tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post1715015330003089111..comments2023-10-03T11:41:21.191+01:00Comments on The Truth About Lies: God only knowsJim Murdochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-51836015125690375092008-03-01T01:57:00.000+00:002008-03-01T01:57:00.000+00:00Jim, I miss seeing you over at WCP. This was an aw...Jim, I miss seeing you over at WCP. This was an awesome post, BTW. I published a little piece about Browning on <A HREF="http://www.world-class-poetry.com/Robert-Browning.html" REL="nofollow">my website</A>.<BR/><BR/>I tagged you today for the six-word memoir game. Drop by the <A HREF="http://worldclasspoetryblog.com/my-six-word-memoir-a-poem/02/29/2008/" REL="nofollow">World Class Poetry Blog</A> and play a round.WorldClassPoethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05254782956560017376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-58341062451659373322008-02-24T14:59:00.000+00:002008-02-24T14:59:00.000+00:00Thanks for the feedback, Dave and Catherine, alway...Thanks for the feedback, Dave and Catherine, always nice to see new faces on the site. And Catherine, I'm working on a two-part blog at the moment on various forms of short poetry I'm sure you'll find interesting. Probably a couple of weeks before I post it though.Jim Murdochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-11468726318608628892008-02-24T14:38:00.000+00:002008-02-24T14:38:00.000+00:00This was a really interesting post. I've recently ...This was a really interesting post. I've recently started writing poetry again after a hiatus of many years, and I find myself wanting to experiment with words and form, whereas in years past, I just wanted to get certain feelings down on the page. <BR/>Dave King's comment is also highly relevant, and I've got some interesting ideas now in my head for when I write my next poems.Catherine @ Sharp Wordshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12988193118089559894noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-8863826283396718162008-02-23T14:56:00.000+00:002008-02-23T14:56:00.000+00:00I thoroughly enjoyed this post, there is much of t...I thoroughly enjoyed this post, there is much of this I can relate to.<BR/><BR/>You've managed to capture my interest, I will be back.Matt D. Barneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00684056569409545415noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-84739005634958199152008-02-23T12:15:00.000+00:002008-02-23T12:15:00.000+00:00Dave, I don't mind poems that make sense deep down...Dave, I don't mind poems that make sense deep down as long as they give me something up front to keep me going. That's why I like Beckett so much because he is immediately accessible without one needing to have a read anything by Dante; Eliot couldn’t even be jugged translating his opening lines into English. I don't mind something not making sense at first if sense is applied to it later. I'm enjoying a quirky TV programme at the moment called <I>Raines</I> about a detective who hallucinates, he talks to an image of the victim of the crime he is trying to solve, however, as he learns more about the victim you literally see the image metamorphose to suit the updated facts. As a writer I get that totally. <BR/><BR/>I'm afraid, Conda, that I find the poem nothing less than frustrating. I read it through again last night and it just annoyed me. I even read through some notes on the poem and they annoyed me even more, it might be this: it might be that, it might be t'other. <BR/><BR/>And, Gabe, I have so much trouble with my memory these days that it is only a matter of time before I forget my own name. I handed in a parcel to our next door neighbour a few days ago – a woman we have known for four years (or it is five?) – and I read her name on the parcel while I was waiting for her to come to the door but five minutes later back in the flat I couldn’t remember it. From a writing point of view it's a bit of a blessing as well as a curse, because I can put a bit of writing aside for a few days and I've pretty much forgotten what I was on about; that used to take months. The only thing I have to make sure now is that I leave it in plain site or I'll forget to go and look for it later.Jim Murdochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-58968469927544211002008-02-22T22:56:00.000+00:002008-02-22T22:56:00.000+00:00Jim,My confession: I had an incident about six mon...Jim,<BR/><BR/>My confession: I had an incident about six months ago when I was looking on my computer at various text files and I came across this one 'prose' piece that I was reading and I first said to myself, "Where did this come from?" "Who wrote this?" I thought it was a pretty compelling piece of prose and I began to get jealous that anyone could write this well and that I would not remember where I had got it. That I would not even know their name.<BR/><BR/>Until slowly as I read further it dawned on me that I had written it. <BR/><BR/>I felt like the puppy that had an accident on the floor and knew better what might come next.<BR/><BR/>Don't ask me where it is or what it was as I immediately lost it back again.<BR/><BR/>I am very much in favor of to put pieces on the shelf then come back to them at a later date. Sometimes they seem inconsolably muddled beyond repair, other times I pick them up with a fresh eye to work on them anew. I have never, ever, before that incident as nearly absolutely lost a connection with any piece that I have written.<BR/><BR/>I think there is something very important in getting that level of distance, in seeing that the distance is possible and to try to recreate the sense of distance in the action of writing... to strive to write outside of oneself.<BR/><BR/>Alan Ginsberg once said something about the place where we have got to when we forget our name.<BR/><BR/>I have gone on many adventures in the past to look for that place. It is kind of a hard one to get to, sort of like looking at the constellation Pleiads where if you look directly at them you cannot see them well and you have to look slightly askance and there they are. They are always there, that place where you forget your name is there, that sense of distance to be outside of one's act of writing is always there... just a need, if one cares to try, to learn to adjust the angle of perception.<BR/><BR/>I like your poem. If it is good, or not, I cannot ever tell. It either works for me, or it does not.<BR/><BR/>GOAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15887517793752604788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-10979592591358819832008-02-22T22:54:00.000+00:002008-02-22T22:54:00.000+00:00This comment has been removed by the author.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15887517793752604788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-26664284219850741502008-02-22T16:32:00.000+00:002008-02-22T16:32:00.000+00:00Interesting post, Jim. What it brought to mind for...Interesting post, Jim. What it brought to mind for me was the great poets and their editing of their poetry. This was especially true after I read Dave's comment. When I was in college, one class we had as our main text a volume of "J Alfred Prufrock" which contained all of the different versions of the poem, with all of the corrections and edits. The main assignment was two parts: Was the final edited version correct? If so, why? If not so, why and what version would be correct?<BR/><BR/>Drove me crazy until I discovered that there was no way to "fix" the poem other than the way Eliot had it in the final version. The why of that, as Dave pointed out, was elusive--it just was. Deconstructing such a famous poem was awe inspiring.Conda Douglashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12972790965426924941noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-66482466760464828072008-02-22T11:25:00.000+00:002008-02-22T11:25:00.000+00:00Jim, this post has intrigues me not a little. I am...Jim, this post has intrigues me not a little. I am getting echoes from it at all points of the compass: The Ciccarello poem which I shall have to come back to, and your poem, which actually picks up a line of thought from two of my earliest posts, <A HREF="http://picsandpoems.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_archive.html" REL="nofollow">It's How He Sees It</A> and <A HREF="http://picsandpoems.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html" REL="nofollow">Every Picture Tells a Story</A><BR/>Your comment about you having the key to your poem which the reader cannot have, strikes a chord. I have often had the experience (usually immediately after a redraft) or rereading a poem and thinking that a line or a reference does not make sense - because the line that made sense of it has been moved down and the reader does not yet have the necessary information. It's like a computer program where you introduce a variable before defining it. The program goes Ugh? and folds its arms in defiance, but need it matter all that much in a poem? Take Eliot's "Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock". You cannot make logical sense of it because he does not give you enough information. But at some deeper level it makes perfect sense.<BR/>Anyway, thanks for this post.Dave Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08430484174826768488noreply@blogger.com