酷我-北美枫

[anna]

WHAT DOES RAE ARMANTROUT’S THE WAY TELL US?

It is no surprise to see that Rae Armantrout’s poem “The Way” has become one of the most controversial poem on ModPo’s discussion forum this week. It is also common to see each reader’s interpretation shifts back and forth in spite of there being some resources to help them with further closing readings and their understanding. Ray’s The Way certainly is a language poem as Language poet Lyn Hejinian concludes:” Language is nothing but meanings, and meanings are nothing but a flow of contexts. Such contexts rarely coalesce into images, rarely come to terms. They are transitions, transmutations, the endless radiating of denotation into relation”. In Ray’s interview, she indicated that she gathered some snippets of languages from three different locations: a card in a pew at church, a line from a song and some overheard conversation. She put them together with her memory of her mother’s story-telling during her childhood. According to her, it is like a collage of thoughts and memory. Now we read it and try to put the pieces of a puzzle together, we feel as if we are viewing an abstract painting or lost in the bush. Each reader wonders about how to closely read the poem, what is “the way” the poem refers to? Despite several closing readings, the poem becomes no clearer. On my first reading, I was attracted by the announcing “I am here” and “Grease is the word, grease is/ the way”. I thought there was some connection between these references that both link to strong feeling. Without any knowledge of Rae Armantrout, I tried to connect her verses together using my point of view. I picture a troubled poet at church finding a card saying “I am here” during a harsh winter and she makes a statement: Grease is the word. The poet continues reflecting real life and other difficult times and believes one needs to grasp some hope. Further on the poet remembers her childhood lost in stories. The voice calling “I am Here” brings her out of her confusion.
However after I read it again and again, I felt lost and unsure especially after listening to her talk about the poem. It seems she is much more open to whatever the poem brings to reader or simply more satisfied with how the poem displays itself. In fact, like the way that the poem displays itself, the way that in our real life, most time we cannot be very sure- we get a piece here, a piece there and try to put them together and dig out the meaning from our memory, from others’ voices, try to search for or grasp something like hope, like the voice “I am Here”, once, then again at another moment… With that thought, I think I should just end my effort to find the answer right now. I will come back some time later. By that time, I hope my reading will possibly lead to another answer, another meaning just as Lyn Hejinian’s remarks suggest.
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com

[[星子安娜]]

WHAT DOES RAE ARMANTROUT’S THE WAY TELL US?

It is no surprise to see that Rae Armantrout’s poem “The Way” has become one of the most controversial poem on ModPo’s discussion forum this week. It is also common to see each reader’s interpretation shifts back and forth in spite of there being some resources to help them with further closing readings and their understanding. Ray’s The Way certainly is a language poem as Language poet Lyn Hejinian concludes:” Language is nothing but meanings, and meanings are nothing but a flow of contexts. Such contexts rarely coalesce into images, rarely come to terms. They are transitions, transmutations, the endless radiating of denotation into relation”. In Ray’s interview, she indicated that she gathered some snippets of languages from three different locations: a card in a pew at church, a line from a song and some overheard conversation. She put them together with her memory of her mother’s story-telling during her childhood. According to her, it is like a collage of thoughts and memory. Now we read it and try to put the pieces of a puzzle together, we feel as if we are viewing an abstract painting or lost in the bush. Each reader wonders about how to closely read the poem, what is “the way” the poem refers to? Despite several closing readings, the poem becomes no clearer. On my first reading, I was attracted by the announcing “I am here” and “Grease is the word, grease is/ the way”. I thought there was some connection between these references that both link to strong feeling. Without any knowledge of Rae Armantrout, I tried to connect her verses together using my point of view. I picture a troubled poet at church finding a card saying “I am here” during a harsh winter and she makes a statement: Grease is the word. The poet continues reflecting real life and other difficult times and believes one needs to grasp some hope. Further on the poet remembers her childhood lost in stories. The voice calling “I am Here” brings her out of her confusion.
However after I read it again and again, I felt lost and unsure especially after listening to her talk about the poem. It seems she is much more open to whatever the poem brings to reader or simply more satisfied with how the poem displays itself. In fact, like the way that the poem displays itself, the way that in our real life, most time we cannot be very sure- we get a piece here, a piece there and try to put them together and dig out the meaning from our memory, from others’ voices, try to search for or grasp something like hope, like the voice “I am Here”, once, then again at another moment… With that thought, I think I should just end my effort to find the answer right now. I will come back some time later. By that time, I hope my reading will possibly lead to another answer, another meaning just as Lyn Hejinian’s remarks suggest.
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com

