N
NPS
Guest
Oh boy, got mixed up. Sorry.I’m even more confused than I usually am. NPS, are you talking to me, as it appears, or to cradle? (I’m not the OP.)
Nevertheless, except for that mistake— I stick with what I said.
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Nevertheless, except for that mistake— I stick with what I said.
N
NPS
Guest
Here are two more poems by this same author. Perhaps a bit more subtle and engaging than some of the previously posted material. Both work on many levels and are relevant and polysemous while possessing an emotional outwardness.
Rue Dalhousie
“Mettle or flesh”, the woman asked
as she took me in her hand up before
St. Lawrence and the traffic awakened
staring east yet predictably west as ever
One glass one coin one fountain at two
in the Morning I knew it would arrive
masking the anger of her predicament
piling my guilt upon her breast
Betrothed to only his own passion
that sly beggar stumbles across the floor
toward the river beginning, beguiling
calling out yet not saying one solitary word
Shower and off to place the childless
into a den of learning beyond the view
of those shuffling against the east wind
Never looking at the man who never answered
Seven Candles Still
A tiny grain exists from Haifa
in more than my mother’s memory
as each child unknowingly turns their eyes
beyond tales of deserts and walls and dates
Seven candles sway upon the ceiling
in more than my mother’s mishpokhe
Though seven children distract themselves
with brushes instead of dolls made of kvel
Each chatters English while watching French
television more deeply than Grandmother’s mending
of Grandfather’s joy once again
They shall be great and white and north.
But you! So different yet so like that
beloved home yet unseen
we shall soon walk on the sand
which Haifa offers for our love’s return
Rue Dalhousie
“Mettle or flesh”, the woman asked
as she took me in her hand up before
St. Lawrence and the traffic awakened
staring east yet predictably west as ever
One glass one coin one fountain at two
in the Morning I knew it would arrive
masking the anger of her predicament
piling my guilt upon her breast
Betrothed to only his own passion
that sly beggar stumbles across the floor
toward the river beginning, beguiling
calling out yet not saying one solitary word
Shower and off to place the childless
into a den of learning beyond the view
of those shuffling against the east wind
Never looking at the man who never answered
Seven Candles Still
A tiny grain exists from Haifa
in more than my mother’s memory
as each child unknowingly turns their eyes
beyond tales of deserts and walls and dates
Seven candles sway upon the ceiling
in more than my mother’s mishpokhe
Though seven children distract themselves
with brushes instead of dolls made of kvel
Each chatters English while watching French
television more deeply than Grandmother’s mending
of Grandfather’s joy once again
They shall be great and white and north.
But you! So different yet so like that
beloved home yet unseen
we shall soon walk on the sand
which Haifa offers for our love’s return
V
Vaclav
Guest
There would be a great start to tackling this poem.
B
bones_IV
Guest
John XXIII had a picture of Pius XII on his desk. And even prayed at his grave. And even considered taking the name Pius XIII!
A
Ani_Ibi
Guest
Ani Ibi:
Yes! So let’s start! Why did the Shoa happen? Particularly, did the way Christians relate to Jews historically contribute to the emergence of Naziism and the the Shoa? In other words, was the Cross twisted into the Nazi Swastika? If so how? To answer this, please go to the thread to which I have linked below. Thank you.
By the way, explication is probably the first thing we need to do with the poem. We have one explication on the following thread:
The roots of Naziism: Catholic or Reformation?
But there are a few historical perspectives which need to be applied.
One is in the thread I have just linked to on the roots of Naziism.
The other is how Jewish immigration was handled in North America and specifically in Canada were Layton lived. In other words: how helpful were the Allied nations – specifically Canada – in preventing, stopping, or alleviating the Shoa? I’ll try to get some links up on this ‘Allied helpfulness’ aspect later on today, but I have to run soon.
Thank you for all your responses so far. I have been most interested in reading them.
N
NPS
Guest
Note: Before anyone embarrasses him or herself by effusive praise or erudite analyzation of these beautiful poems, let me state that with the words “by this same author” I meant that the poems were by the person writing that post…namely…me.
I wrote those in ten minutes. They have no meaning and are largely gibberish. Mediocre poetry is a faker’s game.
Hold on—there’s the phone----I just was asked to be the Poet Laureate of the Province of Ontario.
~blushing~ “I accept, I accept.”
M
Malcolm_McLean
Guest
You’ve got talent.
The original poem isn’t quite gibberish, but it is not exactly an artistic unity either.
That creates problems for the OP. In the act of setting the poem the professor is trying to bully the students into accepting it as literature. Which implies that the message is at least worth hearing.
Whilst there are some more intelligent criticisms of the Church, this one hardly makes any points that are not obvious, and doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously. The question is how a young person is to communicate that in a grown-up manner.
V
Vaclav
Guest
Why not?
The poem itself seems to have a good tone, well chosen words, and a definite point.
Poems are not essays, clearly, but what exactly is wrong with this one?
I realise that I don’t hold a degree in English Lit and all, but why are you so quick to toss this one aside?
A
Ani_Ibi
Guest
Malcolm McLean:
Malcolm McLean:
The poem has provoked. What it has provoked has been valuable discussion and no small measure of understanding of Christianity, Naziism, and genocide. In that respect it has met one of the criteria of Art.
Another thing to consider is the rest of Layton’s work. Are you familiar enough with the rest of Layton’s work to continue in your literary bludgeoning and pseudo-critique of this poet? Hint: no.
