Thursday, April 16, 2009

Shape

Shape is one of the main things that separates prose and poetry. Poetry can take on many formats, but one of them most inventive forms is for the poem to take on the shape of its subject. So if the subject of your poem is an apple, then the poem's lines would be written so that the poem appears to take on the shape of an apple.

http://www.rhetoricainc.com/eofa/e_of_a/media/oldmazda.html

Is a poem called "Idea: Old Mazda Lamp" by John Hollander. that looks like a lightbulb, and thus the reader can infer that the subject is light or thoughts.
I like the diction of hte poem, becasue the poet uses analagies and similies that pertain to light bulbs, such as "Either darkness" or "fifty watts apart" and "Flick and Click and there it is suddenly Oh yes I see". Hollander does not use any punctuation at all, and since the poem does not have stanza's it is a little tricky to read. He uses capitalization however, that might indicate a new thought. His vivid imagery emulates the idea of a shape poem, as he says "a snapped-off dream disparses into darkness like gold becoming mere motes." The shape helps becasue as his poem comes ot the tip of hte lightbulb, it gains momentum in pace, jsut as the poem reaches the tip it concludes.

Question: What is John Hollander trying to convey to the readers? is there more to it than Light and darkness?What do you make of his lack of punctuation other than capitalization?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very good stories~~ Thanks for ur sharing~~!! ........................................

Anonymous said...

blog is great~~祝你人氣高高~.................................................................