[anna]

What have we missed? – reading Dickinson’s ‘I taste a liquor never brewed’
Like Emily Dickinson’s most poems, this poem wasn’t titled, it began with “I taste a liquor never brewed” and the whole poem was composed of four stanza of rhymed verses, and each line ended with dash just like the typical Dickinson’s style ballad. No surprise, Dickinson capitalized most nouns in the poem such as Pearl, Alcohol, Air, Dew, Vats, Bee, Butterflies, and Tippler etc to enforce the readers’ attention on them. As we look at these words that represent things from the Natural world, “Pearl, Alcohol, Air..” might be seen as the moon and moonlight, Bee, Butterflies as light and bright things, all perfectly set the tone of the poem. For the musical sound, Dickinson applied alliteration such as Debauchee of Dew, Seraphs swing etc. From the beginning, Dickinson tell us “I taste a liquor never brewed –“ You may wonder what kind of liquor. Is it really liquor? Although the answer is not important, it truly bring a mystical atmosphere. We might assume at night, Dickinson enjoyed a company of the beautiful moonlight and imagined herself drinking the divine moonlight that make her intoxicated and wanted it last forever.
Either way, in the following stanza as Dickinson tells us, “Inebriate of Air -- am I –“ the whole summer days, she took the pleasure of that…In the third stanza Dickinson compared the liquor she tasted with the dews or nectar that bees and butterflies drunk, she tell us that she wanted to drink hers more. Here Dickinson fondly play with words: “Landlords”, and Butterflies -- renounce their "drams". The images are lovely and vivid by her use of personification. Now it becomes more playful and light as the poet become more drunk, at the end she uses “Seraphs swing their snowy Hats” to imply till the end of her life, “Leaning against the – Sun” finally she rests there with a glad and drunk heart.
This is a very joyful and delightful poem. Dickson cheerfully unveiled a kind of ecstatic experience. It could involve the physical state or the spiritual fancy. Like many of her poems, I believe this is an ode to the beauty and mystery of nature or an ecstatic experience derived from her physical condition.
In today’s life, on our busy journey, many of us have no time to stopp to smell a flower, chase butterflies, or stroll under the moon, do we regret and ask what we have missed?
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com

[[星子安娜]]

What have we missed? – reading Dickinson’s ‘I taste a liquor never brewed’
Like Emily Dickinson’s most poems, this poem wasn’t titled, it began with “I taste a liquor never brewed” and the whole poem was composed of four stanza of rhymed verses, and each line ended with dash just like the typical Dickinson’s style ballad. No surprise, Dickinson capitalized most nouns in the poem such as Pearl, Alcohol, Air, Dew, Vats, Bee, Butterflies, and Tippler etc to enforce the readers’ attention on them. As we look at these words that represent things from the Natural world, “Pearl, Alcohol, Air..” might be seen as the moon and moonlight, Bee, Butterflies as light and bright things, all perfectly set the tone of the poem. For the musical sound, Dickinson applied alliteration such as Debauchee of Dew, Seraphs swing etc. From the beginning, Dickinson tell us “I taste a liquor never brewed –“ You may wonder what kind of liquor. Is it really liquor? Although the answer is not important, it truly bring a mystical atmosphere. We might assume at night, Dickinson enjoyed a company of the beautiful moonlight and imagined herself drinking the divine moonlight that make her intoxicated and wanted it last forever.
Either way, in the following stanza as Dickinson tells us, “Inebriate of Air -- am I –“ the whole summer days, she took the pleasure of that…In the third stanza Dickinson compared the liquor she tasted with the dews or nectar that bees and butterflies drunk, she tell us that she wanted to drink hers more. Here Dickinson fondly play with words: “Landlords”, and Butterflies -- renounce their "drams". The images are lovely and vivid by her use of personification. Now it becomes more playful and light as the poet become more drunk, at the end she uses “Seraphs swing their snowy Hats” to imply till the end of her life, “Leaning against the – Sun” finally she rests there with a glad and drunk heart.
This is a very joyful and delightful poem. Dickson cheerfully unveiled a kind of ecstatic experience. It could involve the physical state or the spiritual fancy. Like many of her poems, I believe this is an ode to the beauty and mystery of nature or an ecstatic experience derived from her physical condition.
In today’s life, on our busy journey, many of us have no time to stopp to smell a flower, chase butterflies, or stroll under the moon, do we regret and ask what we have missed?
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com

