Poetry Friday: In(di)gestion

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May 8, 2009

7:52 am

13 Comments on Poetry Friday: In(di)gestion

Poetry Friday

This photograph illustrating “Eating Poetry” by Mark Strand, is used courtesy of the American Academy of Poets. Rights reserved.

I haven’t worried you all with a dose of high school poetry in ages, and it’s about time, isn’t it? (Oh, just say yes.) For some reason, I was reminded of my bleary attempts to write about betrayal, lies and …by some leap of intellect, Eve and therefore all humankind. When I wrote this, we had been studying Blake’s A Poison Tree, so some of the sinuousness of language and rhyme comes from that killing metaphor.

Original Sin, or After the Fall

We harvested the twisted tree

We ate its silken lies

Then in the isolated sea

We sank

With empty eyes.

We drown

Within the gulf affixed

The chasm stretches wide

We touch

Our shame and passion mixed

And choke on rising tide.

Of godlike knowledge we know naught

Of hindsight we know all

The evil which our mothers caught

Does now seek our downfall.

– or –
Of godlike knowledge we know naught

Of hindsight we know all —

With frantic bodies solace bought

But nothing sweetens gall.

Princess Liz recently pointed out a collaborative poetry project some friends of hers did, where one woman offered a poem and everyone else gave their version of the poem — rewriting it utterly in some cases or simply revising and sharpening the imagery used. I think it’s hard enough to have one’s prose critiqued in a writing group sometimes — this strikes me as something deeply personal and difficult to get through. However, for old poetry like this, which is largely cribbing stylistically from an even older poem — I think I could deal with it. Maybe. Either way, I took a stab at rewriting this poem with a little less… darkness and drama. It’s not really working, but if any of you get a perfect stanza at least out of it, let me know!

Poetry Friday with actual poems is hosted this week by Anastasia Suen.

All content (unless otherwise attributed) is © Copyright Tanita S. Davis and may not be reproduced in any form.

13 Replies to “Poetry Friday: In(di)gestion”

  1. Lovely. Not that I’m surprised. It reminds me of a song by October Project called “After the Fall”. You can hear the track here, although someone has paired it with an anime video they made.

  2. I actually like BOTH endings together, just as you have them! It sends the reader back into the poem…kind of a “choose your own ending” poem.

    And no, I’ll not be sharing any of my high school poetry. At least yours was literate. Mine was sappy and informed more by greeting cards than literature!

  4. Andi… Um, yes? I think so? I think whatever you come up with will be yours, I won’t consider it a “revision.” Just… your take on Eve, original sin, Blake’s The Poison Tree, etc.

  5. Oh, brave, brave poster of such words. 🙂

    We should have a “My high school poetry can emotively drown your high school poetry” contest.

    P.S. I LOVE what you say about essential you. You are you are still you in this poem.

  6. “And silken lies sadly now just reminds me of tofu… but I still like how it sounds.” This really made me laugh. I agree with everyone else – this is great stuff for high school! I especially love the line about our mothers. Are you seriously inviting collaborative revision?

  7. I’m amazed that this is high school poetry, too. I love the idea of hindsight replacing godlike knowledge.

    You’re so right about “Essential You” being in those earlier poems when we were more daring.

  8. Tanita, I hear you but clearly you have not read much teen poetry. While I am certainly more mature and aware now, my understanding of poetry surpasses my actual skill level.

    Can’t critique this but kudos for sharing it. You are free to critique my work anytime. Despite my limited skills I have quite a thick layer of skin. It’s required when choose an English major 🙂

  9. For all who don’t actually believe I wrote this in high school, I had to copy it from a journal — one page over is a diatribe on how I exist to contain putridness, and the page prior is scribbles of blue ink and all caps of “THIS IS DRIVING ME CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”Granted, I was a senior, so vocabulary, yes. Maturity, heck no.

    And silken lies sadly now just reminds me of tofu… but I still like how it sounds.

    You guys should srsly bust out your high school stuff. It’s Essential You in there, between stanzas of deathless prose. Be brave! Come on…

  12. Oh wow. Love this, silken lies and all — I think I like the second ending better. 🙂 Can’t believe it’s high school stuff, though.

  13. OK, first off, THIS is your high school poetry??? Mine is so, so, so much worse. Oh, honey.

    I may just take a crack at this, though. I’ll keep you posted…

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