The Nutritionist

[CalebMurdock]

The Nutritionist

[BobBradshaw]

I am delighted by this poem.

[CalebMurdock]

Thanks, Bob. Don't hesitate to criticize, though. I won't learn anything if you hold back.

[BobBradshaw]

I would take out the "(of course)". It isn't needed. That's my only nit. It's a good poem to send out.

[CalebMurdock]

Thank you, Bob. Yes, the "of course" is an aside, a commentary from the speaker. I figured that most readers would say to themselves, "Yes, I already know sugar is bad", and I wanted to acknowledge that. But I also put it in there to fill out the line, which was too short. However, I'll look at alternatives. "Of course" may be less objectionable than any other words I can find to stretch the line. Perhaps if I take "of course" out of parentheses, it will be less obvious.

It just occurred to me that "of course" is also a way of saying "duh!", an expression which acknowledges something that everyone already knows.

When I posted this poem on another forum, one member said she didn't like the part where I started to talk about the nutritionist herself -- "But that woman ...". I wanted to see if you had the same reaction.

Thank you so much.

[BobBradshaw]

Advice....Never fill a line just for the sake of filling it.... Whatever goes there has to have a compelling reason to be there... A short line is much better than one with filler.

Are you counting feet? Or something else? Just curious...

[CalebMurdock]

I don't remember at this point. I may have been counting beats or syllables. But you have to understand, I liked that "of course" -- it wasn't added just to fill the line out. What can I say? I just like those little asides that I stick in here and there. It makes the poem more human, somehow.

I was probably going for 14-15 syllables per line, just to give the poem some consistency.

[FranktheFrank]

I've been busy these last few days and missed this gem.
This is great, Caleb, the best you've posted so far.
I like your style, the voice. The message is good too
you won't get hungry if you give up sugar.

[FranktheFrank]

Sometimes the asides work
most times they become fillers.

[CalebMurdock]

Thanks, Frank. I really appreciate it. I'll take another look at your tribute to your mate.

I usually put the asides in because I like them.

[Michael (MV)]

What does the poem like - in order to be genuine?

The poet is a conduit to the poem.

As John Keats said about Poetry:

"If it doesn't come as naturally as leaves to s tree,
it best not come at all.'


POETICS by A.R. Ammons

I look for the way
things will turn
out spiralling from a center,
the shape
things will take to come forth in

so that the birch tree white
touched black at branches
will stand out
wind-glittering
totally its apparent self:

I look for the forms
things want to come as

from what black wells of possibility,
how a thing will
unfold:

not the shape on paper—though
that, too—but the
uninterfering means on paper:

not so much looking for the shape
as being available
to any shape that may be
summoning itself
through me
from the self not mine but ours.


"totally it's apparent self"



Michael (MV)

[CalebMurdock]

I'm not sure what your point is, Michael, but thank you for contributing.

Just so you'll know, Keats and Ammons are two of my least-favorite poets.

[Michael (MV)]

By the way, in general, this poem is moving in the direction of evolving into "its apparent self."

Frustration & conflict handled with humor.

The mechanical ( ) is excess that can easily & readily be lost by deleting.


In the last 10 years, although I am not a couch potato, I have gradually morphed into a roly-poly man, yet I have been enjoying it.

But I believe I have reached my threshold. So I give into sleep - which is convenient for me because of my health - and, of course, I simply forget about eating. I have enjoyed dreams about eating, but thery are calorie-free.


By the way, re the last line:

Poems aren't from the brain. The brain is not a source of Inspiration. When it comes to Creativity, the brain is dead.



Michael (MV)

[CalebMurdock]

Thank you for your thoughts, Michael. I agree that the brain isn't the source of creativity. My views are in the "New Age" spectrum. I believe in a multidimensional God, a multiverse, a soul, reincarnation and karma. The Seth Material is pretty much my religion.

[FranktheFrank]

If the brain is not the source of inspiration,
that thinking mechanism of soft grey matter,
then what is the source of our rich vein of poems.