[anna]

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/liquor.html
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com

[[星子安娜]]

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/liquor.html
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com

[anna]

https://class.coursera.org/modernpoetry-003/forum/thread?thread_id=1504
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com

[[星子安娜]]

https://class.coursera.org/modernpoetry-003/forum/thread?thread_id=1504
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com

[anna]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmP1A8IvwB4
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com

[[星子安娜]]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmP1A8IvwB4
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com

[anna]

http://poemsbyray.blogspot.ca/2014/09/post-strike-analysis.html
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com

[[星子安娜]]

http://poemsbyray.blogspot.ca/2014/09/post-strike-analysis.html
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com

[anna]

As most of us know, the imagists wrote succinct verse of dry clarity and hard outline in which an exact visual image made a total poetic statement. The Imagists issued several manifestos about poetry. So when we try to determine which kind of poetry is imagist, we can compare their rules. After reading two versions of Young Woman at a Window by William Carol Williams, we get the exact visual images from the second version. We can see the language in the second version is dry and direct, succinct and plain, simply showing what the poet sees: “A young woman, cheek in hand with tears on cheek. A boy sits on her lab, nose pressing the glass” and Williams presents these images with exactness of observed detail and economy of language that follows the rule ‘4. To present an image…” Williams does not tell us what has happened that causes these tears of the young lady, instead he just presents the images by employing the exact words according to rule: “1. To use the language of common speech, but to employ the exact word, not the nearly-exact, nor the merely decorative word,” His main concentration is that moment, not before or after which shows rule “6: concentration is of the very essence of poetry”. However in the first version although Williams uses the language of common speech, he tries to tell us what has happened by those lines: “this little boy who robs her/ knows of nothing of his theft”. So from this version, Williams seems not to confine his words to pure images that could give us the freedom of imagination, rather filling us with background and by doing that the poem becomes de-imaged to tell a secondary story which alters the poem to be much narrower and prose-like.

All in all, we can determine that the second version is more imagist since it merely presents what is there, but not telling what happens there. I would like to end this discussion with this mid-night haiku, goodnight!

jasmine light
cat's claws on the wall
petals still
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com

[[星子安娜]]

As most of us know, the imagists wrote succinct verse of dry clarity and hard outline in which an exact visual image made a total poetic statement. The Imagists issued several manifestos about poetry. So when we try to determine which kind of poetry is imagist, we can compare their rules. After reading two versions of Young Woman at a Window by William Carol Williams, we get the exact visual images from the second version. We can see the language in the second version is dry and direct, succinct and plain, simply showing what the poet sees: “A young woman, cheek in hand with tears on cheek. A boy sits on her lab, nose pressing the glass” and Williams presents these images with exactness of observed detail and economy of language that follows the rule ‘4. To present an image…” Williams does not tell us what has happened that causes these tears of the young lady, instead he just presents the images by employing the exact words according to rule: “1. To use the language of common speech, but to employ the exact word, not the nearly-exact, nor the merely decorative word,” His main concentration is that moment, not before or after which shows rule “6: concentration is of the very essence of poetry”. However in the first version although Williams uses the language of common speech, he tries to tell us what has happened by those lines: “this little boy who robs her/ knows of nothing of his theft”. So from this version, Williams seems not to confine his words to pure images that could give us the freedom of imagination, rather filling us with background and by doing that the poem becomes de-imaged to tell a secondary story which alters the poem to be much narrower and prose-like.

All in all, we can determine that the second version is more imagist since it merely presents what is there, but not telling what happens there. I would like to end this discussion with this mid-night haiku, goodnight!

jasmine light
cat's claws on the wall
petals still
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com

[anna]

I shall never collapse, closely reading “Lana Turner has collapsed!”

I am reading and thinking about how to write the essay
(According to Al, my essay might discuss the I-do-this-I-do-that style) –

Sure, the rain just stopped, and I looked outside,
the sky began to clear up.

