The Warm Black Sky

When the sparrow
strikes the clear pane
it is afraid and strange
and then elated too
mistaking its fall
into the warm black sky
for its mother’s wings.

- Lance La Roucque -

Heat

All the polar bears in this town
drink gasoline.

It’s in their pee, too,
they think,

how they can escape the accumulation
of matches & lighters—
the fires to come

and to dream
their encumbered bodies
unleashed
down deep
beneath the ocean’s

ice

- Lance La Roucque -

I found Lance La Roucque’s serialist poetry to be very interesting. I was pretty confused about serialist poetry, I understood it but while writing poetry i tend keep the rhymings rules in my head. While investigating the serialist artists i came across Lance La Roucque’s poerty and found that his poerty was playful and nice, he was breaking the rules of rhyme but instead his poetry was making sense in a crazy way. … All THE POLAR BEARS IN THIS TOWN DRINK GASOLIN*… !?!?!? .. that line makes me say what!?!? … polar bears… Gasoline!?!/.. theres no connection.. or is there.. further reading the rest of his poem i tried to make assumption what Lance La Roucque was saying during his poem.  The fun thing i found about serialist poems was that teh poetry is abstract, there are many different meaning you could pull out from a serialist poem but the question remains .. is that really what the artist was trying to project  to his/her audience? was that the message?

Lance La Roucque is known for his poetry and interest in natrue: ” The writer and nature”, this Canadian serialist artist studying anatomy, psychology and history.

” I tend to notice pretty unusal things in the environment around me: photographs of debutantes on the side walk, the mayor playing baseball with some rockstars, orphans riotting in Brazil, small animals and insects cursing and smokin”      -Tara Azzopardi-

“My mother use to say that children, poets, and schizophrenics all use language in a similar way.” – Gil Adamson-

“I must eat cabbage in some style before every poem.” – Lance La Roucque -

“Every is watching. Even the objects are eyes.” – Lance La Roucque -

While reviewing the other day, I came across a poem that had, to me, no sense of rhyming pattern. As I went to critique the poem, I doubted myself. I thought, what if there is a poetry style such as this, and I just don’t KNOW about it.

 One style of Poetry which I love: becuase I understand it is Lyric Poetry.

Lyric Poetry consists of a poem, such as a sonnet or an ode, that expresses the thoughts and feelings of the poet. The term lyric is now commonly referred to as the words to a song. Lyric poetry does not tell a story which portrays characters and actions. The lyric poet addresses the reader directly, portraying his or her own feeling, state of mind, and perceptions.

However the few questions which still remain in my mind regarding lyric poetry are : 

a. It is often short in stature and sounds as though it could be sung or could go to music, so could a lyric poem go to music? 

b. If a lyric poem expresses the emotions and feelings of a poet, can the poet use phrases such as We, us, them, they?

c. whats the difference between lyric poetry and lyrics then, musical lyrics. (they rhyme too)

I discovered thath the difference between lyric poetry and musical lyrics is that as long as the poetry or song expresses emotions and feelings of the poet its a lyric poetry. If the song is about the girl, the bar, the club, money , drugs etc., and the song is not expressing how the composer feels then the song is not a lyric poem.  

Having to investigate a Poem, I decided to investigate my own poem which i posted on my blog earlier. This was actuallt one of my first poems which I actually put thought and effort into to creat. And I was actually satisfied with what I created, it felt good to creat a poem which I liked.

  My inspiration started off with my own views on the abused phrase “love” and the list of words I was given which would help me create the poem. When I started off I realized that my poem didn’t sound the way I wanted it to, it sounded very serious and emotional. I then flipped through the dictionary to find words to replace the ones I had and i ended up changing my entire poem becuase I decided to use all these funky words which I never saw in my life to date. The words just sounded more attractive and better to me. I could hear the sounds and feel the words when I read them.

 My favourite words out of the entire poem were : Aphrodite, **POLLYWOPUS**, Heebie-Jeebies!!!!!

…..& Hustle and Bustle =)

Investigating an Poetic Author

Michael Ondaatje

            I was looking through the set of books on the table till the hard cover book:

“The Cinnamon Peeler” by Michael Ondaatje caught my eye. It was actually the name Michael Ondaatje. I had read his book “In The Skin Of A Lion” in my English class and didn’t know the author also wrote poetry. So I found that very interesting and decided to read his poetry as well and find out more about him.

            I found it quiet shocking when I searched Michael Ondaatje’s   profile, to find that Michael Ondaatje was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He then moved to England with his mother in 1954 and then to Canada in 1962, becoming a Canadian citizen. 

            Although he is best known as a novelist. Ondaatje has also worked on autobiographies, poetry and film. A semi-fictional memoir of his childhood in Sri Lanka is called Running In The Family (1982).

