“Call me Ishmael.
Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in
my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a
little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of
driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth;
whenever it is a damp, drizzly
November in my soul;
whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and
especially whenever my hypos get
such an upper hand
of me, that it requires a strong moral
principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I
account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.” This
is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his
sword; I quietly take to the
ship.”
― Herman Melville, Moby Dick
I thought I
would see
the watery world,
(for)I find myself growing grim,
damp, drizzly in my soul,
pausing, bringing up the rear.
Get an upper hand
that requires a
strong step and method
it(‘s) high time to get to sea.
With a philosophical flourish
I quietly take to the ship.
I added two words just to make it flow a little- that may not be allowed so I put them in parentheses. I'm just not sure how it should be done.
ReplyDeleteI like that you added words to improve flow on your piece, and I reckon if it works ... it's allowed. :D That drizzly soul is a great line, eh?
ReplyDeleteYes, it is. I wish I'd thought of it but I am happy to reuse it! :)
DeleteYou bring up a good point, Debi. During the remix, there was quite a spectrum of views toward found poetry of all sorts. For that exercise we were not allowed to add, so had to be creative [of course, we had entire novels at our disposal]. I am not a purist. For me, the poem is paramount. I happily change tenses. So, the problem, when only a couple of words are added is how do we let the reader know. I rather like your strategy, but it would have to work for the poem wouldn't it?
ReplyDelete"the poem is paramount" hmmm, that makes me feel better about making the additions. But, next time I will as little as possible and only if they actually make a thought more clear.
DeleteThanks, Margo.
Seems reasonable to me. I think you can go either way with this sort of thing. The Surrealists would leave it un-edited. I don't really get all that process and raw text. But that seems to me like what you do when you don't want to really write.
ReplyDeleteYes, I feel that way, too. It takes thought and elbow grease to get a poem just right.
Delete