Can't Take a Picture

nice

Beautiful imagery Gerry - who needs to take a picture...with words so descriptive:)

I like this poem very much, Gerry. Since you asked for critique, I will share that an awarded poet friend of mine told me once never to use verbs ending in "ing". When I rewrite and take out the present perfect progressive tense (I think that's correct) I seem to like them better. It's something for you to think about and play around with to see which you like best. I don't hold with rules much, they are to be known and broken, I think.

good one ty for sharing

Gerry - I like the emotion you are sharing, and it seems that your are referring to the lineage of man and the ocean. I very much like the lines:

The water holds me up in green-sun flavor

Then salts my lips when I rise

Sunlight on a math-born mirror dances

When I flip the briny hair out of my eyes - though I don't understand to what "math-born mirror" refers.

"I will float in the world until I pass," - is this a reference to flowing with your spirit in life? I'm kind of dense usually, so what may be clear to others requires my asking.

The sense of searching without answer combines with shapes being either evanescent or evolving, adding to the mystery you try to voice.

If my interpretations are correct, I think this could use some tightening in a few spots. Experiment with eliminating the "ing's" from your verbs, perhaps. For me, revision is almost always an exercise in trimming word fat. That might be a personal style, but it would be what I might look at here.

Great to read something new from you!

Thank you, commenters! Especially nice to get honest feedback. I don't know that I've heard of this idea of not using the present progressive, that most immediate of tenses, and I don't know why that would be. I guess I knew at some level that this would be hard, as I'm dealing with something very difficult to write about, which is the nature of water itself. The unbroken lineage is water's relation to itself, constantly seeking to connect with itself in circular shapes, drops, waves and vortexes. When you try to catch a glimpse of these things in moving sea water, they come and go so swiftly that they are hard to hold onto in the mind's eye.

Water is apparent chaos, but if we could see into it deeply enough we would know the intense order within. When you watch the ripples that flow through the waves, you see that some sort of phenomenal mathematics would apply to it if we were fast enough to process it, but in the end the idea is overwhelming. In the end water overwhelms our ability to use words.

I worked over several days to resolve the poem and the ending is perhaps more literal than it seems. I have written about water for a number of years in a fairly dry fashion, trying to figure out how to translate some sense of its power and magic to a world that takes it for granted, and I think the ending means that I will stay with this task of trying to speak for water until I am no longer here.

That you could construct vivid imagery from memory of sensory perceptions makes this poem have both a concrete and airy quality. I like very much how you use an analogy from your own internal make up to paint the scene with 'Sunlight on a math-born mirror dances.' Nature is to some a measuring of distances and shapes and I just thought this line expressed both you and that you sensed and saw in a perfect combination. There is a lot about this poem I enjoyed, but I just wanted to single out one line I found spectacular. Your third stanza falls apart in not having the gentle flowing rhyme scheme of your other stanza. I am a bit surprised you did not use poetic license to keep this stanza within the flow. Give your reader credit for understanding what you mean, even if you reverse word order. I certainly hope you work on the third stanza, but as a whole, that is the only change I see that's needed. In a way, this poem reminds me of some of Robert Frost's nature poems.

Wow--Amy and William, it's like you're sitting here talking to me and it's wonderful. I will consider these ideas carefully. I had not realized that I was losing the feel of flow in the last stanza, so I'm particulary interested in evaluating that. And thank you both for the powerful encouragement. It will give me something to think about as I fly home today.

Gerry,

I see urgency here to capture the sea motion in the lens of your eye, hold it still, understand it. I think you've written of a feeling here with some great innovation.

(Early on I, too, was taught "ing" on a verb weakens it.)

Loss of flow is in the third stanza.

The are so many rules (to be broken) that I really wonder if they sometimes have a negative effect on quality. I heard and am conscious of the 'ing' supposition, for that is what it is. I don't see such restrictions in 19th century poetry. Why now? Go with your gut. I am practicing anarchy to all the made up rules.

