokes, too.) It amuses me to know there are personal, musical, literary references in my poems that no one will ever get but me. It may be a conceit, but it makes me happy.

And I must say that I agree with Liar--there's music I love because it just sounds good; I feel it more than I understand it and that's better than fine. Some writing is like this for me, too--Virginia Woolf's prose comes to mind. Lots of people find her difficult to read because she can be so descriptive and throw so many images at one description, but I love the density of the visual it creates. So if I get that from it--or Lauren's writing--and someone else doesn't, it doesn't make me smarter or them dumber: it just makes us different in what art makes us respond however we respond.

Annaswirls' very astute comment about people finding layers of meaning in her poems that she never intended just underscores our differences when we read. Each of us brings a unique set of experiences to our reading, and this causes each of us to get something different from it. Again, this is a good thing that allows for readers to appreciate a Hallmark verse (if that's what moves them) or a Lauren poem. It's a big tent; lots of styles fit under it.

so when are we renting that tent to get together and party? can we do it in Canada?

oh and Ange, I love your references in the poem for YOU that is awesome. I thought to myself, well damn, poems are not always supposed to be meaningful, they can be "just" for fun, entertainment, what have you.

 

[Angeline]

so when are we renting that tent to get together and party? can we do it in Canada?

oh and Ange, I love your references in the poem for YOU that is awesome. I thought to myself, well damn, poems are not always supposed to be meaningful, they can be "just" for fun, entertainment, what have you.

Yes. I'll call darkmaas and ask him to get a tent.

I knew you would understand. Of course I want other people to like my poems, but I write them for me, first and foremost. Doesn't everyone? (I mean for themself, not me--hehe.)

 

[Liar]

Yes. I'll call darkmaas and ask him to get a tent.

I knew you would understand. Of course I want other people to like my poems, but I write them for me, first and foremost. Doesn't everyone? (I mean for themself, not me--hehe.)

I write them for you.






Ok, I don't, but it was too good an oppotunity to let that line slip.

Pardon the thread-jack. Back to business.

#L

 

[Lauren Hynde]

re: references
If you want to take people for a ride, you better at least slow down at the station.
if I fail to get it is it because I'm dumb?
or is it because it is rather low on my list of associations, is there enough there so I can track it down, and see the the proper context, where does the failure lie?

Here is an image for you:
"Spectral hole burning"

What springs to mind? Casper after a Mexican resturant meal?
There is enough there...

I think you're missing the point. Any line in any poem can mean so many different things that you can't even begin to list them, but if you only look at it isolated, stripped of all context, it means nothing at all!

"A single jet of fluoride" may not give you enough if isolated, but look at the poem that surrounds it: light, darkness, neon, rainwater, flames.

"Robinson" - even if you never heard of Robinson Crusoe (which is, I think, the only logical explanation for missing that reference in (or even without!) context, seeing as that is probably one of the less ambiguous poem I ever wrote, and I write stuff like "Still Born Soldiers"), do you need it? Does the poem make any less sense if you switch that one word and replace if with "man", for example?

"Turkeys", no matter how low the country is on your list of associations, appears in a poem with clear references to travelling and to the east, and is the fourth in a series that included "new Persias", "new Chinas" and "new Byzantiums". Did you expect it to be a poem about eating Turkey over a Persian rug using the new China, maybe with some side-order of Byzantium sauce?

I'm not on the train.
Now if the intent is to communicate...

My train does slow down, but it doesn't stop and extend you red carpet and give you a foot-massage while reading you the itinerary. If you want to catch it and really get all the references, you're going to have to get off your ass and make a run for it, but you can do it.

As I said on my initial post in this thread, "ideally, and I believe I have been successful in that aspect, any one reader will be able to take something from any one poem". To keep with the train metaphor, you'll always have to break a little sweat if you want to catch my train and fully understand my poems, but I don't demand that of you. If you only feel like peeking in as it slows down at the station, maybe run alongside it for a minute, you can. If you only feel like sitting back, relaxing, and doing some trainspotting, you can. If you only want to close your eyes, listen to the sound it makes as it glides past, and imagine where it might have taken you, you can. I'd like to think you'd enjoy it either way.

 

[*Catbabe*]

My train does slow down, but it doesn't stop and extend you red carpet and give you a foot-massage while reading you the itinerary. If you want to catch it and really get all the references, you're going to have to get off your ass and make a run for it, but you can do it.

