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e. e. monk
Mar. 30th, 2015 08:30 amCouplets following couplets,
Poetry in steady droplets,
A playful bit of folderol
In an easygoing doggerel,
Consciousness in a rhyming stream
Flowing free as a midsummer night's dream.
~ ~ ~
I have been struggling with another one of those ridiculously ambitious urges to write poetry. If I should live into my seventies, I wonder if I will still be dreaming of composing poetic epics, despite the cold fact that even a good limerick is beyond my skill. If I have not shaken off this adolescent dreaminess by now, why should I expect to get any more sensible in another twenty years? I got a especially excited this time because I got an idea for what I could use for subject-matter: I could adapt a non-poetic work! I thought this might be an excellent idea for Thomas Mann's "Magic Mountain". It is a novel that carries a lot of sentimental value for me, but after the first half-dozen readings, it is not really as enjoyable to reread as, say, "Lolita" or the works of Shakespeare. I cannot speak for the text in its original German, but it seems to translate rather dryly. If I could translate it into verse, even in my clumsy doggerel, it might be fun to sing again and again like a favorite song.
The fire of this feverish idea only spread from there. If I am going to spend the time adapting a book into my forced rhyming couplets, why not get more value for the effort by adapting works of history and get in some real learning? I have read more than a few books on Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. Maybe I could make it pay, at least figuratively speaking. I even started getting into it for the better part of the morning, going through my Lincoln books and throwing in some Wikipedia material, until I realized that I was essentially just creating another pile of quotations. My projects seem to always revert to simple quote-mongering, as though my brain is only really good for copying things down and revolts at doing anything more challenging and artful. Then, when I focused on actually trying to versify some of this material, the roof and the sky fell on me, again. You can deny reality for only so long. The idea of reducing such weighty matter into doggerely couplets was making me queasy with self-disgust.
So, back to "Magic Mountain"? Feeling more humble, a thinner work came to mind, but still by Mann. That collection of short stories by him that I have on my Kindle came to mind. Recall that I bought this book in order to finally get "Death in Venice" under my belt, and I ended up enjoying a number of his stories. There was one short story in particular that hit home hard: "The Joker". It is about an upper-middle-class youth who, instead of taking his inheritance and following his father in joining the business community of his hometown, goes off to travel around the world and then settles down to a modest lifestyle pursuing the literary life, to spend his life just reading good books and enjoying hoity-toity concerts. However, after he sheds the skin of his adolescence and faces thirty in the mirror, he becomes horrified at the limited life that he has trapped himself into. Although that is not exactly my life, it is mortally close. After reading it again, I realized that I could not turn this into childish rhymes either, but take it in as one of my re-readables, my little store of favorites to read repeatedly over the years. It, too, is a bit dry, but it is not nearly as long as "Magic Mountain".
So, where am I, after all these musings and revelations? I am sort of back to my usual place, thinking that I really need to get past these writerly inclinations. I can enjoy reading good literature, but I will only ever write diary entries, or else jot down quotations. Yet, the itch still itches. Maybe it will only stop itching when death finally stills all my fond notions once and for all time, when the blood and brain-waves cease their wondrous flowing and I no longer have to suffer this sense of failing.
Poetry in steady droplets,
A playful bit of folderol
In an easygoing doggerel,
Consciousness in a rhyming stream
Flowing free as a midsummer night's dream.
~ ~ ~
I have been struggling with another one of those ridiculously ambitious urges to write poetry. If I should live into my seventies, I wonder if I will still be dreaming of composing poetic epics, despite the cold fact that even a good limerick is beyond my skill. If I have not shaken off this adolescent dreaminess by now, why should I expect to get any more sensible in another twenty years? I got a especially excited this time because I got an idea for what I could use for subject-matter: I could adapt a non-poetic work! I thought this might be an excellent idea for Thomas Mann's "Magic Mountain". It is a novel that carries a lot of sentimental value for me, but after the first half-dozen readings, it is not really as enjoyable to reread as, say, "Lolita" or the works of Shakespeare. I cannot speak for the text in its original German, but it seems to translate rather dryly. If I could translate it into verse, even in my clumsy doggerel, it might be fun to sing again and again like a favorite song.
The fire of this feverish idea only spread from there. If I am going to spend the time adapting a book into my forced rhyming couplets, why not get more value for the effort by adapting works of history and get in some real learning? I have read more than a few books on Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. Maybe I could make it pay, at least figuratively speaking. I even started getting into it for the better part of the morning, going through my Lincoln books and throwing in some Wikipedia material, until I realized that I was essentially just creating another pile of quotations. My projects seem to always revert to simple quote-mongering, as though my brain is only really good for copying things down and revolts at doing anything more challenging and artful. Then, when I focused on actually trying to versify some of this material, the roof and the sky fell on me, again. You can deny reality for only so long. The idea of reducing such weighty matter into doggerely couplets was making me queasy with self-disgust.
So, back to "Magic Mountain"? Feeling more humble, a thinner work came to mind, but still by Mann. That collection of short stories by him that I have on my Kindle came to mind. Recall that I bought this book in order to finally get "Death in Venice" under my belt, and I ended up enjoying a number of his stories. There was one short story in particular that hit home hard: "The Joker". It is about an upper-middle-class youth who, instead of taking his inheritance and following his father in joining the business community of his hometown, goes off to travel around the world and then settles down to a modest lifestyle pursuing the literary life, to spend his life just reading good books and enjoying hoity-toity concerts. However, after he sheds the skin of his adolescence and faces thirty in the mirror, he becomes horrified at the limited life that he has trapped himself into. Although that is not exactly my life, it is mortally close. After reading it again, I realized that I could not turn this into childish rhymes either, but take it in as one of my re-readables, my little store of favorites to read repeatedly over the years. It, too, is a bit dry, but it is not nearly as long as "Magic Mountain".
So, where am I, after all these musings and revelations? I am sort of back to my usual place, thinking that I really need to get past these writerly inclinations. I can enjoy reading good literature, but I will only ever write diary entries, or else jot down quotations. Yet, the itch still itches. Maybe it will only stop itching when death finally stills all my fond notions once and for all time, when the blood and brain-waves cease their wondrous flowing and I no longer have to suffer this sense of failing.
