Sweet, sweet roses...
So, I'm supposed to write two love poems for class. Psche to Eros is already up in its basic form. This is the other one I'm handing in:
O Rose
You don't know me but I know you.
Through your window I watch your grave
silent sway. You are fairer than any nodding lily:
your blushes warm me. No savage thorns
lie hidden in your bed, though the rosy hues of your inner chamber
are petals to ornament your perfection.
How I long to peel
them away and touch
your crimson core.
I'm watching in my secret place,
Where the pine-tree's drip
slithers under my collar,
snakes coldly down my spine...
You'd better appreciate this!
You don't know me, as I said, but you will.
You'll meet me soon,
O my Rose.
This is more of an anti-love poem: I was trying to subvert the genre, using the traditional language (including flower imagery) to induce a sensation of creeping dread on the part of the reader. It's met four beta readers so far, and the results have been very mixed: two of them going Eeeeeeeuuuuuwwwwww, how could you write that? and two looking bewildered and asking me what the point was. I am interested in your personal reactions.
Yes, it's based on Blake's poem The Sick Rose, which goes, for those who can't quite remember it:
O Rose thou art sick
The invisible worm
That flies through the night
And in the howling storm
Has sought out thy bed
Of crimson joy
And his dark, secret love
Doth thy life destroy
O Rose
You don't know me but I know you.
Through your window I watch your grave
silent sway. You are fairer than any nodding lily:
your blushes warm me. No savage thorns
lie hidden in your bed, though the rosy hues of your inner chamber
are petals to ornament your perfection.
How I long to peel
them away and touch
your crimson core.
I'm watching in my secret place,
Where the pine-tree's drip
slithers under my collar,
snakes coldly down my spine...
You'd better appreciate this!
You don't know me, as I said, but you will.
You'll meet me soon,
O my Rose.
This is more of an anti-love poem: I was trying to subvert the genre, using the traditional language (including flower imagery) to induce a sensation of creeping dread on the part of the reader. It's met four beta readers so far, and the results have been very mixed: two of them going Eeeeeeeuuuuuwwwwww, how could you write that? and two looking bewildered and asking me what the point was. I am interested in your personal reactions.
Yes, it's based on Blake's poem The Sick Rose, which goes, for those who can't quite remember it:
O Rose thou art sick
The invisible worm
That flies through the night
And in the howling storm
Has sought out thy bed
Of crimson joy
And his dark, secret love
Doth thy life destroy
posted by theamazingcatherine | 12:33 pm
16 Comments:
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I'm in the "Eeeeeuw, how could you write that?" camp.
Maybe make "though the rosy hues of your inner chamber" a line in its own right, as is, it seems too long.
"slithers under my collar,
snakes coldly down my spine..."
Doesn't seem quite right. Maybe "snakes" should be "snake"? Did you change that stanza from the one you showed me before? It seems slightly more 'poetic' than I remember. The "You better appreciate this" line is a good, um, I'm not sure what I mean exactly - change of mood? Maybe change the mood entirely by removing the sibilants in slither and snake and just say that he's sitting in the pine tree with rain dripping down his colour as a pure inconvenience with no artful language about it.
This poem leaves me a in a really bad, nasty emotional place. I hope you're feeling proud of yourself.
Steph
I'm sorry for making you feel bad, but...
Yes.
Now me, on the other hand - I like the poem. It's nasty and creepy, yes - but for me, that doesn't have to be a bad thing (then again, I'm the one who wrote The Little Drummer Boy poem, so that tells you a little bit about just how twisted things can get inside my psyche)
No specific suggestions editing-wise - just a note saying 'I like, and it has its intended creepifying effect'
Hugs
T
'The Little Drummer Boy'? Dare I ask?
It's a poem I wrote earlier this year when I was going through a particularly dark patch that freaked a number of people out (with good reason - it wasn't nice).
I'll PM it to you along with some of the commentage it sparked
And I've finished the re-write! And the Reflection Essay! And printed everything! Yay me!
I myself happen to be in the "This is darkly beautiful camp" as in hitting midnight and acellerating.
That said, it's very nice indeed.
So, how did people take your "Stalker wanting to peel someone's skin off" poem.
Steph
I get their comments on it next week. We shall see.
And it isn't _exactly_ about wanting to peel... etc. It is deliberately ambiguous. So there.
"How I long to peel
them away and touch
your crimson core."
There is nothing ambiguous here at all. And while "inner chamber" _could_ mean bedroom, I really don't think that it actually does.
Steph
Finally having thought of something to say, I will say it now.
We all know that anything that is written or spoken to others is open to interpretation, as we each perceive things differently.
On the subject of love, me, I do not believe in the idea of unconditional love, and even the subject of love is debatable. There is more of a commitment to loving the idea of love, than loving ones’ partner.
In reference to this ideal, and in relation to the poem, I feel that the ambiguity of idea of love is clearly in evidence, and as we all know love is illusive (slithery) at the best of times.
As for fitting into the genre of love poetry, and understanding that love is not an easily definable subject… In my opinion, O Rose, as a poem that was designed to subvert the classical genre, does so quite well.
There are enough subtle references to love in the poem, such as, warmth, bed, an inner chamber, perfection, a longing, touching your crimson core, and a knowing. I may be wrong but isn’t the red rose a traditional symbol of passion, lust, and love?
As for the structure of the poem, I am in no way qualified or skilled enough to comment.
Mike.
It's a poem about a _stalker_. Love has nothing to do with it, it's all about obsession and sadism.
I have to agree, as to stalk is to watch in concealment, and to pursue. Obsession as I understand is to in some way be deluded, and totally preoccupied by an object or person etc...
I am not to sure if the content of the poem included sadism. I always thought that sadism included cruelty and inflicting pain... Hey I may be wrong... I guess it could be called a fatal attraction in some form or another. But if sadism was evident in the poem, I missed it.
Mike
"But even then, there is a piece missing here. This poem is, in the end, about a point of view--and we need to understand that speaker's point of view, what passes for a kind of "love" in his mind. To show us this, perhaps the speaker needs to look away from the subject at the end--needs to suggest his (I see this as a male stalker) view of the world, his place in it, through corollary. I don't know what that might be, exactly.
"This poem can be creepy; but it should be, then, in a sense, a sympathetic attention to the mind of a very particular kind of lover--sympathetic in its willingness to examine the speaker's inner life. Otherwise, it risks just sounding like a gimmick." (Dr Bryan Walpert)
I'm not sure that I can do with this poem what he would like me to do ie. get inside the worm's head. I don't want to, either.
As a payback, his grandmother's name is Rose, and it freaked him out in that special way. Heh heh.
I liked the ambiguity of the original version - like an optical illusion people could read it in two different ways. I liked that conjuring trick, even if it is a gimmick.
I must think on this.
I'm part of the 'creeepy' camp. having said that, I like the poem's imagery. think however that I've read too many psychological thrillers ot be emtirely comfortable with it. Was this what you inteneded?
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