Tag: Perspective

Interpretive Dance

On By Beleaguered ServantIn Personal Essays2 Comments

(This post was inspired by the piece “Unzesty” from Renee over at “This Dead Horse”.)

When people tell you what a poem “means”, they are almost invariably telling you stuff about themselves, and only partially about the poem. Poems come to life through interaction with listeners or readers, so this seems only natural: any interpretation is telling you about that interaction, which necessarily contains the person who has said interpretation.

Like Renee in the blog post above, I can recall teachers who graded us on repeating back their own interpretations of poems, more-or-less verbatim; like her, I had to learn this the hard way, by failing a few quizzes before I caught on to the game being played. This didn’t seem like a practice calculated to building a love of poetry; it seemed more designed to create something like a cult around the professor, and there is a whole world to explore in that phenomenon.

Many of us want to appear as “oracles”, people whose insight into truth is not to be questioned. One need only go so far as Twitter to see screen after screen full of people who make assertions as to the ultimate truth of everything, and with serene confidence. I had professors, both in poetry and philosophy, who had little-to-no interest in developing the critical thinking skills of students: they had already obtained all truth, and it was the student’s job to ingest it and regurgitate it, unchanged.

It is easy to see the hallmarks of wounded ego in all of this. Very few people care about poetry — you can take it from me, I’ve been a philosopher and a poet — and the natural response of all of us who feel compelled to pursue interests few others have is to dismiss all others as a bunch of unfeeling idiots. They are not, of course, and it is only our desire to feel that our passions should be shared by the rest of the world that causes us to react this way.

I assumed that the teacher described in “Unzesty” himself thought pretty much nonstop about sex and death, so he saw it everywhere he looked. That human beings confute sex and power dynamics constantly is another topic about which many pages could be written, and a significant number of those would be dedicated to college professors and other people in positions of power.

If the concept of “privilege” means anything — and many dispute that the concept does mean anything, other that to be used as an empty pejorative — it is that no one sees all things objectively, and that honest perspectives on the meaning of things have equal validity. This is a vexing reality to all who love something so much that they become an expert on it.

Those other people, with their opinions. Geesh.

(For other posts from the Mighty Cheer Peppers, see here.)

Suzie Hotgirl

On By Beleaguered ServantIn Original PoemsLeave a comment 
They called her "Suzie Hotgirl". 
She'd lay out in the sun, 
And every guy that passed would wish 
That HE could be the one -- 

And many girls despised her, 
And found that hatred sweet -- 
This girl, who wanted only sun, 
But, rather, got 

The heat

a moment’s reflection

On By Beleaguered ServantIn Original PoemsLeave a comment 
her mom used to wash her hair in the bathtub, 
and they would laugh over shapes in the bubbles, 
back in her little girl days, 
before she herself became more serious, and 
her mom, more sad. 

she misses that time when the laughter she heard  
wasn't at the expense of others, 
and while there's no going back, 
she wishes she had taken more of that past 

with her

100 lines

On By Beleaguered ServantIn Original PoemsLeave a comment 
first, he wrote 100 lines of his undying, regal love; 
he kept it in a notebook wrapped in shadow -- 
he spoke to her in passing autumn, under dimming skies 
that flickered like his hopes, and her indifference. 

then, he crossed 100 lines, in mud beneath barbed wire; 
the friends he made and tried to save were all -- 
but in that bloody haze, he dreamed of softness, still, and coffee, 
and being purer, better, there with her. 

but she knew nothing of those lines, the written, or the wounded: 
she'd covered up her own scars very well -- 
100 lines of red neglect, a mind turned out of season, 
and never dreaming anyone 

could love her

The Wreck

On By Beleaguered ServantIn Original PoemsLeave a comment 
The dreams we treasure deepest 
We do not speak aloud; 
And sometimes, we don't even know 
We have them -- 

Until we see ourselves enact 
Some sort of non-auditioned script, 
And feel some inmost self 
Makes our decisions. 

And older people say, you're young.
You'll understand, when you get old.
But when we're old, we 
Leave it to the silence -- 

For hearts go where they will, and we 
Are dragged along behind them, 
To wake up to the wreck that's 
All around us

“…things no one else can see.”

On By Beleaguered ServantIn Original Poems, Poetic Essays2 Comments 
The effort made, the distance spanned 
In hope of giving some relief: 
  We cannot wear another's grief, 
  Nor hold their times within our hand. 

Though selfishness be rightly banned, 
And our tales placed within a sheaf, 
  We cannot wear another's grief, 
  Nor hold their times within our hand. 

That love was once, and ever is, 
Like Autumn falls upon the mind 
That struggles deaf, and dumb, and blind  
To where we find what never is -- 

It isn't good or great or grand, 
A touch like chill and wind-blown leaf: 
  We cannot wear another's grief, 
  Nor hold their times within our hand.

Starting out, we are gaining in powers, and we come to feel ownership: of the world, of life, of ourselves.

The rest of our years are spent learning to let go of all of that.

Our significance comes from our goodness, not our greatness. It does not matter that our names our not known by millions, if our good deeds, or good hearts, are known to a few. If our names were known by millions, it wouldn’t meant that we were. Known, that is.

Grief and sorrow are inevitable, because we are born with an innate sense of permanence, a that is a thing this life does not offer. There are many types of loss, and some of those go beyond any place words can travel.

When someone we love is gone, we suddenly realize just how stark the limits of imagination are. Reminiscing can recreate feelings, but it cannot recreate actual people.

I accompanied the two of them to the cemetery: a dark-haired young mother and her fair-haired four-year old son. They stood by her late husband’s grave almost perfectly still, the only motion being the light wind moving their hair.

I was standing off at a distance.

I was struck by the boy, who is a classmate of my granddaughter’s. I’ve seen him a handful of times this school year, and never known him to be still, even for a second. But his every movement on this occasion mirrored those of his mother.

His mother, who is hairdressing client of my daughter’s, held her son’s hand and seemed to be seeing something there I could not see.

Grief is always composed of things no one else can see.

(Other posts from this month’s community blog posting group.)

Signs of Things Already Past

On By Beleaguered ServantIn Original Poems1 Comment 
Signs of things already past 
Are ones I love to keep: 
Outdated fliers, slogans, posters, 
Stack up pretty deep 

Here at my house. I know it's strange, 
Just add that to my list -- 
But I get off on dwelling upon 
All the things 

I've missed