Thanks for the comments. Here's a rewrite:
Twice a day I find myself
walking aimlessly around this field
as my labrador snouts the corners
in olfactory delirium.
There is a game I play
as I pace through the drizzle,
headphones snug in my ears,
music on random shuffle:
If this song was an artwork,
what kind of artwork would it be?
A paint-encrusted room-size canvas?
Outsider art penned obsessively
on the inside of a matchbox?
A crazily balanced kinetic sculpture?
So, Just by Radiohead
is a dark modern canvas,
a field of almost-black
attacked by stabs and jags of muddy colour.
Hank Williams is American Gothic,
figurative and ironic,
of its time and always,
laced with a stoic humour
and traces of a quiet mid-Western joie de vivre.
And Parklife is a Stanley Spencer diorama,
naïvely painted in a storybook style:
a man feeding plump pigeons;
some red-faced, middle-aged joggers
going round, and round, and round...
But a Rothko is like no sound I will ever hear --
the weathered breathing of a sleeping giant;
the hum of a magnetic field,
altering the pressure of my inner ear;
the dreamsong of a mythic whale,
moving its bulk through Arctic waters
like a great, primal Zeppelin.
The vision of an artist,
transmitted through three thousand miles of space
and sixty years of of time
at a wavelength matching my pulse,
bringing it down, down, down.
____________
Original version:
Twice a day I find myself
walking aimlessly around this field
as my Labrador snouts the corners
in olfactory delirium.
There is a thought-game
I play as I pace through the drizzle,
headphones snug in my ears,
my music on random shuffle:
'If this song was an artwork,
what kind of artwork would it be?'.
A paint-encrusted room-size canvas?
Outsider art penned obsessively
on the inside of a matchbox?
A crazily balanced kinetic sculpture?
So, Just by Radiohead
would be a dark modern canvas,
a field of almost-black
attacked by stabs and jags of muddy colour.
Hank Williams is always American Gothic,
figurative and ironic,
of its time and always,
laced with a stoic humour
and traces of a quiet mid-Western joie de vivre.
And Parklife is a Stanley Spencer diorama,
with flattened perspective
naïvely painted in a storybook style:
here is a man feeding plump pigeons;
and here are some red-faced, middle-aged joggers;
in the corner, bin men heave,
and the circular park path goes round, and round, and round...
But now I stand before a Rothko
and it is like no sound I will ever hear.
It is the weathered breathing
of a sleeping giant;
it is the hum of a magnetic field,
altering the pressure of my inner ear;
it is the dreamsong of a mythical whale,
moving its bulk
through the Arctic waters
like a great, primal Zeppelin.
It is the mind of an artist,
heavy with vision,
transmitted through 3000 miles of space
and 60 years of of time
at a wavelength that matches my pulse,
and brings it down, down, down.
Rothko rewrite
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- Posts: 1988
- Joined: 02 Mar 2016, 18:07
- Location: Between the mountains and the sea
Re: Rothko
Interesting name for a dog, and of course it refers to an artists, a modern artists who paints in fascinating colour. It is an educated man's poem, instructive, educating, and poems should do that, yes? It has so much details and tells us that a dogs has 220 million olfactory receptors in the nose whereas a human has just three million. It doesn't say that but shows us with a load of detail somewhat overpowering at times.
There is no doubt of the cleverness of the poet, myself I wonder if the presentation is too much, could it be cut back a little in places.
Good poem nevertheless.
There is no doubt of the cleverness of the poet, myself I wonder if the presentation is too much, could it be cut back a little in places.
Good poem nevertheless.
-
- Posts: 2154
- Joined: 18 Apr 2005, 04:57
Re: Rothko
Hi, morkhenderson, and Welcome to the Writer's Block!
here at writer's block
we are a location
not a hang-up
Since you posted this late in the month of February, and since it did not receive a workshop comment until this month March 7,
how about - hopefully - this imaginative poem will receive more comment
and perhaps you will workshop it
and perhaps, maybe, it will
- with your permission and if you aren't going to have a poem already committed to represent another board in the upcoming April IBPC -
maybe it will be considered to represent the Writer's Block.
I realize it is still early in the month, but I see potential in your poem,
and the Writer's Block needs to consider a fresh voice representing, in addition to the regular core.
