I read. My eyes my eyes are red. My eyes are green. I read. No page is turned.
Blurred vision. Spirals spinning. Mirrors smashing. I eat.
One plus one equals two, and two plus two equals purple.
I read, I think I understand. But to understand is not to read and to not read is to not understand.
Do I understand?
Eyes spinning. Spirals blurred. Mirrors eating. I smash.
Hands wave in the air causing mouths to pour out beautiful words strung together to form sentences like tying shoelaces. Right, right, left right left.
My hand is paralyzed which locks the key to my mouth.
I try again, and again it tries me. I delayer my clothing trying to put the puzzle pieces together.
The words, the sounds the words make are tender. I stop at the red light.
They blog. He blogs, she blogs, the cow blogs while I eat my oily French fries.
I close the book, roll over and dream of a hopeful tomorrow.
Although I found the work of Gertrude Stein interesting and compelling, I had a lot of trouble fully understanding her. For this blog, I wanted to attempt to express my feelings towards her works by writing a poem in her style. I thought that this would help me decode her writing style. Surprisingly, I found that writing in her style was much easier than reading her style.
One aspect of her poems kept repeating itself in each poem and struck with curiosity and confusion. This aspect is her use of repetition. I couldn’t help myself wonder about the need for the repetition, besides from adding extra confusion. In class we briefly discussed the idea of the new, the novel. Can something ever be new? Or are we always subconsciously taking from the old? This immediately made me think of Emerson’s essay titled Quotation and Originality. In this essay, Emerson states that nothing is truly our own and new because we constantly recycle ideas and thoughts of others but we add our own twist or a slight nuance. I think Gertrude Stein is drawing on the same idea as Emerson. Each time she repeats herself it is for a different purpose or with a different nuance to the phrase. In the poem Roast Beef part of her Foods collection in Tender Buttons she writes, “In the evening there is feeling. In feeling anything is resting, in feeling anything is mounting, in feeling there is resignation, in feeling there is recognition, in feeling there is recurrence”. Each time she repeats words and phrases something different is added to the sentence. This is also seen in the titles of her poems. Each Milk poem is extremely different from each other in words (I would say meaning as well but I don’t understand them). Her use of repetition teaches the reader that nothing is truly new and truly ours. Stein’s style of writing is not new because it was based off cubism but different in that it is verbal cubism.
Through writing about my feelings in Stein’s style, I learned more about her and how she expresses her feelings through her poetry. Although at first, and several other glances, Stein’s poems are ambiguous, repetitive, and seemingly irrelevant to any discernable theme, she does have messages buried deep down under layers of confusion. While this may seem like the makings of a terrible poet, after writing my own poem in this style, I believe that the difficulty in understanding her poems is what makes her such a great poet.
I LOVED your post! Not only is your poem so creative, but I really felt like I was reading a piece from Gertrude Stein! I thought the line "They blog. He blogs, she blogs, the cow blogs..." was really funny.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I really like how you brought up the question about whether something is ever truly new. It definitely made me think about Stein's writing and what contributions she made to literature.
I also loved your poem! As I was reading it, I was honestly trying to figure out if it was you or her. It's interesting that your poem does seem to have some sense of unity, for you begin by saying that you read, and end by saying that you close the book. I do not get the sense that Stein unites her poems like this.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Sarit, while your poem is uniquely obscure it has some sense of unity about it. While some parts don't make exact sense, overall there is meaning and I can understand and interpret your poem. It seems as though creating a completely irrelevant and confusing poem is more difficult than it seems, as Professor Miller mentioned in class.
ReplyDeleteDespite this, I certainly enjoyed it! Particularly the title and oily french fries bit.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your post! I found it extremely impressive that you were able to follow in Stein's footsteps and write such a creative and humorous poem of your own. I also think you achieved that level of expressing your feelings in her style, and also able to convey a deep meaning under " the layers of confusion".
ReplyDeleteFun experiment, only notice how seldom Stein writes sentences where she has herself doing anything. She avoids sentences that begin with the pronoun "I."
ReplyDeleteThe Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, is, as I said in class, and exception to her overall style.
Ilana, I loved this. Very brave of you, I might add. I have to agree with Sarit and Natalie, however, that you did display unity in your poem, while Stein seems to stray away from that. But, not to discredit Stein, reading your version had a gratifying ending because it made the experience complete. Stein's poems rarely come with that sense of accomplishment at the end, but again, that is her intention.
ReplyDelete