Do they emanate from an armpit, I wonder,
or from a big toe. It cannot possibly from the heart.
That is just a big pump for blood flow.

Unless you refer to the mythical spiritual heart
so often proposed by the KJV. But isn't poetry
pagan in essence and anything goes?

[CalebMurdock]

My poem seems to have inspired a couple of you to song.

My personal belief is that the mind and brain are two different, although interrelated, things. At death, the mind continues on while the brain dies.

[BobBradshaw]

Ha! There are some very odd things being said in this stream, but the oddest is someone not liking Keats! The mysteries of life….lol

[FranktheFrank]

We all have brains
some in good working order
some have intellect
some can multiply 1234000 by 6540 in minutes on their fingers
We all have a will, some of us weak-willed prone to every misdemeanour under the sun
Some have spirit, it shines with goodness
I suppose the mind is how we use our brain
Do we exercise it
or do we exorcise our darkest thoughts
Some of us have love, some patience, and other gifts
like insight, some have indefinable qualities
Its all very confusing like Brian and his brain

[CalebMurdock]

Who is Brian, Frank? And why do you keep feeling that you have to scold me?

To me, Keats is the last gasp of flowery Romanticism. So far -- and no, I haven't read all 54 poems that he wrote, but I promise I will -- I haven't been able to find anything written in what I consider to be a natural voice. He was writing at a time when modernism was already beginning to bloom. He didn't have to write like the oldest of old ladies. I feel sad that he died at so young an age, of course. Maybe his mature poetry would have been something that I could love.

Bob, why don't you post in this thread your favorite Keats poem, and explain to me why you love it.

[BobBradshaw]

I don’t have just one favorite, but I do have a soft spot for the light hearted “On a Grasshopper and Cricket”:

The poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper’s—he takes the lead
In summer luxury,—he has never done
With his delights; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
The Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.

The poem grabs me with the descriptions “faint “, and “cooling trees”. I love the enjambment in these lines

“a voice will run
from hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead.”

The enjambment mimics the action of the grasshopper’s song traveling through the summer air.

The alliteration is nice, but the consonance is great, again mimicking the “s” and ticking sounds of a grasshopper’s voice. The sonics in Keats’ work blows me away. There are few poets in his class who are so masterful with sounds.
Again, this line: He rests at ease beneath some pleasant reed.

The consonance, assonance and warmth in this line suggests a pleasant summery afternoon.

The harsh change to winter is suggested, partly through image, partly through sound, with this description:

On a lone winter evening, when the frost
has wrought a silence

“Wrought”… a terrific choice of verb. And instead of the pleasant run of consonance in the hedge to hedge run line, we get the slower, longer vowels to suggest winter, and how activity slows down.

And unlike the Grasshopper’s warm voice, we get a cricket that ”shrills”. Keats likes to work often in opposites in his poems, which is very effective.

But as the cricket’s song increases in warmth, the listener, growing drowsy by a fire, feels the cricket’s voice becoming more and more similar to the cricket’s, which brings back pleasant memories of summer. Listen to how the sounds of those two closing lines echo the pleasant sounds we heard earlier in the grasshopper’s singing.

And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
the grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.

Listen to the breezy s sounds, mixed with h and n sounds:

to one in drowsiness, half lost, grasshopper’s, among some grassy hills.

[Billy]

I like what Wallace Stevens said about the mind, intellect:

Poetry must resist the intelligence almost successfully.

[CalebMurdock]

Billy, I agree that too much "smarts" can ruin poetry. The best poetry comes from a deep place, but to be intelligible, it must be filtered through the mind.

Bob, that is a FABULOUS Keats poem -- but what makes it fabulous is that it doesn't sound much like Keats. I'm going to put that in my file of favorite poems by other authors. I like to think that if Keats lived, he would have written more poems in that more-modern voice.

The poetry of earth is ceasing never:

That's my favorite line!