Now it is fall of 2014, I am writing this in our northern country:
Mr. O'Hara trotting along in the snowing and raining Feb of 1962,
on the way to Wagner College in New York.
(thanks to Google, nowadays we are able to find anything we want)

On my screen, I continue tracing his lines:
“and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky”…
Hail and traffic, well, Mr. O'Hara, if you rise from the grave in the south,
you should consider lucky for not being in this Big Smoking city!

But what do I know? I wasn’t born then…
So many things might have happened…
Whom did he want to meet? Why? Any meaning?
Yet from ModPo team’s discussions,
that isn’t important, as Mr. O'Hara promoted
autobiographia literaria “You just go on your nerve…”

“You just go on your nerve…”
So I follow Mr. O'Hara’s steps –
on the ferry, “suddenly see a headline
LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!”

Fair enough. At the present I can simply track “I do this, I do that”…
although the present tense has become a past tense by now
and his statements of “there is no snow in Hollywood,
there is no rain in California” properly remain true...
Still... I have missed Mr. O'Hara’s lots of parties
where he claimed being acted perfectly disgraceful,
and never actually collapsed -
(in my curiosity , I long to see that)
well, no film to flashback ...
So I want to call out, “ O'Hara we love you get up”...
as if he pleas "oh Lana Turner we love you get up"

On the TV, a local headline caught my eyes:
"Rob Fort announced him stepping down."
Thanks god!
Surely his isn’t a collapse like Lana Turner’s fall,
which according to her fifth husband, due to working so hard
and only sleeping four hours at nights…( Again, from Google)

The weather reporter warns us:
"there will be snow in Toronto,
there will be rain elsewhere…"
I think I might go to lots of parties
and act perfectly graceful.
Oh Rob Fort we love you step down.
Oh Lana Turner we love you get up.

As for this essay, it might fail at the very beginning.
I too will be surprised if it succeeds, although it did
hit the target of 500 words and “I-do-this and I-do-that”.

It will snow. Yes, I know - I am fine to receive critiques
and cold faces. I shall never collapse…
Oh Rob Fort we love you step down.
Oh Lana Turner we love you get up.
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com

[[星子安娜]]

I shall never collapse, closely reading “Lana Turner has collapsed!”

I am reading and thinking about how to write the essay
(According to Al, my essay might discuss the I-do-this-I-do-that style) –

Sure, the rain just stopped, and I looked outside,
the sky began to clear up.

Now it is fall of 2014, I am writing this in our northern country:
Mr. O'Hara trotting along in the snowing and raining Feb of 1962,
on the way to Wagner College in New York.
(thanks to Google, nowadays we are able to find anything we want)

On my screen, I continue tracing his lines:
“and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky”…
Hail and traffic, well, Mr. O'Hara, if you rise from the grave in the south,
you should consider lucky for not being in this Big Smoking city!

But what do I know? I wasn’t born then…
So many things might have happened…
Whom did he want to meet? Why? Any meaning?
Yet from ModPo team’s discussions,
that isn’t important, as Mr. O'Hara promoted
autobiographia literaria “You just go on your nerve…”

“You just go on your nerve…”
So I follow Mr. O'Hara’s steps –
on the ferry, “suddenly see a headline
LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!”

Fair enough. At the present I can simply track “I do this, I do that”…
although the present tense has become a past tense by now
and his statements of “there is no snow in Hollywood,
there is no rain in California” properly remain true...
Still... I have missed Mr. O'Hara’s lots of parties
where he claimed being acted perfectly disgraceful,
and never actually collapsed -
(in my curiosity , I long to see that)
well, no film to flashback ...
So I want to call out, “ O'Hara we love you get up”...
as if he pleas "oh Lana Turner we love you get up"

On the TV, a local headline caught my eyes:
"Rob Fort announced him stepping down."
Thanks god!
Surely his isn’t a collapse like Lana Turner’s fall,
which according to her fifth husband, due to working so hard
and only sleeping four hours at nights…( Again, from Google)

The weather reporter warns us:
"there will be snow in Toronto,
there will be rain elsewhere…"
I think I might go to lots of parties
and act perfectly graceful.
Oh Rob Fort we love you step down.
Oh Lana Turner we love you get up.

As for this essay, it might fail at the very beginning.
I too will be surprised if it succeeds, although it did
hit the target of 500 words and “I-do-this and I-do-that”.

It will snow. Yes, I know - I am fine to receive critiques
and cold faces. I shall never collapse…
Oh Rob Fort we love you step down.
Oh Lana Turner we love you get up.
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com