On Jun 18, 1:03 pm, Leisha <lei...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On Jun 17, 10:52 am, Amanda Reid <scrawlm...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>
showing quoted text...
>
> > 226
>
> > The thunder pounds my window and the sky
> > Releases still more green to stain the ground;
> > The cat alerts one ear, but constant sound
> > Dulls even soldiers to the softest lie,
> > And she is inside. Soon enough, to try
> > The rabbit, blackbird, blade of grass she found
> > Unlike all others. Dreaming that the hound
> > Sniffs bombs in no man's land, her time goes by
> > As mine does not. Again the clock reads two
> > As if I had no other thing to say
> > And less to know, than that the world took you,
> > And took you here or there, but took away.
> > Whatever there appears to do,
> > The time is -- wrong. But I'm right twice a day.
>
> I love a sonnet, Amanda. Extra points for difficulty, just to start.
> My advice: delete the first word of the poem.
Why? It's so pedestrian.
And then things start blowing up...
> Also, I got tripped up
> on "Soon enough, to try," maybe because of the unexpected sentence
> structure: "soon enough" needs a subject that dosen't appear in the
> phrase until "she found / unlike all others."
The subject, "to try," appears immediately.
(Treat "soon enough," and the rest, as a dependent clause of the
cat's dream or choice to sleep.)
>I had to re-read a few
> times, wondering who is finding something.
The only one actually finding anything is the speaker, who finds that
the clock once again reads "two."
(It could have been any other one-syllable number, but this is an
afternoon storm pouring green into what was implicitly dead somewhat
before this, and "two" rnymes with "you" and "do," and is the date of
Groundhog Day, which last may be reaching a little but is implicit.
The irony is that the only thing the speaker "does" is note the repeat
of the time "as if [he] had no other thing to say.")
> It seems to be the cat
> finding "rabbit, blackbird, blade of grass." There's another
> construction problem here as well: "she found / Unlike all others" is
> also muddy.
She (cat) is the one who found the ("this") blade of grass (to be)
unlike all others. The statement is synecdoche about the cat's
hyperbolic "judgment."
> I'm trying to figure out what the cat signifies as it is
> hunting around outside.
But she's sleeping, inside, while the weather pounds outside.
Signifying the same...
> She's looking for something unique, something
> "unlike all others,"
She found it. Others may not find it unique, but that's their problem
(just ask her).
> but that phrase could also indicate that she
> couldn't find any of the other rabbits, blackbirds, or blades of grass
> that were out there, so she is just taking what she is able to find.
Oh, no. She had to find at lseas some of them, else she couldn't deem
the one "unique."
> And why? What is significant about this cat who is either searching
> for something unique or taking whatever she finds?
She's still sleeping, albeit with one ear up.
The Alert, however, didn't wake her. The world could be blowing up
(as it sounds like doing), and she'd still find the common rabbit, the
unique blade of grass, "soon enough."
(The piece /is/ part of a resurrection upanishad.)
> "Sniffs bombs in no man's land" perhaps is meant to indicate that the
> hound that would likely kill the cat is remote, therefore the cat
> feels safe.
So much so that she's consigned the hound (by dream) to sniffing bombs
-- which go off on him (the thunder, insofar as she notices it at
all).
> The war allusion might foreshadow the disappearance of the
> missed person at two o'clock, but it's really unfortunate to have a
> dog sniffing bombs, since that can also allude to dog ****, and that's
> something dogs do all the time, of course. I think it's
> unintentionally disgusting.
As far as the cat's concerned, he /could/ be sniffing his own ****.
Okay, he's sniffing cigars ("dog rockets").
"The exploeding kind." -- Inspector Closeau
> The cat's time is going by, but the speaker's time is not. How then,
> "Again the clock reads two," suggesting that there was a time when it
> did not read two? The adverb "again" refers to something that has
> happened before, a repetition or return to a previous state rather
Well, a running clock reads (e.g.) "two" twice a day, yes?
> than a constant. I'm getting real specific here because it seems to me
> that you want your reader to figure out that the missing person
> stopped the speaker's clock, but it's an unfair burden for the reader
> to bear if you are going to also trick me with misleading words.
Heh, snicker, tee-hee.
>
> In the end, it matters that the speaker is right twice a day. Twice a
> day is the time when his or her clock stopped, and it will always be
> that time for the character who is stuck in a state of either
> happiness or grief.
You should be able to tell which by comparing the speaker's tone with
(his view of) the cat's.
And maybe it's neither joy /nor/ grief, nothing more than the
ability to brag that he's right twice a day.
(And not necessarily at, or about it's being, "two." He'd be "right
twice a day" about /any/ recurrence.)
> The tone suggests it's sad that the missing person
> is gone, but the speaker being "right" feels like a kind of victory:
> he or she could be sitting around thinking, "Yeah! That ****er is
> *still* gone!"
>
> There is promise in the contrast between the cat-with-time and the
> speaker-without-time, but I'm not sure that the contrast is sharp
> enough.
The cat has time to burn: enough to blow on sleeping during a general
ruckus and somebody else's grief; the speedy (incl. ephemeral) rabbit
and blackbird will "be there" when she gets a round tuit; she will
still have time to find as many blades of grass to be unique as she
feels like.
> Does the speaker envy the cat and want to have time?
What for? He's right twice a day.
> Does the
> cat represent a simpler, more natural world
Certainly a more ignorant, kept, even juvenile, one...
> in which time flows
> freely, while the speaker represents a complex, human world that is
> inferior, melancholy;
By George....
> or is the human world superior, gleeful?
Awww, I thot you had it.
> I don't know. This is a good start, but I would take it apart and be
> more clear about what everything represents: the storm, green falling
> from the sky,
Spring, actually. I.e., compared with winter, 'way too much green.
And...
"If I had wanted you to know, I'd have told you in the poem." -- R.
Frost
While it is true that soap opera tells you /everysingk/ you want to
know and everything you're spoZe to *feel* about it, they take an
entire week to tell you -- six times -- less than I got into 140
syllables.
> cat, clock, speaker, missing person. I would figure out
> what the conflict is & up the ante in order to deepen it & then,
> perhaps, resolve it.
GeeZ, and here I've got only 140 syllables.
Besides, if he /resolves/ it, he won't be right twice a day any
more, and the subject of the piece eva****ates.
Like you here, he'll always be wondering (as the cat self-evidently
does not) about the Meaning of It All rather than being right about It
All -- twice a day, even.
>
> Hope this helps.
It helps to read haiku.
>
> Leisha
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