a.
bus rolls in unexpectedly,
which is to say, sooner than
you might have anticipated.
near-imperceptible moment:
startling loss of bearings,
like pulling on a roll of toilet paper
and reaching the cardboard sleeve
and the last pathetic wispy shreds.
or the moment at which you
snap back into consciousness
after drifting off at the wheel.
really just a microsecond,
it soon passes and of course
you've arrived, it was bound to happen.
b.
wait inside the terminal, a term
the radiologist hates, his tongue curling
around the "er" as he rounds
the corner and her husband rises
warily from a purple chair and
"sir, the cancer is terminal," a
curse made all the worse
by a blur of internal rhyme.
drum yr fingers on yr knees,
check yr watch, and when she
walks towards you, she's radiant
and you're surprised to see her,
although you've been waiting for her
all this time.
c.
unseasonably warm day,
new york city. you talk
about the weather and mean it.
rain has glossed the pavement.
cabbies slow down as they see you,
and you wave them away
with proper nonchalance.
people hold newspapers folded
over their heads, for effect.
others step gingerly over curbside
puddles. she pretends not to notice
yr new mannerisms: the heavy-
handed metaphors, the coughing,
the obsession with incurable disease.
d.
dread fills the subway tunnels.
this is a phrase
you have been rehearsing, for
such as time as this. she nods
seriously, although the urge must be
to roll her eyes back into her head
and make squelching noises.
you would smoke now, if you cd.
there are rats down here as big as cats,
you say. imagine being nibbled to death
by rats, you say. gross, she says
and makes a face. when the subway car
arrives, amidst a shroud of steam,
you feel vague and uninspired.
e.
in the village, at the art bar,
you comment frequently on the rod
stewart tunes which demarcate the crowd
as a collective demographic that isn't yours.
topic shifts to perceived difference
between "rural" and "urban" poet,
perhaps a fallacy; geography
as overrated and merely symptomatic.
robert hass said something,
she tells you, something about writing
poetry, about writing a poem.
"when in doubt," he said,
"praise something." you tell her
that's some terrific advice.
According to Shawn Walker:
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 19:04:42 +0000 (GMT)
From: Shawn Walker
According to David Deifer:
here are my thoughts on ODE.
--d.
a. what is all this? so the bus pulls up a bit early, catching the
subject off guard. it seems like the poet is playin a bit with the
subjectivity of the reader, as in
...sooner than
you might have anticipated.
^^^
and
it soon passes and of course
you've arrived, it was bound to happen.
^^^^^^
i am not sure what the intentions of the first stanza were. but if the
adjectives, adverbs, abstract nouns are eliminated and we are left with
the "things" (not words but real things, as in objects), what do we
have?
a bus that shows up early. and the pause it causes. the real objects
introduced are introduced in similies:
like pulling on a roll of toilet paper
and reaching the cardboard sleeve
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
and the last pathetic wispy shreds.
^^^^^^^
leaving me to comment on the imagery:
how bout a toilet on a bus? that would pretty much sum it up.
b. this second stanza is gesticulating with sounds. there is nothing
substantial here. a bus terminal, a radiologist, a husband, a purple
chair, a quotation, "the start of a plot"
and again with the "you".
drum yr fingers on yr knees,
^^^ ^^^
check yr watch, and when she
^^
walks towards you, she's radiant
^^^^
and you're surprised to see her,
^^^^^^
although you've been waiting for her
^^^^^^
all this time.
are the closing lines of the first 2 stanzas
supposed to be profound in some way?
i don't understand the purpose of this poem. i am not sure what it is
trying to accomplish or whether there is any utility here to scavenge.
i am guessing that it's about death, an incurable disease. and how it's
a part of life and living with it. but the poem doesn't provide place
for these sentiments to cling to -- no real anchors. after reading the
poem, i can't recall any particular things that make it important,
lasting images or scenes besides the tickling enunciation of a few lines.
--d.
From: mmagee@dept.english.upenn.edu (Michael Magee)
On the heels of Dave D's wickedly ungenerous critique, here are a few of
my thoughts on what I think matters and what I think "means" in Ode.
a. To me this seems to me one of the stronger sections, the attempt to
"do" this "near-imperceptible moment" interests me; I think the
particularity of "wispy shreds" is effective, and the end doesn't seem
to me so much an attempt to be "deep" as an attempt - and a largely
succesful one - to capture that sense that the line between boredom and a
much more serious or ominous determinism has been blurred.
b. This seems to further comlicate what's begun in a. by suggesting an
equally blurry line between *surprise* and determinism. My one criticism
here being that I found "curse made all the worse / by a blur of internal
rhyme" a slightly two precious way to talk about this connection between
mood and language.
c. this seems in a way the least succesful section, in part b/c the
relationship between thios man and woman, which we finally get in full
view, doesn't seem to be sufficiently worked out. Which is to say, Nate,
you don't appear to have a completely clkear sense of how you feel about
these to people, or, more importantly, what they're role in the poem is..
