Apparition
9 January 2010
9 Comments
Teo Tewson-Bozic
What has two arms, two legs,
Two wheels, two wings,
And a flock above it?
The man who caught a seagull
By the neck, then rode with it
Held-out at the front of his bicycle
While it screamed and beat its wings.
Close above him its kind followed
In angry, helpless circles.
Brilliant.
I enjoy. Very much. Hope I can find some more of yours on the site!
Why did you write this? And secondly, why did you publish it? And thirdly, why did the website even contemplate putting it on-line? These are the questions that spring to mind as I read this ‘poetry’.
Sam, I think your second and third questions are actually the same one. I’d suggest taking it up with the editorial board (via the email addresses supplied) of this website if you have an issue, or if you’ve been paying some licence fee that isn’t being put to good use.
Your first question is an interesting one. Art and cognition, ambiguity and intention – lots to think about and consider in terms of poetic discourse. The inverted commas you use in the final sentence also implies another avenue of debate: that some absolute, Platonic quintessence of poetry exists. Perhaps you could write an article for The Literateur about this subject: I’m sure many would love to read your ‘point’ if it was a little bit more articulate and thorough. Please amplify, and contribute something to a discussion! Snide bits of personal attack plumped up with miserable rhetoric adds very little. It’s called detraction for a reason.
A touchy editor, perhaps?
Might I first add that I am very pleased to see that my original comment was not simply erased, and that someone had the strength to have it included.
In a letter from a – now long dead, and obviously long forgotten – poet to his publisher, poetry was described as originating ‘from the fulness [sic] of [his] mind, from passion, from impulse, from many sweet motives’, and has, before and since, been held in high esteem as the out-pouring of the heart into written form, in such a way that the reader is washed away on a surge of emotion. Whether these ‘sweet motives’ be religion, nature, love, the human condition, this same core principle lies behind all poetry: that is the desire to make, through the use of just words, a reader overflow within themselves. Poetry is somehow beyond poetry, calling upon something at once within itself and external: something that guides, shapes and transforms everything it touches.
Perhaps you might say I am being too limiting on ‘poetry’, and that anything has the potential to be ‘poetry’, but I think many would agree that there is a limit to which poetry can be stretched before it resembles nothing more than an absence: a great void in roughly the same place as something great once stood.
Thanks for your response. Not so much a touchy editor (but when our feathers are ruffled directly it seems a bit rude to you and to the poet not to swoop back to the keyboard) so much as a nonplussed one: I guess I just can’t see a void in the above piece. It’s sparse, yes, and any meaning beyond the central image is certainly not being spelled out for the reader but I’d say that any kind of ‘vaccuum’ is in fact an invitation for the reader to question and explore their response to it, with the work – in the words you quoted – certainly ‘calling upon something at once within itself and external’.
But subjectivity is King, and tastes differ. Thanks for reading, and for your comments here and elsewhere on the site.
Samuel,
Since there was no civil attempt to engage me or the poem in your first post I won’t answer the empty questions. You might have simply said “This is balderdash and I don’t like it”, which would have gotten across just as much.
The passage you quote to support your distaste is a great deal more discussion-worthy, though it would have been interesting to see what you yourself have to say about it. I feel as though I’m in dialogue with a quote and question marks – not a speaker. It seems this poem has upset your artistic sensibility to such a degree that you have sought out old, dusty friends to help you dismiss it. So I’ve brought a friend to match yours, his name is Don Paterson and he gets his point across quite succinctly I feel:
Why does the reader so often assume that poetry should be written with emotion? Could they imagine anyone essaying a violin concerto or a sculpture, say, if their hands were shaking in fear, or their eyes misting over with love or grief?
My very own quote and question mark, rolled neatly into one.
I read the poem in cursory fashion and thought it was quite interesting. Then I came across the debate in the comments which encouraged me to re-read the poem and come to a conclusion about it. It turned out that I liked it a lot.
So Samuel’s question whilst objectively negative (’balderdash’), provoked a positive subjective response. That’s one of the delights of debate and something to be cherished rather than shown the door. And, of course, the web is a brilliant host, which is why a site like this can be so exciting.
With regard to definition, I would say the only requirement for poetry nowadays is that it be a form of concentrated language. If it’s interesting in form and content then it’s good poetry. And I, for one and for what it’s worth, would certainly classify ‘Apparition’ as good: it describes a picture that is arresting, evocative, intriguing and memorable.
I think it is very sad. It is sad that that the man upon his wheeled device may take and throttle the fragile neck of the gull and it is sad that the gull’s friends may only squawk their disapproval – and that their discourse falls undeciphered upon human ears.
The simplicity and riddle-like structure of my kinsman’s piece adds a blasé tone and thus veils the inherent tragedy of the situation beneath a comic gauze. Most Shakespearean.
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