So, in preparation for my live, on blog, poetry interpretation (to be done in penance for our massacred library poetry section) I went out onto the internet to look for a super complicated, hard to understand poem. I knew the poem should be on the shorter side as I would hate to overtax the internet with too many words. The internet is so delicate in that way bully monsters can be. I moused around for a bit and William Blake came up a couple of times as sort of a challenging to understand poet. So I went out and found this poem:
Ah Sunflower
Ah Sunflower, weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the sun;
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller's journey is done;
Where the Youth pined away with desire,
And the pale virgin shrouded in snow,
Arise from their graves, and aspire
Where my Sunflower wishes to go!
Who countest the steps of the sun;
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller's journey is done;
Where the Youth pined away with desire,
And the pale virgin shrouded in snow,
Arise from their graves, and aspire
Where my Sunflower wishes to go!
William Blake
Now, I am not going to say this leaps off the page to me as intensely intelligible, but I didn't have a ton of trouble with the first two lines. Then, in a curious turn of events, I had cause to look up the lyrics to a song by my current favorite singer. This is a song I love, and I was looking it up to clarify the line I couldn't stop singing so I could perhaps sing it correctly. The singer is The Tallest Man on Earth (no, not actually, just, funny name). The song is called Bright Lanterns and the lyrics are as follows (and you can listen to it here):
Bright Lanterns
by The Tallest Man on Earth
Well we air clear blue aching skies in the morning after
And memories of gold on the run, flying around
Was there a drunken cloud over someone just empty
A vision of a mount you say, so where did it go
It was light and I held it like a child to be saved
From the fires and from the falling down satellites
But still wondering
Damn you always treat me like a stranger, mountain
Though you've seen the shadow between the city and what is mine
And fallen kids all rising men among their logs, but leavers
Suddenly darker in their eyes and their broken smiles
It's only what these kids will haul around
Well there's a lot of sullen land for hungry feed of answers
And medicine for balancing things, like seeing your ghosts
So thank god we're bright, said the lanterns brother
Cause I don't know a thing about boats or the land I see
It was day and I stood there once again climbing quick
When I knew you were the one throwing dying stars on our gathering
But he said
Damn you always treat me like a mountain, stranger
Though I have never seen your shadows or fading lights
I'm just a rock that you'll be picking up through all your ages
Always believing there's a canyon for every blind
It's only what these kids will haul around
Now, I am not going to say this leaps off the page to me as intensely intelligible, but I didn't have a ton of trouble with the first two lines. Then, in a curious turn of events, I had cause to look up the lyrics to a song by my current favorite singer. This is a song I love, and I was looking it up to clarify the line I couldn't stop singing so I could perhaps sing it correctly. The singer is The Tallest Man on Earth (no, not actually, just, funny name). The song is called Bright Lanterns and the lyrics are as follows (and you can listen to it here):
Bright Lanterns
by The Tallest Man on Earth
Well we air clear blue aching skies in the morning after
And memories of gold on the run, flying around
Was there a drunken cloud over someone just empty
A vision of a mount you say, so where did it go
It was light and I held it like a child to be saved
From the fires and from the falling down satellites
But still wondering
Damn you always treat me like a stranger, mountain
Though you've seen the shadow between the city and what is mine
And fallen kids all rising men among their logs, but leavers
Suddenly darker in their eyes and their broken smiles
It's only what these kids will haul around
Well there's a lot of sullen land for hungry feed of answers
And medicine for balancing things, like seeing your ghosts
So thank god we're bright, said the lanterns brother
Cause I don't know a thing about boats or the land I see
It was day and I stood there once again climbing quick
When I knew you were the one throwing dying stars on our gathering
But he said
Damn you always treat me like a mountain, stranger
Though I have never seen your shadows or fading lights
I'm just a rock that you'll be picking up through all your ages
Always believing there's a canyon for every blind
It's only what these kids will haul around
So, hi, it's me again. Did you read these? I probably wouldn't have, but as we fascinatingly established in an earlier blog post, you are not me. So who knows, maybe you did! Now, what I have to say about these song lyrics, to a song I love, is... Oh my god! This looks not just seriously difficult, but actually approaching something like random strings of words. I'd be all aquiver if I was going to have to live blog interpret these lyrics, much more than the William Blake, and yet I already know I love these somehow. I just furtively read an article by Michael Chabon, a brand new article I think since I was standing at the to be processed magazine cart, about song lyrics and poetry. It was all a little skimmy and in a hurry for me (my reading, not the writing), but one thing I really liked is how he made a nice argument that lyrics aren't exactly poetry, but they are writing.
This brings me to a place I so frequently arrive at, the one where I suddenly have absolutely no idea what my point is, and I have to sort of read back through and invent one, or sometimes remember my original planned point and need now to figure a way to hammer the thing into what I've written. I don't usually mention this part of the process, in case you were wondering. And my point is, it's all words. It all does whatever it does. And tomorrow, when I live blog interpret some poem (and I'll pick a new one), it won't matter if I'm right or wrong or disrespectful or dazzled. It's just a poem, and, like all writing, even this, seeking after that sweet golden clime.
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