d. this I like quite a bit, the somewhat pathetic (but effectively so)
need to hold onto this phrase regarding dread, which is both a need to say
and do something dreadful. Like the word "squelching." I'd drop "you
say"from line 10. And this time around, the sense of ending "uninspired
feels a little pressed. By this time, I mean, we need to feel as readers
a sense of movement (life is a "chain of moods" as Emerson says, rather
than a single mood).
e. I like the idea of ebnding on this ironic piece of advice; I wouldn't
say "Robert Hass" - its not important to the poem who said and thus
distracting - I have to stop as a reader and remember how I feel and what
I know about Hass. So I'd just say "someone said something," an
interestingly vague piece of gossip, and then change the third to last
line to "'when in doubt,' she says,".
So those are my impressions, I think there certainly is a poem here - the
big issue to me is to decide precisely what connection your drawing
bewteen this issue of Boredom/surprise/determinsim and these two people.
Since the poem seems to want to be, to some degree a narrative poem, those
issues matter.
-Mike.
From: djanikia@dept.english.upenn.edu (Greg Djanikian)
Just a couple of observations on your poem, Nate. I think it's an
ambitious poem, one which tries to explore the tension between romantic
exuberance and cynicism, or between our sometime predilection to praise
and our resitance to it. Section b, I think, is pivotal, because it calls
up that tension so well, the speaker caught in his ruminations about
disease, hopelessness, the "er" echoing throughout in "terminal,"
"cancer," "yr," and yet how quickly the moment changes when he is
surprised not by the arrival of the doctor, in his mind's eye, but by his
lover stepping off the bus--a moment of being taken up by the moment.
The rest of the poem is a deflation of that moment, a spiraling downward
into misconnections, trivial conversations, and what is "radiant" is
replaced by what is monochromatic. How far the speaker has traveled away
from his emotion in section b, as though his initial response at the bus
station pitched him too far in one direction and the rest of the day/night
is his tacit resistance to it, though perhaps too much so. The
complications, the tensions, of section b, seem reduced finally to a
cynical stance toward anything which can be praised, and praise itself
reduced to a rhetorical joke, wry.
I guess the cynicism may be too reductive for me finally, an opacity hard
to see through. Maybe if it's modulated a little better elsewhere in
the poem, then I think the ending can work as is, freighted with tension.
But this is a very good draft. Lots to work with. Thanks.
Greg
From: Luke Szyrmer
From: Luke Szyrmer
From: nchinen@dept.english.upenn.edu (Nathan T Chinen)
Hey all,
Here's the revision of "Ode," as read on Saturday night's "LIVE." (no,
that's not "Saturday Night Live.") I tried to incorporate some of the
comments that Shawn, Mike, Greg & Luke made over the listserv. Here goes:
N.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ode
a.
bus rolls in unexpectedly,
which is to say, sooner than
you might have anticipated.
near-imperceptible moment,
startling loss of bearings:
beige curtains of a hotel room
only vaguely familiar
by the glare of midmorning;
or the moment at which you
snap back into consciousness
after drifting off at the wheel.
really just a microsecond,
it soon passes and of course
you've arrived, it was bound to happen.
b.
wait inside the terminal, a term
reserved for certain circumstances; terminal
a word the radiologist has learned to hate,
his tongue curling around "er"
as he rounds the corner and her husband
rises from a turquoise chair, features
creased with uncertainty and hope,
searching for the perfect word.
drum yr fingers on yr knees,
check yr watch, and when she
walks towards you, she's radiant
and you're surprised to see her,
although you've been waiting for her
all this time.
c.
unseasonably warm day,
new york city. you talk
about the weather and mean it.
rain has slicked the pavement.
headlights over the glassy streets,
always in pairs. a few degrees
cooler and snowflakes would rest
on her eyelashes, flickering
as she blinks. you pass a newsstand,
all those thousands of words
lined up in rows. a sidewalk
florist tosses his cigarette aside
with a casual sidearm motion.
she steps over a curbside puddle, grins.
d.
dread fills the subway tunnels.
this is a phrase
you have been rehearsing, for
such as time as this. she nods
seriously, although the urge must be
to roll her eyes and groan.
there are rats down here as big as cats,
you say. imagine being nibbled to death
by rats, you say. gross, she says
and makes a face. the subway car
slows as it approaches the platform.
you hold yr breath in hopes
that the doors will stop just right,
swishing open at your feet.
e.
in the village, at the art bar,
you comment on the rod
stewart tunes which demarcate the crowd
as a demographic that isn't yours.
topic shifts to perceived differences
between "rural" and "urban" poet,
perhaps a fallacy; geography
as overrated and merely symptomatic.
television over the bar flickers urgently
but noiselessly. writing a poem
is like unraveling a mystery, you say.
when in doubt, she says,
praise something. yes, you tell her,
that's some terrific advice.