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The poem in question: Illusion

Ugh, is this poem bad. I know that a good number of my poems aren’t masterpieces, but I have never really liked this one, even after the revisionism it went through to get to the form it is in now. Unfortunately, I don’t have the original to compare it with. It would be nice to see how crappy it was at the outset.

Anyway, this poem is about the devil’s path and all that, a common theme from this era of my poetry, as you may have (read: probably have not) read thus far in the blog.

In the first stanza, someone has decided to try and lead other people astray, but doesn’t know how. Part of him believes what he is preaching, but for some reason he has a hard time pressing the beliefs on others.

The other guy doesn’t believe the lies, and knows they are lies, but he’s in marketing, just doing his job. That’s why he wins, I guess.

And there is the lame commentary for the lame poem. I’m sure I could write something more insightful about it and try to explore its themes more (I do think there is a valid theme, I just think it’s ineptly expressed, and easy to understand, anyway), but my parenthetical comment just explained why I won’t.

However, this poem does remind me of a forum I’ve perused over the past couple of days. For the sake of keeping these commentaries focused more on the actual commentary, though, the story will get its own blog entry.

The poem in question: All The World’s Attention

This poem is different from anything I had written previous in that every line contains the phrase “all the world’s attention” (except one that just says “the world’s attention”). One of the inspirations for this particular style was Paul Simon’s “Hearts and Bones,” though that song was infinitely better written, and as I recall, Paul said the song was not about the line “hearts and bones,” but rather “the arc of a love affair.” Anecdotally, one of the Paul Simon sites I used to frequent had a reader vote/bracket thingy for best Simon song and “Hearts and Bones” won by quite a margin. While not my absolute favorite Simon song, it is very high on the list. But I digress.

A few other Paul Simon songs influenced some of my other poems. I’ll make sure I note which in their respective commentaries. But I digress again (or rather, still).

There should be no question to the theme explored in All The World’s Attention; it’s pretty well spelled out, but I suppose I can explain what I had in mind when I wrote it. At the time I was feeling somewhat outcast, though I don’t exactly recall why. It may have been a combination of Miss Decker’s non-mad English-teaching skillz, the break-up with my girlfriend, or something else entirely. I don’t remember. What I do remember is the feeling and the way I tried to express it, as I often did in those days.

Everyone knows that when a new baby comes around, everyone wants to ooh and aah over it. Rightfully so; babies are amazing creatures, though I don’t believe that anyone can understand just how amazing they really are until they have their own babies. Each new thing a baby learns how to do, even the very simplest of things, is met with encouragement and (very often, at least in my house) thunderous applause. I mentioned a few of the bigger events of childhood–crawling, learning to walk, going off to kindergarten–in the poem, though in retrospect I could have added learning to talk, as well.

Once childhood is over, though, it can seem like it’s all over: suddenly not everything you do is national news. You got another A in school? That’s great, honey, but I think we’ll hold off on calling the newspaper this time.

So this is an example of realizing the world doesn’t revolve around you, and taking it way too far. You’ll do anything you can to get the attention back, including things you would never think to do otherwise. Eventually it all blows up in your face, and sure, people are paying attention now, but all you feel is shame, and you want to run away, hide in any way you can. A scripture from the Book of Mormon is called to mind:

For our words will condemn us, yea, all our works will condemn us; we shall not be found spotless; and our thoughts will also condemn us; and in this awful state we shall not dare to look up to our God; and we would fain be glad if we could command the rocks and the mountains to fall upon us to hide us from his presence. (Alma 12:14)

Well, in this particular case, the subject of the poem turns to suicide. It could be any number of things, really, but the reference I was making when I wrote it was suicide. I’ve never been seriously suicidal–I believe too much in the afterlife to think it could do me any good–but I’ve known people who have been, and have even committed suicide, and I can understand that the temptation can become so overpowering that one can feel absolutely helpless to escape it.

(Another side note: the song “War on Drugs” by the Barenaked Ladies is, I think, I wonderfully written song related to this subject.)

So, having thought to end his shame by removing himself from life, the subject fails to escape what he thought he wanted all along: all the world’s attention.

