I spent a good number of hours this weekend on my first run through Frost's complete poems. I finished it--at 1 o'clock last night. I now have 128 pages of lines (double spaced).
Needless to say, I need to buy some extra printing paper and another ink cartridge before I proceed to the next step.
As I've been getting into it, I've noticed how unified Frost's poems are from beginning to end. Sometimes it feels like his work was 'made' for my project--all the elements of the story are pervasive throughout all his poems.
In a way, it's going to be a collage poem, a play, an essay, an environment. (I've already started thinking about the performative aspects of this project--but I am getting ahead of myself.) This is definitely the sort of thing I could excerpt for journals or get published as a chapbook by a small press. (Yes, way ahead of myself.)
There's still a little fear (that is, excitement) because I've selected all these lines but I just don't know how they are all going to fit together. And what rules, systems are going to change along the way.
(There's so much more going on in my head--what it's like to use the line, the fact that I can repeat lines in this process, more worrisome questions about authorship than my usual collage poems.)
Monday, February 25, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
the 'quick and dirty' collage
At the end of last semester one of my advisors gave me some texts to read and respond to. I decided to try a kind of 'flash collage'--where I just skimmed the text quickly and wrote down phrases or half-phrases and arranged them quickly together. One I like a lot:
A Skull.
I begin to wonder the way to imagine a man—
From the ‘how are’ to the ‘I love’
And I dismiss immediately
But not too much a world of meaning.
The way I’ve managed an observation:
To curse several times
This perverse private dialogue of awareness
The expression an equally animal
Can’t think to question.
But I asked how before they
(The animals, I mean) explode,
Which is what I can see in its eyes
If it hadn’t meant anything at all
And was just saying good bye.
A Skull.
I begin to wonder the way to imagine a man—
From the ‘how are’ to the ‘I love’
And I dismiss immediately
But not too much a world of meaning.
The way I’ve managed an observation:
To curse several times
This perverse private dialogue of awareness
The expression an equally animal
Can’t think to question.
But I asked how before they
(The animals, I mean) explode,
Which is what I can see in its eyes
If it hadn’t meant anything at all
And was just saying good bye.
new project: cento for frost
A cento is a poem in which all the lines are taken from other poems. This kind of poem dates back to the times of Virgil, says Wikipedia.
The introduction to my poem is this (true story):
On the afternoon of December 29th, 2007, a hiker discovered Robert Frost’s summer home on Homer Noble Farm vandalized. Furniture had been set on fire; windows, light fixtures, dishes had been destroyed. Urine, vomit and the yellow powder of a discharged fire extinguisher could be found throughout the house.
On hearing this story I immediately thought it would be the perfect occasion for a cento from Frost's poems--a kind of vandalism, yes? It took me awhile to get on it but now I'm on it...going through the complete poems, searching for lines. It's *big* project (much bigger than I realized going into it).
Many of Frost's poems are narrative, have a speaker who speaks in present or past tense. I've been finding lots of great lines surrounding: fire, winter, nighttime, houses being entered, smoking, drinking, young people--mostly I'm just asking as I skim, "How might this fit in?" Yes, it's collage but a very different process for me in this respect: I'm starting with an idea and then letting it inform my selection (rather than my earlier collage poems where I began with language and moved toward voice, meaning, unity). The way things are forming ('how way leads on to way') it will likely be a short play or a series of monologues--from the hiker, someone at the party, and from the ghost of Frost.
I am going to print off the lines I've typed up, cut them apart and then arrangement on a table (like my usual process) but the final poem will be typed up, not pasted down.
The introduction to my poem is this (true story):
On the afternoon of December 29th, 2007, a hiker discovered Robert Frost’s summer home on Homer Noble Farm vandalized. Furniture had been set on fire; windows, light fixtures, dishes had been destroyed. Urine, vomit and the yellow powder of a discharged fire extinguisher could be found throughout the house.
On hearing this story I immediately thought it would be the perfect occasion for a cento from Frost's poems--a kind of vandalism, yes? It took me awhile to get on it but now I'm on it...going through the complete poems, searching for lines. It's *big* project (much bigger than I realized going into it).
Many of Frost's poems are narrative, have a speaker who speaks in present or past tense. I've been finding lots of great lines surrounding: fire, winter, nighttime, houses being entered, smoking, drinking, young people--mostly I'm just asking as I skim, "How might this fit in?" Yes, it's collage but a very different process for me in this respect: I'm starting with an idea and then letting it inform my selection (rather than my earlier collage poems where I began with language and moved toward voice, meaning, unity). The way things are forming ('how way leads on to way') it will likely be a short play or a series of monologues--from the hiker, someone at the party, and from the ghost of Frost.
I am going to print off the lines I've typed up, cut them apart and then arrangement on a table (like my usual process) but the final poem will be typed up, not pasted down.
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