Only just a poem
Or just very short poems. Actually I'm interested in at what point something becomes a poem and my way of investigating this is to write poems that if they were any shorter wouldn't be poems. The question are what makes something a poem, and also is it possible to agree that a piece is or isn't a poem? I have a feeling some of what I consider poetry other people wouldn't.
Of course, you can cheat a bit with the title telling you what you need to interpret the poem (virginity storyboard 13, below), or setting up the space for the poem to occur in (nobody dies); will have to write a series titled one, two, three, etc. and see how much more work the line itself has to do.
Anyways, if anyone's interested in contributing here's a couple to kick off with. Are they poems?
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virginity storyboard 13
known as an eskimo kiss, or an inuit. the script
prefab, mostly from tipp-ex.
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nobody dies
the shadow of her plane as it crashed overhead
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Comments
poems (or not?)
Ah Master De Mello, another puzzle you set us. The pieces you have posted have a meditative beauty. The inuit kiss one feels more like a puzzle than a poem, for reasons I am not sure yet about. The second piece again invites specualtion on the construction of a narrative, something which is pleasing to do- speculate- ...It feels more like micro fiction. Yes that is my feeling - these pieces are micro fiction. So what is the difference between micro fiction and very small poems??
-Pete
Micro fiction and poetry
For me the difference between micro fiction and poetry is that often there is no difference, hence the term proem. To suggest a narrative is fiction, to open up the spaces in the narrative is poetry. You can throw in aesthetics and ideas like 'the intensity of poetry', but at the end of it all for me there is a sense that poetry is what happens as nothing happens. Hence many photographs are poetry and for, example, sections of Japanese/Chinese/Korean films which have no obvious place in the narrative as story but compose their own narrative as emotional aesthetic, which is related to the story in that it takes place within its frame but which answers the question of 'what happens?' by saying 'being happens'. There's also an interesting question about time that is raised. The time of a photograph is the shutter speed, but the time in the photogrpah is timeless.
As an example of what I mean and of what I'm trying to do with some of my poems:
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local paper
“the three dead men were still in the car when it was
winched out of the river”
the trees at that spot have hanging glass branches
that clink in the wind. on their trunks name
bouquets appear. your cheek frayed where it’s
stitched. the scent of clouds freckled with snow.
Poem?
No idea. It's germane that you came in on this point as I'm about to throw some words onto the blog/blogboard that'll be taking liberties with the 'genre' (poetry). With me immediately I cannot spare the time to fashion the words as I would care to, that's the story. See u soon. Welcome to the board newly {Board as 'discussion board'}