Of dinner that lasts...
into a full stop
Of dinner that lasts.
I have to note that at the moment, as I write, I can't swear the change was intentional. In both cases, the punctuation is unique in the poem. I think the ellipsis fit better with my original idea of writing a "New York" poem with a certain amount of comic book diction allowed or required, but with every line having a pristine quality of its own emphasized by capitalizing the first letter of the line the way poets did centuries ago...
On the other hand, the bare couplet
Remember the inconceivable heat
Of dinner that lasts.
seems more effective to me now with the full stop. It forces a mock-monumental (would that be mockumental?) seriousness upon the nonsequitur, as it were.
The other thing I did in the first stanza/part of the poem was to remove the line
Please put them back in the closet
after the line
Into a lather, without meaning to
and before the line
If you want professional help you realize
This change was certainly intentional. I got rid of the line as I got rid of others (to be mentioned as we proceed). But why? It's not a particularly "bad" line in terms of the diction, or the non-flow, of the stanza, nor can I state with moral certitude that it's more unnecessary than other nonsequiturs piling on each other here. I believe I purged the line because I was trying to prevent the reader from going immediately to obvious social or political readings I hadn't consciously intended, or maybe no longer consciously intended.
And to get to the heart of that dilemma of mine, I need to think about the Ted Berrigan poetry I've been reading. As someone with a prejudice against most forms of political statement in poetry, I'm always amazed in reading Ted Berrigan at how he collages in political, sometimes incendiary phrases and feelings in a way that is fundamentally non-judgmental and aesthetic.
I have to think more about that...
I have to think more about that.
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