Intoxication log

[IdleRich]

Is each poem about a different He?

 

[luka]

He had always loved travel brochures.

Is each poem about a different He?

i think so

 

[luka]

He had always loved travel brochures, ever since he had been a child.
He wanted to see the Epcot Center one day. The idea of palm trees
delighted him. He had hung a hammock in his bedroom. He still
couldn't believe the sea could be that shade of blue.

 

[IdleRich]

Cos some of them seem quite similar. That's not a negative. Maybe some poems cover different facets of the same person while others are about someone different. That's how it works for me.

 

[luka]

Cos some of them seem quite similar. That's not a negative. Maybe some poems cover different facets of the same person while others are about someone different. That's how it works for me.

yeah theyre very similar. it wouldnt insist on it. who knows.

 

[IdleRich]

"He wanted to see the Epcot Centre one day" - that's great

 

[IdleRich]

yeah theyre very similar. it wouldnt insist on it. who knows.

Then again lots of people are similar.

 

[luka]

It had been tax deductible. It was a statement admirable in its brevity. It was the kind of thing he liked.
He had known Chris and Lucy for a long time. It had come as a shock. It had been a beautiful service.
He had said so. He had a sense of inner conviction. He played competitive water polo. It was a very
demanding sport. Certainly he had had his dalliances.
He had let his defences down. He had been taken advantage of. He liked to do things properly.
There were things he told himself. He harnessed the power of innovation. He was a ruthless
competitor. He had a tendency to point. He was a stickler for detail. It was a cause for regret.
He had come to depend on his rowing machine. It was his therapist. It was his personal style.
White tennis sneakers and deconstructed slacks. It was a kind of leather blouson. You could
say that he had been preparing for this moment all his life. You could buy egg whites in a
carton. He had discovered it. It had been a game-changer.

 

[Benny Bunter]

Yeah I like this new style, funny and also kind of poignant, ie they're not mean about the characters described even though we laugh at them.

 

[entertainment]

It has a very jazzy diction which makes me feel slightly uncomfortable coming from Luka. The viewpoint has changed hasn't it? The poet is no longer bogged down in the bowels of modernity but frollicking around it.

 

[Benny Bunter]

Dunno doesn't seem very jazzy to me, they're all a succession of flat declarative sentences aren't they? Monotonous if anything (not in a bad way, but the style is deliberately monotone)

 

[luka]

yeah, it's sort of snazzy light entertainment. i think entertainment is right. its jazzy cos of how the sentences work against each other

 

[Benny Bunter]

Depends what you mean by jazzy I suppose, wouldn't have occurred to me to call it that.

 

[entertainment]

yeah it's like playful with the movement. a lot of bathos moves up and down the register.

 

[Clinamenic]

Dunno doesn't seem very jazzy to me, they're all a succession of flat declarative sentences aren't they? Monotonous if anything (not in a bad way, but the style is deliberately monotone)

Monotone and declarative yes, and I also get the sense that, most of the time, when a new sentence begins, it’s as if the focus retracts from the subject of the previous sentence, and is redeployed in a new, somewhat adjacent direction. Sometimes the sentences have some clearer continuity, IE two or three steps being taken in a continuous thread, but most of the time I get more of a sense of a rhythm of step/probe forward, reset/retract, and a step/probe in a new direction.

 

[entertainment]

Monotone and declarative yes, and I also get the sense that, most of the time, when a new sentence begins, it’s as if the focus retracts from the subject of the previous sentence, and is redeployed in a new, somewhat adjacent direction. Sometimes the sentences have some clearer continuity, IE two or three steps being taken in a continuous thread, but most of the time I get more of a sense of a rhythm of step/probe forward, reset/retract, and a step/probe in a new direction.

Yes exactly what I was just trying to type out but in a completely retarded way

 

[Benny Bunter]

Yeah I get that definitely, well expressed.
I think it's just cos usually when someone mentions jazz and poetry it makes me think of Allen Ginsberg or Kerouac or someone, and this is definitely not that.

 

[Benny Bunter]

I guess it's cocktail jazz rather than John Coltrane then.

 

[Benny Bunter]

The thing that's carried on from the old style into this new one are the memorable, funny phrases.

"He had come to depend on his rowing machine."

Not sure why that makes me laugh but it does.

"He had always loved travel brochures."

 

[luka]

it's not the sort of thing i'd set out to try and write. i feel vaguely uncomfrtable about it too. but it just happened to me and becasue it was clearly well done and it made me laugh i let them keep coming.