[POV: forgotten omniscient]
[fade in] fragrant, folded boy stares out from linen basket
at man, intent on mirror, shaving, at an angle
[cut to] hidden, protected contemplation from inside wardrobe
of me, as I try to write a poem
[reveal] earnest, herb-flecked eyes from warmest kitchen corner
where I stir the Bolognese
[voiceover] The surveillance
of the ordinary by the oughtn’t be there really.
[man turns to squint through blinds]
[pan to flat horizon]
26 comments:
Nice one, File. I like the 'earnest, herb-flecked eyes' and the use of cinematic ters is an interesting twist.
Does this mean that your child acually sits and watches you instead of careering round and breaking things, or only sometimes?
cinematic terms, tch.
actually, tch tch.
Bloody kids. A nightmare you never wake up from.
thanks Zeph, I guess even maniacs get the odd day off. Seems Larkin's "This Be The Verse" cuts both ways eh Melton?
Really enjoyed these surreal snapshots. Loved the language: "fragrant, folded boy stares out from linen basket".
Great stuff.
I wonder, perhaps Billy could have a future Poster Poems devoted to the experimental approach. It's just down his alley.
Jack Brae
It's a two-way street, as you astutely point out in your piece, File. As a rampant egotist it never occurred to me that my kids might be observing their father in the same way that I was observing them. It came as an unpleasant surprise when two charmless nerks with a quarter of a brain between them (as I previously thought) gave me the benefit of their analysis of my psyche.
What I really had in mind was the way you worry about them when you do know what they’re doing as much as when you don’t, and how that just seems to go on and on and on…
cheers Jack. I'll second your call for an experimental PP (Billy?), but it might prove challenging for some types of experiment, this was also supposed to be a discrete calligram (so discrete it's invisible!) of a lens or an eye (snipped top and bottom, like the pic, through blinds).
Melton, to think that one day the fillets will try to psychoanalyse me is truly terrifying (for their sakes!).
And your comment is not a little unnerving too, (having got an idea elsewhere of your 'kids' approx. age) I feel I've punted into the heart of darkness only to find you already at the end of the river, on your last legs, staring into obsidian, rasping "The worry! The worry!"
sigh, the joys of parenthood.
Great vision there, filo! Of course when you're a kid it never occurs to you that parents worry, you just think they want to stop you doing stuff because of some deep inadequacy or weirdness in themselves..
Sadly I think you only really understand your parents when you are a parent yourself or pretty much ready to become one (i.e. when you've forgiven your parents enough to think you want to embark on it yourself), but I suppose that's the eternal cycle.
File, it's taken me a while to let this piece soak in to my brain, I'm not very good on the more visual medium which you use. Saying that I think it's very effective. I was immediately struck by the image of the "fragrant, folded" boy (rather than the linen, with which you'd normally associate these words) which I think is quite wonderful.
I couldn't work out how you were in a wardrobe writing a poem and cooking bolognese at the same time, but I think I'm a bit too literal sometimes...
p.s. perhaps cooking in the wardrobe helps the flavour?
Pink, you mean you haven't read Cooking in a Wardrobe, the post-property-bubble version of Cooking in a Bedsitter?
You should find plenty of dressing in there.
I'm not sure we can rule out "inadequacy or weirdness" quite so easily Zeph!
thank you Punkawalla, I think! Not quite sure how to respond to your reading of this except, perhaps, with more worry :)
Yes, inadequacy and weirdness certainly featured in my free audit. Still, who wants to be 'adequate'? Sounds like an insult.
Sorry File, dear, I didn't mean to cause consternation. What causes the worry exactly?
My dad is weird: Today he said no, I couldn't go swimming with the penguins. I mean, what's the point of coming all this way...?
Little offspring, your dad is clearly no fun at all! But perhaps the penguins were relieved.
deer little offspring,
yeh right! my dad sais I couldn't go flying with the eagles, have contacted lawyer, will sue parents for grinchiness, would you like to join in with a class action lawsuit?
Yeah, let's sue those grumpy old losers into oblivion.
I see the calligram, and do the brackets make calli-holograms of the pic?
I love the fragrant folded boy and
earnest herb-flecking as well, but also the juxtaposition of 'ordinary' and its spun-out partner 'oughtn't be there really'- overall satisfying play with compression/expansion,
tucked in/looking out.
Reminds me of getting under the piano myself.
cheers hic hoc
Remember this, anyone?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/jan/02/language-poems
Interesting to see all that again Billy, some spectacularly creative work there, not least from 3potato4 and TheBookofSand (I wonder whatever happened to them?)and a fresh faced and vivacious Zephirine. Very experimental, but do you think Young Son Looks On would be considered L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E or even Language poetry in that context?
Good question, File. I think that L=A=N=G is a meaningless enough category, but your poem strikes me as being a good example of "playing with language", and specifically playing with language as it is written. The use of the [square brackets] and the nodding towarts scriptwriting conventions are "experimental" in this play sense, as is the self-reference/deflation (as I try to write a poem equated with as I stir the Bolognese). But does it matter what name we give it if it's fun?
No, absolutely, matters not a jot. Having said that, Young Son is no Playful Messiah today, he's A Very Naughty Boy and is about to lose his linen basket/wardrobe privileges.
Was very interested in the Does the Avant Garde still exist? piece on GU a while back Billy, and I'm still surprised that more people aren't exploring the boundaries of graphic/concrete poetry in this multi-media world. I think there is great potential for a popular renaissance of poetry in this area, but I would say that wouldn't I?! There are people out there doing it but they seem to be pretty Out There People and experimental to the point of dislocation...
http://www.e-motive.org.uk/virtualgalleryfiles/virtualgallery.htm
although there is some interesting work too:
http://www.secrettechnology.com/hymns/navigate.html
http://visualthinkmap.ning.com/photo/family-of-secrets-flowing
and Billy Collins has been exploring this area in collaboration with animators (animated artists?), for example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-a8ELOVig4
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuTNdHadwbk&feature=related
Post a Comment