so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
the "so much" refers to people. Poetry involving everyday objects captures how the object related and/or was through the eyes of a certain person. Whenever we read a poem about an object, we make the author's view into our own, and it is thus two times distorted. Im beginning to realized how different each vision is, how people can see the same thing but entirely different worlds; this is why such object-poems are important.
Conrad's "The Right To Manifest Manifesto" started well with the title and only got better. I agree that, especially when it comes to poetry, but often in many aspects of life, we see everything for the impact it has on our own lives. Even the things we don't take notice to pertain to what they mean in our own lives. Which is why I love Conrad; if anything affects us, why are we not writing about it? Dirt, pesticides, storms, grocery stores, garbage (although garbage is a science--I won't dwell in on that)--they are left alone too often, because of our own ignorance. But they do have meaning in relation to people; it is a job as poets to take notice and discover those relations.
Payton,
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with the comments you made above. I also believe that when we tend to use more simplistic styles of writing poetry, our understanding of ourselves is enhanced. Saying more does not equate to creating a better product. From my experience, saying less actually makes a poem better and more vivid because it allows the reader to offer his/her interpretation and take the poem to a different realm from the poet themselves. My favorite line is the "glazed with rain" because it reminds me of a Krispy Kreme donut which the icing is so fine that it is like a raindrop. These small picturesque descriptions really enable me to understand the poem in a light that I never deemed possible.
I think one reason we do not write about everything that affects us, is because we do not see it as such a big deal. The comedian Kevin Hart did a skit where he talked about after he and his girlfriend got in an argument, he took all the backs to her earrings. At first glance one would view it as really insignificant, but she realized how much of a major impact it had on her once they were gone.
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