As I said on my initial post in this thread, "ideally, and I believe I have been successful in that aspect, any one reader will be able to take something from any one poem". To keep with the train metaphor, you'll always have to break a little sweat if you want to catch my train and fully understand my poems, but I don't demand that of you. If you only feel like peeking in as it slows down at the station, maybe run alongside it for a minute, you can. If you only feel like sitting back, relaxing, and doing some trainspotting, you can. If you only want to close your eyes, listen to the sound it makes as it glides past, and imagine where it might have taken you, you can. I'd like to think you'd enjoy it either way.

I think this a perfect metaphor to describe the relationship between the poet and the reader.

 

[Cerriwiden]

I think this a perfect metaphor to describe the relationship between the poet and the reader.

I thought train metaphors mean it's about sex.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

But bottom line, I do not want poetry to be "work." This is my taste. Reading poetry should MOVE me right away, move me to look inside for deeper meaning, deeper inside my OWN experiences, I do not want to be a detective to have to dig to learn of other people's experiences through a poem. Because face it, the true meaning in most people's lives is not working to get to the mysteries of others except in working to get to the mysteries of themselves.

Anna, I completely agree with you. Honestly.

I love poetry to be work. But that's when I write. I love crafting poems, as Angeline, knowing perfectly well no one will understand all the references. But as I was saying, no matter how many layers the poem has, no reader has to dig in further than he or she wants to. My hope is that even the lightest and most uncompromised read will be enjoyable, will make a connection with the reader. And no matter what, the reader's interpretation will always be more a reflex of their own experience than the poet's. That is the definition of poetry.

Poetry can't be a ready-made, perfectly well defined list of references for the reader to passively absorb.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

I thought train metaphors mean it's about sex.

Isn't it all?

 

[*Catbabe*]

I thought train metaphors mean it's about sex.

First it was planes, now it's trains....I am expecting Steve Martin in a car to show up in one of the threads soon.

 

[twelveoone]

Giving the Devil his due

Lauren, I don't think anyone here, has ran there ass off I much as I have, did I not deduce that your orginal language was a Romance one "quem não beijamos ainda", did I not note the consistency of the terms used in "Prodigal of Blue"?

"Time--arpeggio of inter-reverie and moon"
This line bothered me. Time is most often thought of as a flow, not discrete steps like notes in an arpeggio.

Then you posted this:
One passage that I'm always reminded of is from Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato:

"The facts, even when beaded on a chain, still did not have real order. Events did not flow. The facts were separate and haphazard and random even as they happened, episodic, broken, no smooth transitions, no sense of events unfolding from prior events--"
Well, now I understand...well done.

The reason, for the three references post was:
Robinson - Jackie Robinson, first black man in MLB, couldn't get past that; "Robinson" was not pertinent to the core meaning of the poem, it adds

Turkeys - some references have unintended humour, I noticed Liar also did not know the third.
This and "Gold would downpour" my thought was ouch. This also was a minor clue you where not American.

a single jet of fluoride - IMO, is just a bad line, both as a line and in context, it is out by inself, drawing attention, adding nothing, instead detracting, refering to something that has meaning only to you. You could have done better.

I thank CharleyH for the semiotic analysis. It is important to look at things from as many perspectives as possible. You may be interested in this
http://jacketmagazine.com/23/purdy-barthes.html
I found it most worthy.

 

[CharleyH]

Hey 1201, thanks for the link. A long read that I can only pay half attention to this morning, but will give it a thorough read later.

I cannot emphasize enough my belief in Neitsche's words 'there are no facts, only interpretations'. I also cannot avoid thinking of my sig. line 'It's hard to imagine imagining without a language to use.'

As the paper you guided me to points out, (in one paragraph at least) not everything has a big huge message/meaning. Certainly, I can start a discussion of who Godot is, or what the hell kind of masturbation the avant-gardist, Brakhage was trying to articulate. However, despite the avant-garde attempt, everything communicates, and the moment a word or image is thrown into the public, I do have to disagree with others who say that (in this case) a poem is written only for themselves. An interesting discussion, I would venture. (All this as aside)

Certainly, Lauren's art allows me the opportunity to look with a particular eye, and presents me with the pleasure of seeing, what is to me, an intriguingly fresh perspective. Other poetry would not inspire me to look with this same eye, but her poetry demands it. I like the demand - not as inspiring a challenge, but rather as inspiring awe. Others, see things differently. I like that.

A note about 'time' as being 'mostly' seen as flow. Oh I could get into time as a human construct, but I merely wanted to say the phrase .

Have you not had time move so quickly that you missed it, or so slowly that you could practically feel it breathing across your lips? A clock, it's second-hand moves, if you look, in steps - perception. There are endless possibilities to the concept, and it always depends on the context, as Lauren points out in a previous post.

As for 'a single jet of flouride' - well, as mentioned, I think its purpose is to stand out, and I personally, don't perceive it as a bad line. I found it rather suited everything in the poem, and it was among my favourites.

