Sunday, September 18, 2011

POETRY PICNIC WK 5 : Object (The thing form / Objectivism / Imagism etc)

My friends, I am Shashi and the host for the fifth week of creativity and enjoyment at The Gooseberry Garden for Poetry Picnic WK 5.

Last week's poetry picnic was a GREAT one where the Jingle Poetry Community anniversary has had a great response.. and we at the poetry picnic are happy about the response that You give us. Thank you very much.

This week is going to be very interesting too as we are going to touch upon an interesting form, ‘Object’ where you look deeply into the thing that you are going to write about and write what comes to your mind.

But before that let me tell you what we are going to do next week...

We are going to talk about Mythology next week and your interpretations. We have across our ages, culture, tribes and religions are full of mythology, interesting percepts and thoughts... and that is what we are going to touch upon next week. Dig into your resources, around you, within your family, your culture,  and you may find an array of resources and thoughts and stories that I am sure interest you to write about it. So go ahead take one of those threads and mint a new verse and take us to an amazing journey of your culture, thoughts and perspective.


Now coming back to our topic this week ....

POETRY PICNIC WK 5 : Object (The thing form / Objectivism / Imagism etc)

A focussed worker in one of the factory I visited in Europe recently
When Rilke, joined Rodin (the great sculptor) as his secretary, he taught him the value of objective observation, and under this influence Rilke dramatically transformed his poetic style from the subjective and sometimes incantatory language of his earlier work into something quite new in European literature. The result was the New Poems, famous for the "thing-poems" (or OBJECT POEMS) expressing Rilke's rejuvenated artistic vision. The poems of the New Poems and New Poems: The Other Part are highly wrought, using language and poetic form as a shaped and shaping material; to this extent the poems are often said to be "things" in themselves. So that is what we are going to do in this week. Write about what you see, what you perceive after seeing .. write thing poems.. relate with the object that you see.

As Buddha said in this discourse at one point of time...
“Bhikshu’s look deeply at this bowl and you can see the entire universe. This bowl contains the entire universe. This is only one thing this bowl is empty of and that is separate individual self” – Buddha

The basic tenets of Objectivist poetics as defined by Louis Zukofsky were to treat the poem as an object, and to emphasise sincerity, intelligence, and the poet's ability to look clearly at the world.

So friends, I want you to look deeply into what you are seeing and writing about and let us know that the flower exists not because of its own self, but because there are seers, who see the beauty of the existence.
Here are some examples starting with Rilke’s most famous poetry on the OBJECT form

The story about this poetry is that on Rodin’s advise, he went to observe the caged panther for straight 9 hours and he wrote this poem that is now the paradigm of poetic Object Form.

THE PANTHER
____________
His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
has grown so weary that it cannot hold
anything else. It seems to him there are
a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world.

As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,
the movement of his powerful soft strides
is like a ritual dance around a center
in which a mighty will stands paralyzed.

Only at times, the curtain of the pupils
lifts, quietly--. An image enters in,
rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles,
plunges into the heart and is gone
_____________
Rainer Maria Rilke
4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926
Curtsy Wikipedia: Read more here
The below is extract the first part of a six-page section from what was to become an 800-page poem, which takes as its subject a set of road works in the street outside Zukofsky’s New York home:

"A"-7 by Louis Zukofsky
_______________________________
Horses: who will do it? out of manes? Words
Will do it, out of manes, out of airs, but
They have no manes, so there are no airs, birds
Of words, from me to them no singing gut.
For they have no eyes, for their legs are wood,
For their stomachs are logs with print on them;
Blood red, red lamps hang from necks or where could
Be necks, two legs stand A, four together M.
"Street Closed" is what print says on their stomachs;
That cuts out everybody but the diggers;
You're cut out, and she's cut out, and the jiggers
Are cut out. No! we can't have such nor bucks
As won't, tho they're not here, pass thru a hoop
Strayed on a manhole — me? Am on a stoop.
_________________
Louis Zukofsky
(23 January 1904 – 12 May 1978)
He was an American poet. He was one of the founders and the primary theorist of the Objectivist group of poets and thus an important influence on subsequent generations of poets in America and abroad.
To read and know more about Object Form please click here...

Thanks for supporting poetry, poetry promotion, and poetry sharing here at The Gooseberry Garden Poetry Picnic!!!

How To submit your poetry?
Add your entry via InLinkz below by clicking on the blue button, and leave a comment in case it is your first time! It would be great if you could link back to us on your blog.
Weekly poetry collection starts on Sunday, 8pm (CDT), and will stay open till Thursday, 8pm (CDT), 96 hours for you to share your poetry with us...
Please share your poetry, comment below and read some very talented artists and have fun!
______
Shashi            
 नमः शिवाय
Om Namah Shivaya


28 comments:

Anonymous said...

welcome to poetry picnic week 5,

feel free to share and encourage your peers.

Best Regards.

xoxox

Morning said...

beautiful job, Shashi.

your explanations help a lot in understanding your theme.

Thanks for the time and talent.

JamieDedes said...

Shashi, well done and so very comprehensive. No sound-bites for you. Congrats on that.