Malcolm McLean:
Malcolm McLean:
You on the other hand appear to be taking advantage of his lack of experience. You would encourage him to remain at the level of only reading the poem once, reacting from a position of inadequate background study, intellectual laziness, and judgement. Judgment by the way is nothing more than intellectual laziness, but evidently the unwarraned assumption of privilege by some.
I must ask you plainly to stop trying to substitute your judgment for an understanding of the poem. You have been making bald statements expecting us to take your word for it. That doesn’t work. Either support your claims with reason and reference or take some degree of dismissal from those of us who are using reason and reference.
Malcolm McLean:
Well, please do inform this misguided professor that you have decreed that Layton is not one of the greats. You then must be one of the literary authorities that this prof missed during grad school. Right?
The poem has provoked. What it has provoked has been valuable discussion and no small measure of understanding of Christianity, Naziism, and genocide. In that respect it has met one of the criteria of Art.
Another thing to consider is the rest of Layton’s work. Are you familiar enough with the rest of Layton’s work to continue in your literary bludgeoning and pseudo-critique of this poet? Hint: no.
Malcolm McLean:
Which begs the question of whether or not you are either capable or willing to take the poem seriously. I think the thread requires you to take the poem seriously. Rather than dismissing it out of hand.
Malcolm McLean:
I think some of us at least have endeavoured to provide him with information on how to communicate in a grown-up manner.
You on the other hand appear to be taking advantage of his lack of experience. You would encourage him to remain at the level of only reading the poem once, reacting from a position of inadequate background study, intellectual laziness, and judgement. Judgment by the way is nothing more than intellectual laziness, but evidently the unwarraned assumption of privilege by some.
M
Malcolm_McLean
Guest
I do hold a degree in English literature. When you say “what makes some poems bad, as poems, and some poems good?” there is no pat answer.
There is one simile in the poem “tore into our flesh like a fish-hook” That’s it. It is not particularly imaginate or original, and anyway the Germans, as we all know, gassed the majority of Jews. So it gets one mark out of five for use of poetic language.
I’ve given lots of other reasons in other posts (see roots of Nazism thread) why the poem is crude, childish, contradictory and generally unsuccessful. It doesn’t even rhyme, though it sort of scans. There is enough unity to distinguish it from gibberish, but only just - the stanzas don’t really follow on from rach other in any logical way, nor in any formal way, nor in any symbolic way, except that they are all bitter complaints addressed to Jesus.
Not a good poem.
(If you go onto my website you can read my poems, to compare).
N
NPS
Guest
Thanks, Malcolm. My intent of posting those poems was not to embarrass anyone but to make an…yes…artistic point.
The appreciation and analyzation of any poetic work relies on so very many things which surround that piece of work. So many poems and poets are preceded by status and opinion that a particular piece of work is easily upgraded or downgraded by critics, teachers, students and message board readers.
My problem with Ani is simple. Anyone who agrees with her opinion is “getting it” and becoming enlightened, while anyone who doesn’t agree with her just doesn’t “understand the arts”----with no small hint that those who don’t are intellectually and artistically inferior.
Asked to elaborate and defend, she simply states “Art provokes” as if that answers everything. That might be fine for the empty-headed high school freshmen she teaches, but adults—especially artistic and creative adults—need a little more meat with that sauce.
She also labels anyone who disagrees as someone who makes “a judgement” [insert doom and gloom here] while she lets herself and others make plenty of judgements of praise on the poem.[insert violins and butterflys]
Back to “my” poems. My little chunk of “art” which I put up on the screen was not the poems themselves but the back and forth which takes place in reader’s minds when they think these poems are written by “Canada’s greatest poet” then find out they are quickie poems written by someone who to them is a nobody.
In fact…those poems were written by Layton and each one was a Grand Prize winner. The first won at Edinburgh Arts Festival in 1988. The second one was the winner of the prestigious Crenboult Literary Prize for North America and Great Britain.
As I like to say “Perception is 9/10ths of the law.”
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Alas, I was just kidding again. It was indeed goofy little old broken me who dispatched those creatures onto the world. I have no idea if there is a poetry prize for a likely event called Edinburgh Arts Festival. The Crenboult Literary Prize is completely fictional. That is my art. And as a wise professor once told me----art provokes.
P.S.–It would be entirely too much if the OP came on and admitted that he couldn’t find the actual poem and just made one up for this discussion!
M
Malcolm_McLean
Guest
The modern art movement started when someone offered a toilet as a sculpture in a an exhibition of portraits. It was a witty comment on the quality of the stuff on offer, and people were standing round staring at this exhibit.
However it is a point you can only make once. it is the easiest thing in the world to produce something which barely qualifies as an example of the genre - like a pile of bricks - and then claim that you are provoking a discussion about what constitutes art.
Is Layton’s poem a poem? It is, but only just. A poem must have pattern in the material substrate. It doesn’t rhyme, It doesn’t have equal numbers of syllables in each line. However there is a bit of a broken type of anapestic (short short long) metre to it, so it is not quite normal speech. Then the sentences are arranged into stanzas. So it is a poem, but only just.
It contains one simile. The words are slightly allusive and non-literal. So it qualifies as poetic sppech, but only just. It makes sense, in the way that a list of complaints makes sense, but only just.
In the act of presenting something that is a very marginal example of a poem as literature for discussion, the professor is not very subtly using his power as a teacher to promote an agenda. He is within his rights to say that one must be able to talk about the poem, setting aside the hatred-filled nature of the content. However I doubt he would treat a racist poem in the same way.
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