Guide

HetHeret: Thank you. I mean for them to leap, but sometimes they just, you know, sit there. So thank you.

It’s too gray for blood here
and you are far,
far too quiet.

Brilliantly expressed. Simple words have conveyed a profound thought. Keep it up.

To paraphrase Yeats, poetry exists between the writing and the reading of it. Although free verse lacks obvious structure, it`s not as simple as scribbling whatever you want and splitting it up any which way--there`s a music to it, a pacing dependent more on line breaks than on puctuation, and internal rhymes that show the poet`s dexterity and delight in the language. These are some of the things that I look for and enjoy in free verse.

I wonder who said women `get` poetry better than men. I think it`s more a matter of men not being supposed to get poetry out of some silly notion that it`s `girly`. Maybe men make more of a show of not understanding it--I seriously doubt a person`s sex alone decides whether or not they get a particular literary genre.

To go back to Yeats and, more importantly, this piece: Kyla, this one practically leapt off the page...I`ve still got goosebumps.

Yar, this one is brimming with feeling! In simple words, it`s a very well written piece.

PS: I loved your usage of the word `deathlessness` ; gives good meaning to the fact that death is an important part of life.

Fakhra

I liked these....

Ras

I wonder how less of an ego trip writing/reading/interpreting poetry is than other literary forms....in my experience really good writing takes us out of our own worlds and in to other worlds...what`s second best...or mediocre seems to reign among too many...

Rahul, thank you very much! And you know, I really like to get into the `brain` of a poem, but I really agree with you on the pleasure principle.

This will need to be read a few more times.

kyla, this was almost like a visual experience..perhaps more than it..
Thanks for writing such a wonderful piece.
Farzana-
``If writing poetry is a vain exercise, then for me reading it, really reading it, is even more of an ego trip! ``
It could not have been put better.
Only,I believe in the pleasure principle, more than understanding.Perhaps pleasure is another name for understanding, i dont know.

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Ursula Le Guin is alive and kicking actually.

Heh. Also, Robert Frost said that writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down. Which is a view I respect. Although I also think that if I feel like luddi dalna on the tennis court and calling it art, what maee ka laal.... ?

acha khair. :D

ferzana thanks, will try your method and report back of success-failure. i am sure there are many poetry-challenged who may benefit.

the song example was just to explain the mechanics (melody-beat then lyric). i am not claiming that it perfectly capture womans existance or something (that was more to get you poetry-types attention).

i liked facets of it like her father who tells her that she is to young but she feels that she is just small-bodied (but big-busted). i also liked that the use of ghisa-pita imagery (korey kagaz pe likh diya nam tune..she seems disappointed by the exeperience) in folksy songs .. its kind of minimalistic.

anyways back to this poem..still over my head. i wil try next one

is it true that women `get` a poem more often than men?

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Yousufi said something funny about the free verse but he was talking specifically about ``aazaad nazam`` (free verse poetry written in Urdu). According to yousufi, one should scribble down something whatever strikes one`s fancy on a piece of paper. Then,he should tear the paper into two. In this way, the guy will instantly become the creator of two poems written in free verse.

Jang:
I read poetry like a simpleton with perhaps an eye for detail...and a feel for metaphors. How does a simpleton understand poetry? The same way you understand songs...the melody, the flow, the rhythm.

As for the words, they should speak to you, not necessarily what has been stated, but what you perceive. The layers of meaning you talk about may or may not unfold... it ought not to be forced. I personally do not like to go back to a poem to `get it` or to look for new meanings. I read it aloud, or softly hum it and see how it works for me.

e.g, in this work the lines, ``And I follow you more with questions than my body,
and you answer sideways, you won’t look back`` `became` this poem. And then other lines got somehow connected to it...the final statement therefore made the winding up so complete: ``Come back from this deathlessness.``

Mine is essentially an emotional response to any such writing and if I prise it open it is to help me deal with my understanding. If writing poetry is a vain exercise, then for me reading it, really reading it, is even more of an ego trip!

Am intrigued as to why you found that the song, ``Mere hathon mein nau anu chooriayan hain /Thoda thaheron, sajan majabooriyan hain`` was about a woman`s existence. I wonder how a man perceives it as such...

Just felt like sharing...