酷我-北美枫

[ericcoliu]

(Throbbing Agony has been published in the March Issue of Word Catalyst)


Reading and Writing: Life on the Page


Throbbing Agony


Version I:


I am enveloped in pleasure
as grass is wrapped in morning dew.
I am a bard riding a dragon,
flying across time and space.
I can’t tell you where --
as if I appeared where I am now.
Daylight streams into my room.

I must have experienced la petite mort
after Calliope had caressed my secret spots.



Version II:


I must have experienced
la petite mort after Calliope
caressed my secret spots--
enveloped in pleasure
as the grass is wrapped
in dewy green. I am a bard
riding a dragon, flying across time
and space. I can’t tell you where –
as if I appeared where I am now.



Note:

1 La petite mort, the French expression for "the little death", has been generally used to portray the post-orgasmic fainting spells. Now, it is more widely used to refer to the release of energy coming with orgasm or melancholy or ecstasy as a result of the expenditure of the life force. The late French literary critic Roland Barthes viewed "la petite mort" as the first and foremost objective of reading literature, one which one should get when experiencing any great literature.

2 These two lines, “I can’t tell you where -- / as if I appeared where I am now,” are taken from "Winter Privacy Poems at the Shack" collected in Silence in the Snowy Fields by Robert Bly.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[[ericcoliu]]

(Throbbing Agony has been published in the March Issue of Word Catalyst)


Reading and Writing: Life on the Page


Throbbing Agony


Version I:


I am enveloped in pleasure
as grass is wrapped in morning dew.
I am a bard riding a dragon,
flying across time and space.
I can’t tell you where --
as if I appeared where I am now.
Daylight streams into my room.

I must have experienced la petite mort
after Calliope had caressed my secret spots.



Version II:


I must have experienced
la petite mort after Calliope
caressed my secret spots--
enveloped in pleasure
as the grass is wrapped
in dewy green. I am a bard
riding a dragon, flying across time
and space. I can’t tell you where –
as if I appeared where I am now.



Note:

1 La petite mort, the French expression for "the little death", has been generally used to portray the post-orgasmic fainting spells. Now, it is more widely used to refer to the release of energy coming with orgasm or melancholy or ecstasy as a result of the expenditure of the life force. The late French literary critic Roland Barthes viewed "la petite mort" as the first and foremost objective of reading literature, one which one should get when experiencing any great literature.

2 These two lines, “I can’t tell you where -- / as if I appeared where I am now,” are taken from "Winter Privacy Poems at the Shack" collected in Silence in the Snowy Fields by Robert Bly.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[ericcoliu]

Itchy Agony is a poem I wrote in tribute to Robert Bly's contributions to Contemporary American poetry:


“Freud pointed out that the dream still retained the fantastic freedom of association known to us before only from ancient art. By the end of the nineteenth century both the poem and the dream had been set free… The poets then began to devote their lives to deepening the range of association in the poem… It is this movement that has given such fantastic energy to ‘modern poetry'… In ancient times, in the ‘time of inspiration’, the poet flew from one world to another, ‘riding on dragons’.... They dragged behind them long tails of dragonsmoke.... This dragonsmoke means that a leap has taken place in the poem. In many ancient works of art we notice a long floating leap at the center of a work. That leap can be described as a leap from the conscious to the unconscious and back again, a leap from the known part of the mind to the unknown part and back to the known.”

-- Leaping Poetry: An Idea with Poems and Translations by Robert Bly
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[[ericcoliu]]

Itchy Agony is a poem I wrote in tribute to Robert Bly's contributions to Contemporary American poetry:


“Freud pointed out that the dream still retained the fantastic freedom of association known to us before only from ancient art. By the end of the nineteenth century both the poem and the dream had been set free… The poets then began to devote their lives to deepening the range of association in the poem… It is this movement that has given such fantastic energy to ‘modern poetry'… In ancient times, in the ‘time of inspiration’, the poet flew from one world to another, ‘riding on dragons’.... They dragged behind them long tails of dragonsmoke.... This dragonsmoke means that a leap has taken place in the poem. In many ancient works of art we notice a long floating leap at the center of a work. That leap can be described as a leap from the conscious to the unconscious and back again, a leap from the known part of the mind to the unknown part and back to the known.”

-- Leaping Poetry: An Idea with Poems and Translations by Robert Bly
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[Lake]

Eric,

It sounds very lyrical, different than your normal write.

A couple of small things:

[[Lake]]

Eric,

It sounds very lyrical, different than your normal write.

A couple of small things:

[Lake]

Eric,

It sounds very lyrical, different than your normal write.

A couple of small things:

[[Lake]]

Eric,

It sounds very lyrical, different than your normal write.

A couple of small things:

[ericcoliu]

[[ericcoliu]]

[dundas]

Version 2 is more succinct while version 1 is emotionally evocative.

[[dundas]]

Version 2 is more succinct while version 1 is emotionally evocative.

[Lake]

Eric,

"caressed" and "secret" are good replacement of "touched" and "itchy"(Now I don't fee itchy anymore).

V2 is definitely more compact and the ideas are tightened up.

Though I see the link between the opening and the ending couplets in V1, I feel the ending is not wrapped up well.

V2 has my vote if you ask me.

Lake

[[Lake]]

Eric,

"caressed" and "secret" are good replacement of "touched" and "itchy"(Now I don't fee itchy anymore).

V2 is definitely more compact and the ideas are tightened up.

Though I see the link between the opening and the ending couplets in V1, I feel the ending is not wrapped up well.

V2 has my vote if you ask me.

Lake

[ericcoliu]

[[ericcoliu]]

[温暖的水獸]

I prefer version II, which is more poetic.

Read out of the context where ericcoliu tries to situate his readers, Itchy Agony is a disguided erotic poem.
_________________
舌頭那匹温暖的水獸　馴養地在小小的水族箱中　蠕動
那獸說：是的 我願意

[[温暖的水獸]]

I prefer version II, which is more poetic.

Read out of the context where ericcoliu tries to situate his readers, Itchy Agony is a disguided erotic poem.
_________________
舌頭那匹温暖的水獸　馴養地在小小的水族箱中　蠕動
那獸說：是的 我願意

[ericcoliu]

[[ericcoliu]]

[ericcoliu]

Throbbing Agony has been published in the March Issue of Word Catalyst.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[[ericcoliu]]

Throbbing Agony has been published in the March Issue of Word Catalyst.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul