"My friends, love is an artform..."
"This is an appeal to the unwritten histories of the future" (Williams, 80).
I had noticed a book recently, , said the shotgun to the head. by Saul Williams in an earlier post, commenting on how the introduction was amazing (about a kiss that transforms your life into one of near-oblivion), and then I later went on to actually buy the books a couple of weeks later. Well, today I can say I have actually calmed my brain down long enough to finish this short book of poetry and, personally, I think it's excellent. It isn't traditional poetry but more of a "slam poetry" type of style. Not much of it rhymes, or even makes any sort of sense, except the feeling you get inside of you is something that most books can't do to me in 300 pages. For all I may complain about being too verbose, this is a study in how not to be.
I'm still processing some of the poems written in the book, as although the whole of the book can be taken as one long message to my generation and the progeny of my own generation, there are still some short poems, even some one-liners, that are just amazingly beautiful that I re-read them again and again. The one at the beginning of this paragraph is an example.
The whole book, as I said before, has a theme to it. It's, roughly, a take on religion, that the idea of a one, male god is what is creating all of our modern day problems. Our mother, SHE, as he explains HER (his emphasis), is what the Christians would call the "Holy Ghost," suddenly becomes unveiled and her wisdom unearthed. She was taken away, hidden behind the shadow of the moon, and in all things men and war it is God that creates this modern, screwed-up society (or so he claims). Weapons, god, war, destruction: they are all phallic.
Most of this comes from a political ideology that rants against President Bush (the second) and his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (the book was published in 2003). However, that's only one chapter, and another rails against the violence in our everyday lives (and least in some American everyday lives). For instance in one poem, he says:
you call your doctor
complaining
of a migraine
she loads
2 leaden pills
into a 2 pound needle
and asks you
where it hurts (118)
Still, I look at my folded in half post-it note, with page numbers, underlines, and exclamation points, and see what must be several dozen pages that I loved. Either certain passages that spoke out to me in some way or ones that I felt were of some importance. I still can't remember how many times I re-read this one line, "learning to love, SHE had forgotten to cry," (71) or this passage:
EVEN NOW, WHEN i FEEL LIKE THERE IS SO MUCH RED TAPE between MY DREAMS AND THE REST OF THE WORLD. i REMEMBER, AS A little boy, cutting THAT RED TAPE FOR MY GODFATHERS NEW building. YES, RED TAPE is OFTEN CUT IN CEREMONIES BEFORE DOORS ARE OPENED. (78)
It's strange as well the way Williams capitalizes each word here, or never doing it for "i" in his poetry. Strange but interesting in how it decreases his significance as an individual and highlights the fact that he is but one to many. (Although that last quote, with all of its strange capitalisations, is a rough estimate of what he had put in caps and what he had not. Most of the ts, for instance, were not capitalised, I just didn't feel like writing it out.)
And as for the title?
"oil slicked feathers, putrid stenched water-bed/ 'mother nature's a whore,' said the shotgun to the head" (48).
This book is about religion, sex, relationships, finding yourself, moving forward, moving differently, speaking aloud, not speaking, life, death, and everything in-between. I found it to be beautiful, and I don't normally enjoy poetry, yet, somehow, this one was the right book for me at the right time. I'm surprised I read it all in one sitting, even if it is rather short and only full of short-lined poetry. I still enjoyed it greatly.
My favorite quote was from page 71, learning how to love and forgetting to cry (a passage I won't forget easily), but I'll end on a piece that made me smile.
she needn't steal your heart
if you give it to her
the cops and robbers
of your childhood
neglected to teach you
such simplicity (131)
Such simplicity...yes. If only it was as easy as giving away your heart. To some, perhaps, to others...not so much. Yet still, I pause to think....
Anyway, tl;dr, amazing book of poetry and if you're up for some interesting words pieced together in a way that is non-traditional in the way classical poetry is, then I think you may just enjoy it.