I do just want to mention that it's fascinating to see so many perspectives. Thank you for yours, it has stimulated some intriguing discussion and thought, for me at least.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Re: Giving the Devil his due

Lauren, I don't think anyone here, has ran there ass off I much as I have, did I not deduce that your orginal language was a Romance one "quem não beijamos ainda", did I not note the consistency of the terms used in "Prodigal of Blue"?

Whoa. I hope you didn't think I was being rude in my last post. I know you read a lot of my poetry in the last few days and certainly appreciate all your effort in this thread. I think that above all, it forced me to think about my thought processes and it helped me structure and cement my personal paradigms, and not only when it comes to poetry.

I can't agree with and will never understand some of your reservations and difficulties, but differences are healthy, and I never had the ambition of limiting the scope of my writing to the lowest common denominator. And that's what it all comes down to, really:

There's no point in stressing out again that I will never understand how you, reading the poem, could take "Turkeys" for anything else than what it is.

"A single jet of fluoride" doesn't make chemical sense? Would changing it to "a single jet of pulverised fluorite" suddenly make you see the entire string of references that surrounds and justifies that line?

As for the Jackie Robinson thing, I'm still trying to find a diplomatic way of saying I'm dumbstruck. Was there anything at all in the poem that would make you think that?

Those were all rethorical questions, by the way (unless you really want to answer them ).



I think this is starting to degenerated into a sterile thread more about how to read, insisting in the same isolated fragments over and over, than about poetry. I would really like to steer the discussion back to that.

Is there any other poem anyone would like me to address? Maybe one of the ones that were already mentioned here, like "Last Orders", "The Stylization of Self" or "Berlin - Los Angeles" (or any other)?

 

[twelveoone]

As long as you're askin' I'm answerin'
Robinson, believe the word lone(yes he was)was next to it. Decided it couldn't be about him, that is why I asked.

flluoride, thought about teeth, doesn't matter, neon, fog, started looking like a commericial. I do not think it is a line worth saving, Charley's "toxic light" may have been better.

Turkeys well I knew what that refered to, just found it funny. Sultanates would have removed the split second laugh.

These points are about the associative process, only. But as you say, one can not look at one line in a poem, I agree, would take it further, one can not look at one poem, i.e. I had to spend some time, getting into your head so to speak.

I did find it quite challenging and rewarding doing so, and after doing, after seeing, did come back with a greater appreciation, with what was done.

One of the great things here (at least for me) is it forces me, hopefully some of the readers to begin to pull things apart, too see other viewpoints. Maybe even the author can begin to see something from the audience's perspective.

I look at things a certain way, I always read WickedEve, I think she is good, I did not know how good she was, until I forced myself to work in her Interact.
Along the way, she made some good points.

Angeline's "Nightengale" is another case, I overlooked it, nothing jumped out, until I began to pull it apart and saw how well constructed it was.
Along the way she made some good points.

Two different styles, it is hoped that new writers would begin to see, why they are good, even if they are different. The hows of writing, without the formalism; exposure to what I think may be radically different from what they would see elsewhere.

Your's is the same, I just had to work a little harder, having been unfamilar with your work. Was it worth, I think so, I think I may have left some comments along the way.
Some of your stanzas are pure magic. Some of your lines even go beyond that.

So we strongly disagree about one line.

Yes, I think it would be of interest, if you picked one and explained in your words the whys of the writing of it.

 

[CharleyH]

Yes, I think it would be of interest, if you picked one and explained in your words the whys of the writing of it.

Actually, I would like to learn more about why Lauren's more recent poetry has diverged from previous poetic style. I have noted a change (and I mean aside from the obvious, we change our styles) from what appears to me an almost distant attachment to poems like the two discussed, to a much more personal association with her subjects, particularly in E-choice, I can love you ... and Tongues', and even in Berlin-Los Angeles, which I quite enjoyed, seems more a combination of the two styles - so perhaps this one is a bridging of the two mentioned styles?

 

[twelveoone]

Actually, I would like to learn more about why Lauren's more recent poetry has diverged from previous poetic style. I have noted a change (and I mean aside from the obvious, we change our styles) from what appears to me an almost distant attachment to poems like the two discussed, to a much more personal association with her subjects, particularly in E-choice, I can love you ... and Tongues', and even in Berlin-Los Angeles, which I quite enjoyed, seems more a combination of the two styles - so perhaps this one is a bridging of the two mentioned styles?

