sw00002tdp-2poems

This Day's Poem- tdp092806 and tdp092906


 Since in my introductory entry I included two 
 poems from my This Day's Poem series, I 
decided I should exhibit the rest.  This series--
though I didn't know it was going to be a
series at the time--began on 09.28.06 after I
had read an online poem by Steven Gehrke.  I
recently read in an entry on Silliman's Blog
that there are at least 10,000 poets presently
writing in these United States.  I suspect far
more are, yet even a mere 10,000 is beyond any
practical comprehension.
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09.28.06

After Reading a Steve Gehrke Poem

And so it was,
in the last eye
of imagining,

a distinct incision
into which/ nothing entered,
and beneath which/ no speck

of what had been taken
could ever return,
as the lights// went out.


[ Seven hours later--around 8 AM--the author of the
  above, deliberating about what he'd written, pic-
tured a professor discussing his work in a class,
having first given copies of it to his students.
He began by noting the biblical tone of the first
line, and indicated that the author was taking a 
chance there, but that it seemed--in the context
of what follows--to be (possibly) a necessary
choice, if indeed it was a choice.  Next he notes
that in the final line an even greater chance has
been taken, as that line could be peremptorily dis-
missed, be labled a cliche, and a horrid one at
that.  However, he speculates there is more here
"than meets the eye" and that the author may/ have
taken this/ obvious risk because the mystery aspect
of his poem required it, and that he hoped he had
given those words new life because--given what 
comes before--they elicit connotations which deepen
the poem's mystery.  He then points to the double
slants in that line and to the single slants in 
each of the two earlier lines.  He questions why
they were placed there, and concludes they are 
pause markers.  He says one might think of musical
scoring, or the sprung rhythm accents Hopkins used,
or the dashes Dickinson used.  If the final line
were read straight through, its two last words
would take on a different meaning.  A reader seems
to be forced by them to read those last two words
more slowly.  He then turns to the poem's title.
"Why does this poem have the title it has?  What
do we know about the poet named there?  Can we
discern what poem by that author was the catalyst
for this poem?  Is there a need to know this, and
is there a pertinent connection, or perhaps more
than one connection?  Whatis the author of the
poem before us talking about?"  The professor goes
on and does come to an acceptable answer, among
other acceptable answers which seem to be hiding
in the piece, and that answer has to do with body
parts and with actual medical operations; but let's
see what all this deliberating caused the author 
of this work to do.  Before showing that though,
there is another important insight the professor  
here reveals to his class.  He tells them he thinks
this author invites readers to revise what he has
written/ because he knows each reader confronting
a work of his does so from his or her own sensi-
bility, and he wants each reader to become actively
engaged.  He sites another recent work by this
author, a work he entitled: "3 Tonalities".  In 
that work he presents three versions of the same
13 words, the same 16 syllables, in the same order.
He then, on a different day, offers a critical 
reading of each tonality, a reading which lets one
see how a given reader might prefer one of the
tonalities over the other two because of that
reader's sensibility. ]
_


09.29.06

After Reading a Steve Gehrke Poem (a re-vision)

And so it was,
as the lights went out,
in the last eye
of imagining,
a distinct incision
into which nothing entered,
and beneath which no speck
of what had been taken
could ever return.


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 Brian A. J. Salchert