Jamie Dedes
Musing by Moonlight
Into the Bardo

Happy Picnicking one and all ...

Anonymous said...

I posted a poem I wrote after noticing the many colors of my cat, Sita.

So happy to be in the Gooseberry patch! xoxo

Anonymous said...

Always happy to be part of this! Great post, great inspiration!

JBinford-Bell said...

My object of concern this week is time. So I am including a poem I wrote about one of my paintings.

The Noiseless Cuckooclock said...

Where is everyone?

interesting theme, glad to learn something about this.

Strummed Words said...

A poem based on a photo image: Sea spume - http://gooseberrygoespoetic.blogspot.com/2011/09/poetry-picnic-wk-5-object-thing-form.html

emanita01 said...

Hi. Thanks for allowing me into your garden :-D

I tried to post the following poem, but I guess I haven't quite gotten the hang of it.

So, please excuse my posting it here.

It's a diamente poem but the formatting got lost in the pasting.

So, please picture that the lines form a diamond's shape:

sons

distant, close

fighting, growing, changing

Alpha, Omega, blinding, bright

infuriating, loving, endearing

warm, essential

sunrays

©March 2011 _M. Anita Bailey

Unknown said...

Thank you for the opportunity look forward to enjoying others ....Have submitted 2 poems one on behalf of someone who has contributed to my blog poetic causes raising awareness for Alzheimers I thought this particular poem covered the brief ! thank you once again x

Isadora said...

I would have loved to submit a new poem but this week time is limited. I am posting a previously posted prose from my blog that didn't get very many visits. Perhaps, this time around it will get better viewing.
Thanks for your splendid description of "Object", Shashi.
Well done ...
Namaste,
Isadora

Isadora said...

I would have loved to submit a new poem but this week time is limited. I am posting a previously posted prose from my blog that didn't get very many visits. Perhaps, this time around it will get better viewing.
Thanks for your splendid description of "Object", Shashi.
Well done ...
Namaste,
Isadora

Anonymous said...

the object i wrote about is (are) sunflower(s)

Anonymous said...

The object this poem is about is an old and worn curtain. It's one from several years ago, but I think you will like it.

Anonymous said...

Nice theme and lovely new gooseberries site.
I submitted my link (twice) and while it shows up on the separate linked-in page, (number 97, I think) it doesn't show up on this blog. That means there are at least 20 other writers whose submissions, including mine, that can't be read. Can you fix it?
Thank you!!

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the wonderful prompt. I wanted to share two I wrote on animals that fascinated me, and one on a building that seems uninviting. I hope you enjoy them!

Jingle Poetry At Olive Garden said...

hi,

not sure what you are talking?

Anyone else, did you submit and your link is missing?

leave your entry in the comment if you could not find your link show up in the linkz collection, thanks.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Morning said...

linkz have hold the link for moderation function, we did not use it.

everything is the same as last time, I simply type in date and ask for showing the link, then get the script which is a code fixed by linkz, I don't think links will go missing, it may take a while for it to show up.

Thanks.

No one else know the password, so I believe that it is secure enough to tell that no mistakes, be patient, if you linked in, wait for one or two minutes, check and it shall be there,

if not, leave your entry in the comment, I can link in for you.

Happy Poetry Picnic.

September 19, 2011 8:19 PM

Shashidhar Sharma said...

Hi friends,

good to see that we have so many wonderful posts on a topic that is kind of hard to come by... and I am enjoying reading them. Finally I could paste one of my own and hope you will all like it too...

This weekend I am sure going to have great fun reading all your posts... Thanks for sharing...

Shashi
ॐ नमः शिवाय
Om Namah Shivaya
http://shadowdancingwithmind.blogspot.com/2011/09/whispers-mannequin-and-life-gone-by.html
At Twitter @VerseEveryDay

Marbles in My Pocket said...

I'm running a bit late this week, and have just begun to read this week's picnic entries. I must saay, I am impressed at the ones I've read so far! So many impressive poems! Great writing, my friends!

tsw said...

My first entry. In a rush, but will read tonight. Thank you for the opportunity!

Anonymous said...

I had to dig a Jigger out of my toe once! it was vile. I have no poems suitable for this theme and I'm so shattered recently I'm being rather a feeble part of this community, sorry. I hope to join in again properly some point... just feel exhausted. Love to all you poets. xx

deeju said...

'Money' is my object in this theme. Hope to read of lot of my friends' contribution out there.

Anonymous said...

thank you for the great post and examples, Shashi. mine is the object of my obsession...

~L said...

I'm back... Sorry I've been MIA. My sister passed away and I've been isolating from the world.... In denial and trying to write in her memory.... Words just don't seem to be good enough for her leagacy....

Patent Attorney said...

Thank you for including The Panther! Rainer Maria Rilke is one of my favourites!

London Accountants Worker said...

Your thoughts about perspective are really intriguing. It's hard to think outside pre conceived ideas of flowers as intrinsically 'beautiful' for instance, and understand whether it is truly just human perspective that tells us so. It's certainly going to be my thought for the day!