Lauren, do you want to go with that? Sounds like a good idea.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Actually, I would like to learn more about why Lauren's more recent poetry has diverged from previous poetic style. I have noted a change (and I mean aside from the obvious, we change our styles) from what appears to me an almost distant attachment to poems like the two discussed, to a much more personal association with her subjects, particularly in E-choice, I can love you ... and Tongues', and even in Berlin-Los Angeles, which I quite enjoyed, seems more a combination of the two styles - so perhaps this one is a bridging of the two mentioned styles?

That is a good soul-searching question, isn't it? LOL

The main reason why I started writing was the challenge it encompassed, and so I always tried not to limit myself to one style, form or point of view. As you go through my posts, then, you will always find poems that go against the trend I happened to be exploring at the time.

In my earlier poems, the ones written in perhaps the first year after joining this community, I was still mostly trying to learn the mechanics and flexing my English-language metaphoric muscles. In a way, I had that academic detachment in my writing out of fear of being mistaken for it. Most of those early poems are, on the surface, at least, intellectual abstractions with little or no direct correlation with real events in my life.

As my body of work grew, I was able to break out of that fear (I think that The Stylization of Self marked the turning point for a number of reasons) and from there on, I both felt comfortable writing first-person POV intellectual constructs and writing deeply personal emotional pieces, confident in my ability to write poetry in either case.

During the last year, I felt the need to branch out to prose, and it made me realise the potential in the merger of genres, as well as give me a much firmer grasp on semiotics and on using structural constructs as an integral part of poetry.

Berlin - Los Angeles is, like many of my more recent poems, a result of experimentation in that territory, a blend of poetry and prose, much more structured than it may appear at a glance, and with a particular attention to semiotics as a tool to integrate the personal deeper meaning in the intellectually constructed outer layer.

 

[CharleyH]

Berlin - Los Angeles is, like many of my more recent poems, a result of experimentation in that territory, a blend of poetry and prose, much more structured than it may appear at a glance, and with a particular attention to semiotics as a tool to integrate the personal deeper meaning in the intellectually constructed outer layer. [/B]

An eloquent and measured response.

Will you pick apart Berlin-Los Angeles?

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Will you pick apart Berlin-Los Angeles?

Hm... Not tonight. But sure, I can do that.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Will you pick apart Berlin-Los Angeles?

You know, I keep reading and reading it, and I don't know what to say without repeating the poem, really. I think all the lines are pretty clear and self-explainatory... Is there any particular bit of it that you want me to dissect?

 

[CharleyH]

You know, I keep reading and reading it, and I don't know what to say without repeating the poem, really. I think all the lines are pretty clear and self-explainatory... Is there any particular bit of it that you want me to dissect?

Nope, I get it. I'll let you off the hook since Liar's head is on the chopping block now.

Slacker!

 

[LouXIV]

I think Lauren is right on when she says, "The richness of a poem is a function of how many different ways it can be interpreted and touch different readers." I find that the same lines touch me in different ways on different occasions. And I always recall listening to Ballanchine (choreographer) saying that each performance of a ballet is a unique event, even if the choreography is theory is constant. Similaly, each reading of a poem yields its own effect.

Louis XIV

 

[foehn]

I do think that the more satisfied readers (or listeners) that disengage from a poem, and then are able to take something with them, to feel a sense of satisfaction or enrichment, then the more valuable that poem is (or was) as an offering to its audience.

Within that thought, all sorts of things come into play. What constituted the intended audience? What is satisfaction? What is enrichment?

A poem can disturb, and yet satisfy. It can be vague and not-quite-understandable, and yet leave its recipient feeling enriched.

However, I would argue strongly that semiotics has about as much to do with poetry as alliteration has to do with encyclopedias, especiallly when singled-out and given an arbitrary, lop-sided importance. It has been demonstrated amply in modern times that in order to remain relevant to any audience or readership, poetry must paint from a large pallette.

If few can see the color that was used, the cultural/societal influence is lost. If it is only one color, it is bound to be uninteresting. If no one can see it, then the hypothetical poet is ensconced in, and has opted to write from and into, obscurity.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

However, I would argue strongly that semiotics has about as much to do with poetry as alliteration has to do with encyclopedias...

There is nothing I can say in response to something like that. I don't think there is a single aspect of poetry that can be dissociated from semiotics; without it, there would be no poetry, there would be no language.

 

[twelveoone]

There is nothing I can say in response to something like that. I don't think there is a single aspect of poetry that can be dissociated from semiotics; without it, there would be no poetry, there would be no language.

Define

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Define

Without semiotics, you cannot choose one word over the next, you cannot have metaphors or images, you lose all touch with the fundaments of language. All systems of communication collapse.

To say that poetry doesn't have to do with semiotics is the equivalent of saying that math doesn't have to do with numbers.