This poem holds a different meaning for me now than it did ten years ago. Now, as I write this commentary, I am reading the poem off my site and see next to it a picture of my daughter, Aeris. Since becoming a parent my perspective on many things has changed, and I worry constantly that I will not be a good enough father to teach her all the things she will need to know to get through life intact. I have imagined all the world’s attention, and I want to make sure that she gets the right attention all the time, and that she knows how to deal with sorrow, pain, and difficulty. Reading my poems helps me remember some of the things I went through and helps me understand–if just a little bit–what I need to teach her.

That was probably more detail than I meant to go into, but having discussed the subject matter, I’d like to address the writing a little bit more. Simply put, I think the concept is very interesting but the delivery is terrible. There is no rhythm or meter to speak of, just a strangled attempt to piece together words, which incidentally reminds me of a verse from one of my absolute favorite Paul Simon songs, “Kathy’s Song”:

A song I was writing is left undone;
I don’t know why I spend my time
writing songs I can’t believe
with words that tear and strain to rhyme.

That said, the following is a quick and dirty update of All The World’s Attention, though I have learned my lesson about replacing the original.

A infant with his rattle
Receives all the world’s attention.
His teetering first few steps
Garner all the world’s attention.
The first time he leaves home for school
Steals all the world’s attention.
By now he is accustomed
To all the world’s attention.
One day soon he’ll need to fight
For all the world’s attention.
He’ll get it, but then what to do
With all the world’s attention?
Try to run, try to hide
From all the world’s attention.
That twisted path can only lead
To all the world’s attention.

Huh. Well, what can you do?

The poem in question: Can’t Run

Written two days after What Lies In Wait, Can’t Run shares a similar theme. In that light, I feel that there is very little that I can say about it by way of exposition.

Well, I take that back. There is something. Where What Lies In Wait treated the people going to their reward, Can’t Run gives a glimpse of them while they still have some hope, ill-founded though it may be:

Their flight from inquity / was set out on right foot, wrong path / And as for freedom, they had none.

These are people who have realized that the path they are on is wrong and will ultimately lead them somewhere they don’t want to end up. They make a decision to turn their lives in another direction, but don’t really think about what direction it is, as long as it’s not the same one they were going before. The problem lies in the fact that they don’t realize that there’s more than one way to hell, and that many of them are, in fact, paved with good intentions.

Now, other than a brief blurb in the Achievement commentary, I haven’t touched much on writing style (though I plan to in quite a few upcoming commentaries). It is interesting to me to see that the three poems from my freshman English class contained no attempt at rhyming, and so What Lies in Wait and Can’t Run contain my first published attempts. Early on I seemed very focused on just making the lines rhyme, without much attention to how the lines broke up, or read aloud. (Not that I think poetry is necessarily meant to be read aloud. Often, that ruins it, because too many people have no freaking clue how to read aloud properly. But I digress.) I think these two poems are somewhat hurt by this approach, though Can’t Run fairs better, as does my hasty “rewrite” of What Lies in Wait a few days ago.

These early poems are fun to look back on because it is fun to see what different writing styles I employed and how they have changed (or stayed the same) over time. At the same time, they are sometimes embarrassing to read, because did I really think/write/whatever like that? It’s sort of like when you become a parent and have to change your first diaper, and you’re reminded that you, too, used to pee your pants on a regular basis.

Or maybe it’s nothing like that at all.

The poem in question: What Lies In Wait

There is a great jump in time from Accepting Denial to What Lies In Wait–just over two years. By this time I was in my junior year, had my first (and only) high-school sweetheart, and had an English teacher who both hated my best friend Ben and me, and had not a clue what good poetry was (in this way, she was similar to our sophomore math teacher). More detail on this will be brought to light in the upcoming commentaries for The Poem Within A Poem, Pretense, and A Dream.

What Lies In Wait takes a theme I explored in a few other poems, most similarly Can’t Run: the captive power of the devil. Thinking back, I believe that the aforementioned sweetheart and I had broken up by this point, having only gone out for a couple of months. During and after the time we were dating, however, I had started to desire some changes in my life, and I often thought about this theme (though admittedly not as often as more depressing and morbid ones, depressed-morbid-wannabe that I am).

