Next!

photo by me

Moore: A lot of poems having to do with, or mentioning nature. I don't have too much of a problem with that, in fact I love nature (hence the pictures I have been posting) except every single poem I read had to do with nature and after a while it got kind of boring to me. Maybe if I have time to read one of her longer poems I might think differently of her. But for now I was not a big fan of her nature poetry.

... I said next was T. S. Eliot...but I lied. Next is-

Louis Zukofsky: I read To My Wash-Stand. I enjoyed it, I liked how a poem was dedicated to an object rather then a person or nature. The way it is formatted too is really neat. It reminds me of water, water waves running down through the faucet of the wash-stand. I love the beginning lines they are really great because it is such a strange beginning yet pulls the reader in.

To my wash-stand
in which I wash
my left hand
and my right hand


I really wish it could be formatted here the way it looks on the page



also what I liked about this poem was even though it was dedicated to a wash-stand you could totally see it being more then about a wash-stand although it isn't clear exactly what the deeper message is and I have to admit I don't know...maybe I am reading to much into it and it really is just about a wash-stand. But what makes it stand out to me (because I usually dislike poems that are about one object but have some deep universal more then meets the eye theme) is that one can read it, like it for a wash-stand poem, or decide it has a greater meaning but not feel stupid for not getting it. A lot of the poems that are about one thing and really about something else tend to make me personally feel inadequate and stupid for not getting the deeper message. Even the way the authors right makes me feel like they expect one to get it right away. This poem had a relaxed feeling about it...where it felt like I could enjoy it and if I didn't get it, that it was ok with Zukofsky.

I also listened to Zukofsky on PennSound. I like his voice. It reminds me of a story book narrator- someone who would read classic fairy tales. He has that cool classic laid back story book voice.

I also read Zukofsky article "An Objective"... now I can give you some B.S to make me look smart... But I won't do that. I got maybe one or two lines but for the most part I have no idea what the heck I just read was. This really makes my first initial reaction with the wash-stand poem seem contradicting. I thought Zukofsky was a chillax kind of guy but I just didn't get what he wrote at all and I didn't get a laid back vibe from it at all. I felt like I had to get it-which made me very sad.

Can anybody tell me what they got from it?

I need to read his other article, and my next post will have Oppen, Niedecker, and just maybe T. S. Eliot.