Sometimes I sit on the roof of my house and read the kind of books that get you noticed. Sometimes I go to coffee shops and peer over the words of the page and watch people, and wonder who they are, and who their friends are while I sit, hating coffee and loving blueberry scones. I wish Orange Julius would become the coffee shop of our age.
I remember reading an old tattered copy of Wuthering Heights on a plane so that people would think I was intellegent, and interesting to talk to. Sometimes I sit and look at the books on my shelves and am proud of their diversity and number. I love to go to bookstores and look through the classics section so I seem well read but I never read cookbooks in public because I have a weight problem and it makes me look bad, like the only thing i am interested in is where and how to get more food. Books have a way of making an impression, a way of telling a story about the reader and I do read.
And what I read says that I hope for a spooky supernatural kind of love like Heathcliff and Catherine and that I dream of Gatsby's Green Lights and Ash Heaps. The books I read say that I have stood on Boo Radley's front porch and looked around at a place where, "I would be but little happy if I could say how much." I have seen the Phenomenal Woman, stood in the city by the sea, wept over the desolation that I found there, and I reached far in the distance Olympian Glory that Hercules saw when his labors were done.
You see, books have a way of making an impression, a way of telling a story about the reader.
13 comments:
it's too rich for me to appreciate-- makes me feel like the loser you feel like in the first part-- only to reveal you were faking it. . . . being a loser that is. only i was being for real.
and i love orange julius-- what ever happened to that?
great work michael. thanks for continuing to edge out in your poetry.
jd
Ultimately, though, you can't be Boo Radley and Gasby is dead. You and I will never experience the lives of Odyseus and, frankly, He would be out of touch now anyway.
You bring up real points about our tendencies to puff up but, ultimately you can only live in your life and in your context.
...I love Orange Juliuses. There's a grease-joint called The Varsity in Atlanta that sells frosted oranges (F.O.'s) that put Orange Juliuses to shame. But I still love them too!!!
I speak of you in a 'global' sense of the term. I do not mean you as in Michael...
...I hope that clarifies my comments. Good stuff, bud.
Sorry David,
You're wrong. :)
and here is why...
Don't you remember the main point of To Kill A Mockingbird. "Unless you get into somebodies shoes and walk around in them awhile you'll never understand them."
That's what stories do, they enable us to put on a character and walk around with them for awhile. To experience their lives and contexts. So I have been Boo Radley, and Gatsby, and yes, even Odyseus. And don't ever say that he would be out of touch! Why do you think it's a classic? Because the truths contained in the story are just as true now as they were then.
The first word of the Odyssey is Human because the book relates the human condition. "Tell me O muse, about man, man of many wanderings, man of many ways..." It's an exposition on the human condition. It explains lust, desire, betrayal, loss, death, friendship, family, contentments, knowledge...
His journey is our journey... That's why the story has lasted.
As for Orange Julius... we need to open our own franchise.
Right...okay...
...But to exclusive and utterly live through the texts of the classics is to die. I agree with you that we must listen to others in the mix. I've read a lot of books but none of them have ever cracked the mystery of life (they may have commented but they, short of the Word, have never been THE answer in and of themselves).
I agree that many good lessons and interesting and exciting journeys have been witness or maybe even experienced in the texts of good literature, music or paintings/sculputure but I will never admit that those fictitious and self-created stories hold any answer to my story.
I can say "like 'Fahrenheit 451' the society that I live in is decaying and moving towards a government centered, big brother, mentality" but I can never say "'Fahrenheit 451' is EXACTLY what's going on in my world and just like 'F451' I'm going to join the fire department and go crazy!" This is to live out of a story instead of appreciating what values it may offer.
Completely different. Thanks for the dialogue, Michael.
But David,
I never claimed that these poems were exact representations of my life. Nor did I claim that they were anyway equal to the Word. The claim of the poem is that I have through the reading experienced another set of ideas other than my own. They make an impression on me. Not that I only live within the pages of a novel...
I never go towards movie or novel or sory hoping it contains all that is necessary for life, just that the experience would lend perspective, and yes, even some truth to explore.
I believe we're closer to the same page than we were initially willing to admit (or that I was willing to admit).
Over time my eyes have been drastically opened to books like 'The Jungle' or 'Grapes of Wrath.' These texts, fiction as they are, gave me new perspectives to issues I would have otherwise have not understood. However, these, though perhaps not the best examples, show a text that may be seen from two vastly different perspectives.
'Grapes' was hailed by some and trounced as less than fiction by others. The same went the for the 'yellow journalism' of 'The Jungle.' Again, vastly differing perspectives on what the text stood for.
I don't know where I am exactly going with this. The texts can inspire or send you towards a general direction but they cannot stand as Truth. This leads to an altered reality that is self-created (I'm thinking of those Star Trek conventioneers). Not to be critical but these are those people that bought into the story completely (or at least on some unrealistic level).
This is not real. This is not the purpose that is intended by literature and that is where I thought that you were going (initial contextual understanding of mine).
Inspiration and immulation are to very different results of the same texts. I side on the part of inspiration. I'm inspired by many things that art offers. However, we must be careful to what degree we live in that story, aside from Scriptural reality...
...but it isn't like we grow our hair long and wear sandles to immulate Christ. Rather, we are inspired by the life that Christ lived and to some degree we wish to immulate His life...
...I'm not sure this is going anywhere profound; so, I'll stop. Does this make any sense?
Ahhhh the joy of poetry! To quote my dear friend John Deere, "To be misunderstood is to be great." And if that is true, then our poets are our greatest people!
Michael, I'm with JD and I.H. It get's pretty deep for me. And one of the reasons I left the big a.t.s. was that I am not a prolific reader. Jeana C. tagged me for a post about what's on my bookshelf, and I'm tempted to list my dvd's (of which I only have 63).
Ultimately I would say, ignore the critics, keep on slamming poetry, and not doors! :D
I agree with Timothy...
I simply wanted to write a poem about books and characters that I loved and that have taught me something... The starting premise is the reason I started reading the classics was a selfish one and yet, I found a wealth of treasure in them, and a few dreams for the road.
Of course if you haven't read any of these books, you would miss out on the point... so I think... I am going to rename the poem... in stead of Impression... I think I'll call it... Concussion instead.
The reason I say that is because I never could have forseen the number of different paths you guys would take it down. I think I have to be honest. This poem failed in it's purpose :( It just isn't clear enough.
Oh well, we'll get em next time! ;)
David said:
"But to exclusive and utterly live through the texts of the classics is to die."
May we read and live through The Text the same way we do in these fictional accounts so that we may die more and more every day...
Michael! Hope everything is going will with church and life... I look forward to more of your poetic inspiration! I love seeing the world through your words.
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