Day: September 3, 2016

What use is poetry?

http://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2013/september/what-use-poetry-meena-alexander

 Extract

Poetry takes as its purview what is deeply felt and is essentially unsayable; that is the paradox on which the poem necessarily turns. A poet uses language as a painter uses color, a primary material out of which to make art. But language that is used all the time and all around us—in sound bites, advertisements, political rhetoric, newsprint—needs to be rinsed free so that it can be used as the stuff of art.

The poem in its act of meaning-making turns away from the literal, its truth bound to what can be evoked. And evocation is sparked by memory. Abhinavagupta (ca. 950–1020 ce) realized this clearly. In his reflections, he writes of how poetry—far from dealing with the literal—reaches into what lies in memory, in memory fragments. It is in this way that rasa, the quick of aesthetic pleasure, is reached:

 

A tale of married life

Dotty cats 2

Stan and Mary went in town
To buy Stan a new dressing gown.
But he wanted a woollen one
In March, that is not on.

The shops are full of summer clothes
But Stan’s not warm enough for those.
Mary likes to look around
But see how old Stan frowns.

So Mary says,I’ll go online
I’m sure I’ll find some fully lined
Made of wool and acrylic…
Them you can make your pick.

Thank you,Mary,you are kind
Despite that  strange and anxious mind.
I am the best-dressed man in town
And soon I’ll have my gown.

Would you like cafe au lait?
I have my pension,I shall pay.
Very nice,dear Mary said
I’d like a piece of bread.

Won’t you have a slice of cake?
I know it’s not quite what I make.
No,just plain bread,sweet Mary said
She then turned very red.

Mary,you look very hot
Is it healthy in this spot?
The central heating is too high
She gave a weary sigh.

They drank their coffee and made jokes
About old folk who never spoke
They bought some fresh fish for Emile..
They alway shop with zeal.
..
When they got home.Stan dialled Dave
Who told him he was very brave
and not to stand near a bus door
Or he’d fall on the floor.
.
Oh,how i’d like to lie down there
With my mistress Annie fair.
but Mary is at home today
So I’ll just have to pray.

If you’re in pain and can’t have sex,
They say that prayer is second best
Morphine is so hard to get
and it makes me feel sick.

So tomorrow Mary works
Stan and Annie have their perks
Dave calls round to bath the cat…
How obscene is that?

If you would like your cat washed
Or if your shopping has got squashed
Just dial 99999
The service is divine.

And, absent kindness, nothing has much worth

How like a prison is my cubicle
And yet the chains  which bind me can’t be seen.
But my greed and envy is indubitable
I am dumb and cruel and also very mean.

My cubicle’d be mansion  to the poor.
Yet to me it ‘s  small  for I am used to  space.
No doubt my wealth has made many feel sour…
But do not envy me for I’m disgraced.

No longer am I free in heart and soul.
I’m trapped and  it is by my own hand.
i am fractured ,I am broken I’m not whole.
I live  and yet I nothing understand.

Live  benignly for we live but once  on  earth
And, absent kindness, nothing has much worth

Satire

Satire

 

Function of Satire

The role of satire is to ridicule or criticize those vices in the society, which the writer considers a threat to civilization. The writer considers it his obligation to expose these vices for the betterment of humanity. Therefore, the function of satire is not to make others laugh at persons or ideas they make fun of. It intends to warn the public and to change their opinions about the prevailing corruption/conditions in society.

Blindsight

Blindsight scattered my wits
Like whitened bones
Across the deserts of my mind.
I descended into blackness.
Love shrank into the tame cat
By the fire,unacknowledged hate
Grew to fill the room.
I stared too much,
A full stop grew gigantic
Crowded out
All the words in the sentence
I saw nothing but this dot
Now a gigantic black hole
Into which I was dragged.
An energy coming from within my own head
Sucked me into the black hole.
That place was the wrong sort of dearkness.
Within that full stop,
Love Fundamental became invisible.
Disappered into the dark.
I dragged my eyes away
And saw the moon appear , so eerie,
It shone,grey silver.
If I had opened my eyees wider
I would not now lament
What I destroyed in the wormhole
Of the black dot that drew my eye
Into a tunnel of darkness
It blinded me to the light
Did not let me read the sentences
Beside the full stop.
An error of focus left hate
Unacknowledged,unmitigated unredeemed,
Kept from love or goodness
Afraid to spoil my love with hate,
The fear of hate became
That which spoiled all else else,
By freezing Love itself

The memory lasts

midsummer days evoke entrancing pasts,
where children played in joyous, daisied fields,
with buttercups so bright the memory lasts
a freedom that our conscious growth will steal.
.

those stones and leaves and many coloured flowers
were gathered into images that glow
yet later we forget those treasured hours
when for a while we lived in life’s deep flow

we did not look from faraway, but felt at one
we lived as did the birds high in the trees
now we see and write,experiencing has gone;
we no longer live like flowers  nor swirl with bees

to lose ourselves in nature is a joy
which to our adult selves we must restore

The triolet

When I saw what a triolet was I didn’t think it  would be very expressive or useful.But after writing a few I began to get a feel for it in this one below so I am really pleased with the form.The song-like quality appeals to me too.I have changed some of the lines so the copies are not exact.In this triolet, that fitted very well when I changed speaker to listener

As we loved

The honeyed  words invented as we loved
Now have no other  speaker but myself
Lost, unique, the husband, still beloved
The honeyed  words  invented  as we loved
From my  speech, our  words   must be removed.
I can  no longer  use  our words, our wealth.
The chosen  words  invented as we loved
Now have no other  listener but myself