Wednesday, April 22, 2009

gyrating on its own steam of oath



Grab five of your favorite poetry books. Open to a random page in each,
copy a phrase or a word that catches your eye, use them in a poem.




feeling certain spirits hovering, I let
Them unwrap me hand and foot
tied was I to what, I am yet to find out

Now I see, now I don't- a glow in front of me
A healthy fleck is floating across my vision
gyrating on its own steam of oath

I let myself indulge in her thoughts
unknown to her, she behaves like an
young heiress of a naked dream

strange is her behaviour towards me
is it amnesia or is it deceit
She can't remember herself as that person

who did cartwheels at the drop of a hat
and let my dogs lick her hands
now her features show her ignorance

she simply steers clear of me
and she walks with her hands in her dress
maybe she is feeling her own femaleness

"I am left there all alone with my visions, so bereft"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lines taken from:

Them unwrap me hand and foot from Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath

A healthy fleck is floating across my vision from afternoon memory by Gary Soto

young heiress of a naked dream from Ballad by Sonia Sanchez

She can't remember herself as that person from Myth of Innocence by Louise Gluck

and she walks with her hands in her dress from Eating poetry by Mark Strand

35 comments:

anthonynorth said...

This one is excellent.

susan said...

I enjoy and know all of the poets but one. Great lines. Pretty ambitious and you pulled it off.

sarah said...

Very good indeed!

Bsquared86 said...

I must agree that you definitely pulled this off! Very good.

Thank you for sharing!

http://bsquared86.blogspot.com/2009/04/poetically-correct-napowrimo-remix.html

Linda Jacobs said...

This poem gets better and better with each reading! I like the naked dream and the cartwheel and the dogs. So much here to enjoy!

Jill said...

This is very ethereal. You did a great job of weaving the lines in to your own poetry!

Jeeves said...

This one excellent!!!

Thom Gabrukiewicz said...

This one is very ambitious. Taking the lines from the true greats and weaving them in to your work is gutsy, but you pulled it off.

Crystal Phares said...

Very good. I love the feel of the whole thing, and how you pulled from other works and used them.

Daily Panic said...

I felt a loss of innocence when I read this.

SweetTalkingGuy.. said...

Yeah nicely, not only did you manage to include the three words but you created a new piece from a a few apparently random lines of other peoples work.

Well done!

pia said...

young heiress of a naked dream is an incredible line

Ana said...

The borrowed lines feel as they belong. Very good job

polona said...

strong imagery, but then, i wouldn't expect anyhing less from you.

Life without Clots said...

i like how you inter-weave others' work.

Kimberly said...

Wonderfully done!

Philip Thrift said...

Great poetic creativity here, melding the borrowed lines into a poem of your own.

Lucy said...

great idea using different poets lines!
great job!

Amy said...

Excellent job of word weaving. And certainly not a poem to scan through quickly. It deserves to be absorbed.

Bill said...

I appreciate what you are doing, gautami, but I'd also like to see you develop this theme without the other voices. It's time we heard gautami's voice without distractions.

Unknown said...

"and she walks with her hands in her dress
maybe she is feeling her own femaleness"
Absolutely love those lines. Very powerful imagery.

Wayne Pitchko said...

excellent as usuall..keep it up

Liz at Yips and Howls said...

You weave this together so seamlessly and with a wonderful rhythm. Thanks.

Amarettogirl said...

You did this flawlessly!! I can't believe that it read so very fluidly, I was lost in feeling tethered in the opening than I saw all the different poets - what creativity!

gautami tripathy said...

Bill, whatever gave you the idea that what I write is not my own voice? Maybe you have not been reading ALL my works.

Doing such random work once in a while, does not mean I have lost my creativity. And I see this as creativity too but in another direction. And we have to give it it a shot everywhere.

Unknownwriter49 said...

now that was perfectly done..I enjoyed it..:)

Anonymous said...

Hello! This sounds great! However it entails having more than one poem book. I, you see, have none! Boo for me. I better work on that....

Thanks for stopping by!

Pam said...

I really like where the lines led you. Nicely done.

lissa said...

great patchwork poem, quite a visual feast, though I'm not good at interpreting poems, I do think this one has a certain dreamlike quality, somewhat like a person inside a dream he can't escape from even though he wanted to

when the musics over said...

Leave it to me to not read the small print. Here I am noticing the underlined snippets and thinking, why are they underlined? And then, there's something strangely familiar in these words.

Duh! Well I've never conceived of this sort of exercise. But it certainly is interesting. I have a sense of a ghost, perhaps a close relative haunting you throughout. Very cool. : )

sudharm baxi said...

Very nicely created..
Good and smart..

Romeo Morningwood said...

You are brave.
Why is it that you neglected to utilise a verse from the poem concerning a young man from Nantucket?

maglomaniac said...

Actually I was quite apprehensive of this idea of writing random lines from other poets works.
Felt it as a sort of plagiarism.
But once I read it I could feel the piece's strngth.

~Harsha

Angel said...

Nicely done. Love this concept of using lines out of poems and making your own.

Ann (bunnygirl) said...

I'm impressed - five random phrases and three random words. I would've probably made a muddle of it.