In What Lies In Wait a group of people are being herded toward their final resting place, having surrendered their freedom and now beginning to understand the full import of said surrender.

The tainted light shining from afar / Was fainter than a noonday star

Satan’s power is tainted, obviously, and quite faint compared to the power of God.

Yet fear tried to hold them at bay / Fear of what must, in wait, lay.

Though Satan has little power in comparison, once one is solely in his power with no recourse, it is quite terrifying.

Driven they were, against their will / Driven they were, by force so great / And that is what made them press on

They did not want to go, once they realized what would await them, but they had no more choice.

And when allowed to raise their eyes / The air was pierced with frightened cries.

This poem ends somewhat abruptly, as “Accepting Denial,” but the difference is that I think it works here. Not knowing what the final revelation is, in this case, useful, because it lets the reader make full use of his imagination.

Now, one problem with this interpretation is that they were herded “Throughout the night, into the dawn” and “By midday next they’d reached the place.” Another being “herded at deadly pace.” If these people go to their final resting place, as it were, do measurements of time really apply? They don’t, really, and I am bothered a little bit by the wording. Also, why is it on a hill? If I were to rewrite the lines at this moment, the new verse would go something like this:

They were driven, against their will,
Toward the source of every ill.
They were driven by force so great
It could crush them with its mighty weight.
And that is what made them press on:
Realizing hope was gone.
All too soon they reached the place
Where they’d been led through time and space,

I hadn’t intended to do such a thorough analysis of this poem, much less rewrite some of the lines, but I’m glad I did. I knew this commentary this was a good idea for someone.

And yes, there’s no air in space, boo hoo.

The poem in question: Accepting Denial

This is the last in the series of poems coming from assignments in my freshman English class. Unlike Aftermath and Achievment, I remember the details of the assignment leading to Accepting Denial.

Each member of the class was given five note cards with a word on them, and we were to take those words and incorporate them into our poem. I distinctly remember wanting something “paradoxical,” and I imagine this was because I was still taken with Thomas Covenant and all the discussion of the “paradox of white gold” found within. I remember mentioning the desire for paradox to Mr. Williams, and I also remember a note scribbled from him on my final copy: “I like the paradoxical title!” I suspect he was just humoring me, but I guess we’ll never know for sure.

I am going to dig around some more for the original copy of this poem, because I think some of the wording changed a few years later as I went through a revisionism period. I also want to see if I can find out what my five words were, because I can’t remember, and that bothers me. My best guess is that they included some form of “tattered,” “loathed,” and “denial.”

Now, thus far in my commentaries, I haven’t really touched on what the poems were about. This one, fairly obviously I would imagine, is about being a teenager (or not, but I was teen-age when I wrote this, though it isn’t autobiographical), feeling like you don’t belong, and trying to cover up who you really are to fit in. Of course, often when people do that, others can see right through them, and the acceptance-seekers end up feeling even more unbelonging. In this way, it is also hilarious that the poem was written on Valentine’s Day.

So, they feel like they have “little to lose,” by pretending, but in reality have even “less to gain.” One unforunate part of this poem, though, is that they are “Loathed by many, / Rejected outright by all, save one.” It makes more sense to me now for it to read the other way around: “Rejected outright by many, / Loathed by all, save one.” It seems more fitting that everyone would loathe these people (though “loathe” seems too strong a word), but that there would be some who exercised enough compassion, or at least restraint, not to reject them outright.

I like to think that the one who accepted these tattered youths is God, who I believe loves us as we are, no matter where we may be in our lives, and no matter who in the world doesn’t love us. Unfortunately, the poem feels unfinished from that perspective, as I also believe that God would have some sage advice for these kids, and the fact that is left unoffered strikes me as un-Godlike. Still, I could not then and cannot now pretend that I have all the answers, and will leave it at that.

As a postscript, I am still taken with Thomas Covenant. The Chronicles and Second Chronicles are among my favorite books that I have ever read. I greatly anticipate the concluding books of the Last Chronicles, something I anticipate (ha!) doing for the next several years until they are published.