Moment Of Doubt
“Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant.”
~Joan Didion
Blur is what we are/not
what brains breathe
too fast/slow on the pillow where
each eye-catch lingers,
vain cauliflowers
rolled behind what must
vain cauliflowers
rolled behind what must
distort itself in
change after change.
change after change.
Lance/lined hips
get stuck to the star lip
moving pillar by pillar
to stairstep
to stairstep
a dead instant
down
to the atropine dream;
real to/day/yestermorrow, REAL we think/say
as cheeks/lashed wet that fall dustily
open
are beacons
or only a dimming
of color
to shadow
what blinks us
on/off
one hundred years/tomorrow.
~April 2015
posted to real toads
The Poetry in a Quote
where Susie Clevinger (Confessions of a Laundry Goddess) asks us to write to a quote by Joan Didion (I found this one on the internet and it seemed to go well with the modernist theme.)
and
Peoticizing The News...of 1913
Write a poem to a headline from 1913--
Mine(below) all concern the Armory Show, or International Exhibition of Modern Art of 1913 in New York City, Chicago and Boston, where 'modern art' which we now tend to see as classic, was most controversially introduced by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors.
I've tried to write in a complimentary sort of style to that time and occasion.
For more details on the Armory Show and the painters and sculptors who exhibited there
Top image: The sensation of the Armory Show, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2, by Marcel Duchamp. Fair use via wikiart,org
Newspaper images from 1913 concerning the Exhinbition, various sources, afaict, public domain
Its so true.. life takes a turn and changes as fast as a blink of an eye.. as humans we must learn to adapt to all sorts of changes in life! I really loved these lines here:
ReplyDeletereal to/day/yestermorrow, REAL we think/say
as cheeks/lashed wet that fall dustily
open
are beacons
or only a dimming
of color
So beautifully expressed...!!
xoxo
Nice work, lady. :-)
ReplyDeleteDidn't we just normalize relations with Cubists? Oh wait, that was something else, never mind! I love this experimental approach, and I think it works splendidly. "What blinks us on/off"...I like that the best. A departure for you, and you pulled it off like falling off a log.
ReplyDelete"Lance/lined hips
ReplyDeleteget stuck to the star lip
moving
pillar by pillar to stairstep
a dead instant
down
to the atropine dream" I love this! The writing style you chose fits so well with Joan Didion. Thanks so much for writing for the challenge!
Reading some of the news articles shows the level of misunderstanding. I guess people fear what they don't understand.
ReplyDeleteWhat is quite amazing--and you cite--is that the Cubists are 100 years old--and still, you know, some people have trouble with them--and, of course, with what came after. I think it is a fear that it is all cauliflowers--or what must distort itself change after change--
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting voice for you, as you normally have a great deal of authority in your voice and here is one descending the staircase bit by bit-- I especially like the last two verses here--the yestermorrow--that is exactly how all this stands--and the eyelash wet dustily-so hard for people (and I include myself here) to deal with ambiguity and actual movement/chance. Thanks. k.
Thanks, k--this was really quite a wild hair for me, writing off the cuff--it surprised me it managed to take off at all, really(though i did sneak in and rewrite the first stanza twice!). Change seems to terrify many people--even if it has no negatives--just the idea of change itself is threatening. Looking at 1913 was an eye-opening experience, too--so many parallels.
DeleteThat is in itself pretty darn terrifying, if you ask me. Well I thought you handled all the slash stuff super well--it works with your subject, but you carried off in a meaningful way, which is pretty hard, I think. k .
DeleteThanks, k. It certainly is a style that's been abused and debased over the years, and one I haven't employed since maybe high school ;_)--but maybe 100 years ago it was terribly outrageous and pretty cool.
DeleteYou make the ordinary, extraordinary. I want to hang that first stanza on my wall.
ReplyDeleteConfusion and turmoil comes clear through the title you chose to the "shakes" you've inserted in this poem. I didn't look at the images before reading the piece (I never do), but your words, pauses and cuts (and the "blur" at the beginning) described the art and the incident really well. By the way, although you told me what this was going to be Not when you posted the link, I was still expecting Cubans. I'm giggling right now.
ReplyDeleteSorry not to oblige with any diminuitive Cubans--they are obviously just not square enough for this exhibition. *runs*
DeleteHa!
DeleteWow, Joy! You pushed the lines and channeled Joan. I love these lines:
ReplyDelete""Lance/lined hips
get stuck to the star lip"
And your ending-Bravo!
Very hard for me to channel Didion when I haven't read a word of her beyond Susie's quotes, but thanks.
Deletegroan :).
ReplyDeletethe multiple eyes, the view from each angle, the time/less quality. 100 years of... well, not quite solitude ~
Ha! the slash is pretty silly poetic device, or possibly just overused, but sometimes it actually can be a useful contrast tool and nicely ambiguous--or that's what I wanted it to be, anyway.Thanks, M.
DeleteFANTASTIC! Your words gave me a real feeing of "edginess" and uncertainty as to how the works would be received, a style that fascinates this tiny mind :D XXX
ReplyDeleteThanks, Gina. It was a lot of fun--a great prompt from Magaly.
DeleteI think you did a great job at catching the feel of the age with your words. I also loved the phrase "vain cauliflowers" - clever!
ReplyDeleteThat was my favorite! Because of the sleeping brains....Thanks Rommy.
DeleteLove,love,love the last stanza! Overtime something new comes up in art, it shakes the world. I think that is a very good thing!
ReplyDeleteFireblossom's joke made me laugh. The techniques you've used do evoke early avant-garde poetry. The multiple words connected/divided by slashes are particularly effective in suggesting a verbal equivalent to the Duchamp painting. Do I see a fundamental ambiguity, especially at the end: "beacons or only a dimming of color"?
ReplyDeleteA favorite book in my library is a thrift store book I found for a dollar with pages brittle with age. it's an anthology of modern avant-garde poetry entitled "Revolution of the Word". I get a kick out of just looking at it, like seeing a tattered old copy of "Future Shock". In some ways we live in the world they predicted, but what I miss is the world's relative immunity to shock.
Thanks Mark--glad you don't feel I did a disservice to the Duchamp. AFA the fading pages of past modernity and our current stultification, maybe that envelope has been pushed so far it's no longer capable of holding anything, even shock.
DeleteI find it most amazing how some things that were provocative a 100 years ago can remain so, while other things will fade into normality.. Like Tender Buttons is even more provocative than cubist painting.. I feel some modernist resemblance here and you have executed it to perfection.
ReplyDeleteIt is not a simple task to translate the modernist vision to paper through the medium of words, but you have done so with seeming ease. I sense more hard edges here than the impressionists, more angles.
ReplyDelete