Does it work the other way?

Here's another comment in verse I made to a blog post that I read about a month ago. The question in the post asked if social media actually improve the users' lives in any real way, or does the phenomenon actually provide a false sense of sociability?

Here's my Petrarchan reply (fixed up considerably):

More Came

If, in this web of copper and concrete
And carbon, we could join our yielding souls
Any other way, I'd find this, our wholes
Inside these cubes of labor's being, sweet.
A blown kiss, or a gently waving treat
Tenders our memories' store more than touch foals
Taste or sense of soft-urging pressure's goals:
Greater longing, sooner blown down the street.
Still, love for love owns nothing we see;
Though nothing replaces skin on skin impressed,
Our nows deny it, even when framed art!
Electrons current our sharp need: the heart,
Despite its pumping pleasure, finds rest.
As ever, we bring what we send, thus free.

Again, I ABBA CDDC'd the draft I posted then. This is the (more or less) finished result.

What's odd to me is that this one seems to contradict the previous comment-poem I posted below, which actually was posted later in Blog-time.

Hmmmm ... .

Amends and Afterthoughts

Just because your poetry has a signature style does not necessarily make you any good.

I recall a line from (I think) Annie Hall in which Woody Allen's character calls some poem "McEuenesque." He did not mean it as a compliment.

Also, a signature style is not necessarily original. Your signature may well be that you imitate someone else (see "McEuenesque" above).

I think that goes for all of us, equally. Let the creator beware.

I'm not sure if the name Day-Lewis is hyphenated. I've seen it printed both ways.

My recollection of his poem comes from college. "Florence: Works of Art" was in that old Norton anthology, the one full of my scans of metrical poems (see "Pencil It In" in my May 2008 archive).

I now understand that the poem is a chapter in a longer poem, An Italian Visit. I assume it would be found in his collected poems.

"Florence: Works of Art" contains "pastiche" poems referring also to sculptures, as well as paintings, in Florence museums.

Afternote (10-4-11): UK publisher Bloomsbury has announced the release of both paper and electronic versions of An Italian Visit soon, along with many other classics in its back catalog.

Written in Water

There's a great metrical poem by Cecil Day-Lewis that has him going on an art tour in Italy ("armed with good taste, a Leica and a guide"), and, for each famous painting that stirs his poetic imagination, he dedicates a section of the poem to a famous contemporary poet.

Not only that, but, as students of Old Masters have for generations in art, he writes each section in the style of that poet. He has verses imitating Auden, Yeats, Hardy and several others. Each one is in a rhyme scheme and line structure that suits both the poem and poet. Yet, the "in-between" sections by the late poet laureate of England are truly his own art -- as are his "imitations."

It prompts something worth thinking about: what does your "stylistic stamp" look like? I know a lot of modern writing teachers like to talk about "finding your voice," but I think that's just a starting point. Your work's individual stamp -- in which a reader pretty much knows a poem is by you without having to see your name under it -- is really a goal, not a mere point of departure.

I'm calling this goal a "watermark" -- implying both a stamp of quality for fine paper and a means of digital security for electronic documents. It's really like both.

"No way Joe Buzznow wrote that! That's definitely by [fill in your name]." Now, wouldn't you like that said about your work?

So, how do you get there? I think that's completely individual, don't you? How on Earth can anyone do that for you, or even begin to outline a procedure that will secure your work forever?

In my case, it was a long series of personal events that stamped the work for me. They made an indelible impression on my mind (both conscious and unconscious), and my poetic reaction in response created, bit by bit, my watermark. I think you can see it hiding like undertext in a palimpsest within previous posts.

In other cases, it might be something completely different. But even if yours comes from the same basic process as mine, your watermark still would differ. No two recollections of 9/11/01 are identical, even though we all remember the day.

Your poetry's watermark is like a medieval lord's coat of arms -- both his possession and his description, his signature and his seal, his word and his bond.

I wish you luck in forging yours.

A Labor of Love

I've made some other changes, so I guess this is final (maybe).

To One Tired of the Tiring

"Mannered and obsolete," I can hear them moan,
Smirking over words forming ocean's rove
In stale modernist theories that reprove
Any effort past bland themes they condone.
Are there words with secret lives of their own,
Huddled, shrinking from a meek dread of love,
In a cold, dripping cave, who cannot move
Beyond the clapping hand of Elite's koan?
Pure faith in the sweet pull of longing's ache
Reveals the lore each limbed harp holds within
Her sweet cascade of lissome summer's chime.
There, I'd give more than I could dream to take,
In soft dalliance with firm rules' ken:
Pulsing Nature's touch pours out rhyme and time.

by William Mark Gabriel

I'll admit "moan" and "koan" remain a pretty broad slant, but it's the best I could do. You may also notice how, when you're just going through the normal process of revising, you can actually sharpen the poem's meaning by choosing a better rhyme word. I think I managed that in a couple of cases.

I posted on this last year (I think I called the post "Rhymes in Time" -- oddly fitting the last post. It wasn't deliberate.). Choosing rhymes and other formal aspects of verse are just parts of the writing process.

Yes, they are tougher to do than, say, fixing a comma splice in a sentence -- but that's what makes you a poet, right?

We enjoy the challenge, or we wouldn't be doing it in the first place.

Next time, I'll have some ideas on how to "watermark" a poem.

The Rhyme in Time

And I didn't even need a thesaurus:

Mannered and obsolete, I can hear them moan,
Smirking over words that form ocean's rove
In stale modernist theories that reprove
Any effort past bland themes they condone.

I don't use a rhyming dictionary, either.