Gerry, I like this a lot.

Hadn't heard the "ing" thing, but you have only two adjective ing's. But both of them work well de-ing-ed. The logic to me is pure parsimony of syllables: is xxx-ing has two more and only rarely is that meaning needed; more often the rhythm.

In "...freeze frame" I'd drop either freeze or frame; the meaning's clear and the clunky mechanical term is gone. In S3L1 you want to get water after sea somehow, for the rhythm.

Glad you had this time with great Oceanus!

Ooh, John, that puts some serious detail into what was puzzling me about the suggestions. Great idea about freeze-frame and I'll study your thoughts carefully. Thank you very much!

Yeah, dense and intense, packed and folded like DNA... So that when you want to expatiate, lingeringly, over the cloud-meadow of possibilities, it stands out. Someone I've seen here named Neal somebody is very good at that parsimony thing.

There's something about drowning/merging/birthwater/sexwater that isn't quite there yet but could be?????........

Gerry, I flowe with the gentle movie your words/eyes created. I was going to remark on the rhyme you managed--I usually give it a miss...then I read Amy's and William's comments. The poem works for me, because I read the thought, the intent, the immediate "feel" you captured. Sometimes rhyming can take away the impact, sometimes make it just that much more beautiful to the ear.
I thoroughly enjoyed your 'shells under the feet' image and the pull of the sea. I have felt it too. For me, this is perfect as it is...

Thank you very much, Minnie. I guess I've been intrigued by suggested changes and I'm going to go ahead and republish this after a few days, when I've had time to work on it again. Still, I'm happy that you've felt the intent of it as it is.

John, and Carolion, still thinking....

Well done Gerry
Your passion is obious in your introduction and in your lines. Powerfully.
You asked for a crit and you once did one most benecficially for me...so here goes.

I go with Bill. I find that his words are potentially very valuable. Very.
As for myself, I find that the last verse does not match the artistry of the rest. I take ote of your explanation but offer you this thought. Should your great climax and vehicle for your ocean fired emotions need a road map? What I'm saying is that it doesn't quite work for me.

I wouldn't have said all this if you didn't make your appeal.

Fred, thank you for coming to return the favor. Your critique makes me ponder as deeply or more so than any other. It would be nice if it didn't need a road map, and maybe I shouldn't have given one. I am reminded of Carolion's comment on another article about my real question being fear of not finding voice for what I was meant to say in the world, and I have this fear. I have tried for years, in somewhat limited but varied ways, to speak for water in ways that elevate our understanding of what it truly is, and this is my first attempt of this intensity in poetry. So our understanding of water doesn't "quite work" for any of us, including me, because none of us really get it . I guess the main thing for me is to struggle on. I will republish this, and any changes I make will be in light of what you have so generously offered me.

gerry - this is too lovely for words. i felt like i was there.

Liz and Jessie, I thank you both for your kindness and your inspiration. I'm glad it had so much meaning for you.

Maybe I should feel great envy and pout a little for the great critiques you've received. You know a poem has really touched a thread when so many often such varied sterling responses. Excuse me while I slink off into a corner and do envy primal screaming.

Thank you, William. I might not have done it if you hadn't been part of that discussion about criticism and such a good model for it yourself. I hope that screaming helped, but I hope you weren't too serious, because I could easily fall into envy seeing some of the great comment threads you generate for your writing. And then there's the fact that you do it so much more regularly than me....

Very interesting illusory poem, Gerry. I love, "Sunlight on a math-born mirror dances," and the feeling I get transported by your elegant poem

Another line I love: 'So it spills through my head, unbroken lineage'
John Dewey would have envied these words.

Thanks, Ed. That is probably the line I am most happy with here. I appreciate the use of "transported" because that's what poetry should do when it works.

William--that makes a difference, because I think I might keep that line now. I have been contemplating changing it. Thank you!