            If I ever got a chance to meet Michael Ondaatje in person there are three questions I would love to ask him:

1.      What was his inspiration for the two books:

a.       In The Skin Of A Lion

b.      The Cinnamon Peeler

2.      What is it that draws him to English literature?

3.      What three words would he describe his poetry and English literature in?

4.      What his favorite English word is?

A BUNCH OF POLLYWOOPUS!

At first, love starts off by giving the HEEBIE-JEEBIES.

… Fake promises & commitments

… true feelings & emotions

… and a bunch of POLLYWOOPUS!

Soon enough …

Love begins to feels like the falling wood of a house on fire.

And none can dim the fires fierce and special glow

Or change its destiny.

They say true love speaks in tender tones

And hears with gentle ears.

I say, love speaks with DEVASTATING HORRIFIC tones

And listens with BLASTING ear drums.

Like entwining the heart of an APHRODITE

In long THORN stems,

But none could be blamed other than the heart of

A condemned CASANOVA

In which, no shame or pity casts over INAMORATA.

The best and most beautiful thing in the world cannot be seen nor touched.

They must be felt with the heart.

Love no longer becomes the HEEBIE-JEEBIES in your stomach,

Nor the HUSTLE and BUSTLE in your heart

..love..

            ….just a bunch of

                                    …POLLYWOPPUS!

 It is very interesting how different sounds have different impacts on us all. For example, as I surfed for annoying sounds in YouTube I came across many sounds of babies laughing and crying. The joyful, squeeky, high pitched sound of a babies laughter brought joy and satisfaction to the people around the baby. Similarly in video clips where babies would scream on top of their lungs, as though they are about to burst their lungs, those sounds brought feelings of despair, anger, and annoyence to the people around the baby.

  Its amazing how different sounds can make us feel different emotions and feelings. While I was trying to search for some soothing sounds on YouTube, I noticed that in most,  if not all the sound video’s consisted of sounds of birds chirping and the sound of water falling. I noticed that the soothing sounds were slow and soft. The video clip ” Relaxation Meditation Nature Sounds”  consist of musical instruments played by the Native’s along with the sounds of nature which allow me to escape this monday morning to a beautiful tropical island. When I closed my eyes and heard this sound I imagined my self stuck on an island, between trees and many different colorful tropical birds, I pictured myself in front of a smooth beautiful waterfall. The waterfall was small and light, about seven floors high. I escaped into a time far from now, the sun was going down, the sky was shades of pink and blue, UNTIL……

   Until my sister played around with the sounds I was listening to, playing horrific sounds, which made me end up in a place where I was running for my life !  – Light out -

          … I realized that the sound of lightning, thunder and rain made me feel like I was in a dark, abandoned place. I was on the street, lost, forgotten … I felt like I was looking for something or someone or some place … some place more secure I guess … Then the sounds got louder … more ferocious … which made me want to run from where ever I was, I felt like I was soaked, and drenched. By the end of the clip I just felt more lost …

  This was an entirely different feeling from listening to the soothing music of waterfalls and birds chirping. I also noticed the sound of crows common in creepy sound clips which ended up giving me the shivers.

So I sat there just like the rest of my class, In the library, except i just sat there staring right at my computer screen while the people around me sat there looking at their computers with joyful expressions and glee in their eyes. How awkward. They all seemed so taken away by this activity we were doing. Blogging. Just what I happen to be doing right now. Not that im doing it because I want to, but because my teacher keeps walking around and passing by to see me still stuck at the beginning of the activity whereas others are almost done. LIFE SUCKS!.

  So going back to where I was… so unlike the rest of my class I was the only one so despaired doing this activity, you need to try it too. Especially when you have two nosey clowns sitting right beside you in class. So im like so trying to do this activity but to make matters worse I can’t concentrate because of two nosey clowns sitting beside me reading what i write and commenting on it!.. how annoying.  So i manage to keep sliding and shifting my computer screen right and left and in vertical directions each tim one or the other tried to read my work. Now I felt like an idiot doing that! …I bet I looked retarded or something. but aanghhh .. what ever! 

So at first I sat there thinking of ways to get out of the library then I thought to screw this stuff and just go on facebook or an online messenger, but my luck as soon as I made my fatal attempt and opened a facebook homepage I saw her!.. she was walking right towards me .. I could feel my heart sink into my stomach. To make matters worse, my computer froze right on the facebook homepage. But my luck, another students sitting at the other end called her. PHEWWW ! … so clearly time wasn’t passing so fast, then I trailed off viewing other wordpress accounts and realized that, this may really not be all that bad. I started to follow directions and in no time my account was created and I was able to let everyone else know through this blog how badly I didn’t want to do this blog and hopefully in the future our teacher won’t make other students do this bloging thinging .. BUT ITS COOL ..