Lanthanum.... may be a little hard to read (too conventional? too unconventional?) - & even harder to understand.
It's a long poem, which is about 1/3rd complete at this point (at least that's the plan). It's slowly (hopefully) gaining momentum; it's a process of accumulation & syncretism, if you will, of symbols & images & meanings. By syncretism I mean (using the term very loosely) a mixing-together of personal & impersonal, private & historical, religious & cultural... aiming toward a kind of fusion - an amalgam, a lanthanum alloy or compound, meant to burn more clearly & brightly as it slowly rolls forward...
It's epigram or motto could be a line from one of Osip Mandelstam's poems : "an arch appears in my muttering" (or mumbling). The arch in question has many-sided meaning... but paramount is the reference to the Gateway Arch monument in St. Louis, which itself takes on a collection of symbolic reverberations or (metaphorical) analogies...
11.05.2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
A Grid
On ‘readability’.
How difficult is a poem to read & to be absorbed on one’s own poetical terms?
A simple grid for answering this topic would be to determine whether a poem provides answers for others.
I know "Lanthanum" moves me along in my writing.
I'm glad, Irina. Thanks!
Post a Comment