I'm in accord with Frank re streamlining.
I'm workshop suggesting for example, in stanza 7:
Now a Rothko is like no sound I will ever hear --
the weathered breathing of a sleeping giant
the hum of a magnetic field,
altering the pressure of my inner ear;
rising from the canvas,
the dreamsong of a mythic whale,
moving its bulk through Arctic waters
like a great, primal Zeppelin.
and then, in the last stanza:
The vision of an artist,
transmitted through 3000 miles of space
and 60 years of of time
at a wavelength matching my pulse,
bringing it down, down, down.
I like the opening, esp the "olfactory delirium." - and then the poem goes on to explore & celebrate how we as humans do this with our aesthetic sensibility engaging in ekphrasis.
^^ and hearing John Keats - "O for a life of sensations rather than of thoughts" - that brings me to suggest "There is a thought-game" as There is an imagine-game
or simply:
There is a game
I play as I pace through the drizzle,
headphones snug in my ears,
my music on random shuffle:
If this song was an artwork,
what kind of artwork would it be?
and that might be streamlined to more immediate without the 1st line:
I play as I pace through the drizzle,
headphones snug in my ears,
my music on random shuffle:
If this song was an artwork,
what kind of artwork would it be?
An epigraph from Tolkien that might occur before that 1st stanza:
"Not all those who wander are lost."
I close for now by saying
that Imagination is not a game
Imagination is genuine
for being visionary
^^ and that in association with the last stanza of this poem Rothko
and why this poem appeals to me
Michael (MV)
here at writer's block
we are a location
not a hang-up
Since you posted this late in the month of February, and since it did not receive a workshop comment until this month March 7,
how about - hopefully - this imaginative poem will receive more comment
and perhaps you will workshop it
and perhaps, maybe, it will
- with your permission and if you aren't going to have a poem already committed to represent another board in the upcoming April IBPC -
maybe it will be considered to represent the Writer's Block.
I realize it is still early in the month, but I see potential in your poem,
and the Writer's Block needs to consider a fresh voice representing, in addition to the regular core.
I'm in accord with Frank re streamlining.
I'm workshop suggesting for example, in stanza 7:
Now a Rothko is like no sound I will ever hear --
the weathered breathing of a sleeping giant
the hum of a magnetic field,
altering the pressure of my inner ear;
rising from the canvas,
the dreamsong of a mythic whale,
moving its bulk through Arctic waters
like a great, primal Zeppelin.
and then, in the last stanza:
The vision of an artist,
transmitted through 3000 miles of space
and 60 years of of time
at a wavelength matching my pulse,
bringing it down, down, down.
I like the opening, esp the "olfactory delirium." - and then the poem goes on to explore & celebrate how we as humans do this with our aesthetic sensibility engaging in ekphrasis.
^^ and hearing John Keats - "O for a life of sensations rather than of thoughts" - that brings me to suggest "There is a thought-game" as There is an imagine-game
or simply:
There is a game
I play as I pace through the drizzle,
headphones snug in my ears,
my music on random shuffle:
If this song was an artwork,
what kind of artwork would it be?
and that might be streamlined to more immediate without the 1st line:
I play as I pace through the drizzle,
headphones snug in my ears,
my music on random shuffle:
If this song was an artwork,
what kind of artwork would it be?
An epigraph from Tolkien that might occur before that 1st stanza:
"Not all those who wander are lost."
I close for now by saying
that Imagination is not a game
Imagination is genuine
for being visionary
^^ and that in association with the last stanza of this poem Rothko
and why this poem appeals to me
Michael (MV)
-
- Posts: 10
- Joined: 27 Feb 2016, 23:47
Re: Rothko
Thanks both for the comments, which are very helpful. Firstly, a confession: I never saw that the dog was a metaphor for sensory perception. But it works well, and I claim that for my subconscious!
I'll work on trimming the poem. I like some of Michael's rewrite suggestions, and agree that it could be tighter.
Thanks again, and I'll repost when I've had a chance to rework it.
I'll work on trimming the poem. I like some of Michael's rewrite suggestions, and agree that it could be tighter.
Thanks again, and I'll repost when I've had a chance to rework it.