I'm only starting to realize that I post a lot. I'd apologise for rambling but I've already been chastised rather frequently this past week for my apologises so...I won't. How's that? :)
And I haven't written a single word of any fic today. I think I'll try and work on my 30 Days of TV for right now and, perhaps when it's a tad later and the frustration at sleep settles in, I'll write. Something short. Maybe.
(I also took an hour before even beginning this post, and it's approximately 2100 right now, tinkering with the routers and cursing Comcast for being such a pain in my ass. I found out that the reason why my Internet connection was so shitty was probably because the wireless channel was set at a default of 11. I can see on my wireless card utility that another wireless access point also has a channel of 11. I set mine to 10 and...bingo! Speedtest.net scores are back to where they should be! Yes! Although my mother's Internet connection still sucks.)
I had noticed a book recently, , said the shotgun to the head. by Saul Williams in an earlier post, commenting on how the introduction was amazing (about a kiss that transforms your life into one of near-oblivion), and then I later went on to actually buy the books a couple of weeks later. Well, today I can say I have actually calmed my brain down long enough to finish this short book of poetry and, personally, I think it's excellent. It isn't traditional poetry but more of a "slam poetry" type of style. Not much of it rhymes, or even makes any sort of sense, except the feeling you get inside of you is something that most books can't do to me in 300 pages. For all I may complain about being too verbose, this is a study in how not to be.
I'm still processing some of the poems written in the book, as although the whole of the book can be taken as one long message to my generation and the progeny of my own generation, there are still some short poems, even some one-liners, that are just amazingly beautiful that I re-read them again and again. The one at the beginning of this paragraph is an example.
The whole book, as I said before, has a theme to it. It's, roughly, a take on religion, that the idea of a one, male god is what is creating all of our modern day problems. Our mother, SHE, as he explains HER (his emphasis), is what the Christians would call the "Holy Ghost," suddenly becomes unveiled and her wisdom unearthed. She was taken away, hidden behind the shadow of the moon, and in all things men and war it is God that creates this modern, screwed-up society (or so he claims). Weapons, god, war, destruction: they are all phallic.
Most of this comes from a political ideology that rants against President Bush (the second) and his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (the book was published in 2003). However, that's only one chapter, and another rails against the violence in our everyday lives (and least in some American everyday lives). For instance in one poem, he says:
you call your doctor
complaining
of a migraine
she loads
2 leaden pills
into a 2 pound needle
and asks you
where it hurts (118)
Still, I look at my folded in half post-it note, with page numbers, underlines, and exclamation points, and see what must be several dozen pages that I loved. Either certain passages that spoke out to me in some way or ones that I felt were of some importance. I still can't remember how many times I re-read this one line, "learning to love, SHE had forgotten to cry," (71) or this passage:
EVEN NOW, WHEN i FEEL LIKE THERE IS SO MUCH RED TAPE between MY DREAMS AND THE REST OF THE WORLD. i REMEMBER, AS A little boy, cutting THAT RED TAPE FOR MY GODFATHERS NEW building. YES, RED TAPE is OFTEN CUT IN CEREMONIES BEFORE DOORS ARE OPENED. (78)
It's strange as well the way Williams capitalizes each word here, or never doing it for "i" in his poetry. Strange but interesting in how it decreases his significance as an individual and highlights the fact that he is but one to many. (Although that last quote, with all of its strange capitalisations, is a rough estimate of what he had put in caps and what he had not. Most of the ts, for instance, were not capitalised, I just didn't feel like writing it out.)
And as for the title?
"oil slicked feathers, putrid stenched water-bed/ 'mother nature's a whore,' said the shotgun to the head" (48).
This book is about religion, sex, relationships, finding yourself, moving forward, moving differently, speaking aloud, not speaking, life, death, and everything in-between. I found it to be beautiful, and I don't normally enjoy poetry, yet, somehow, this one was the right book for me at the right time. I'm surprised I read it all in one sitting, even if it is rather short and only full of short-lined poetry. I still enjoyed it greatly.
My favorite quote was from page 71, learning how to love and forgetting to cry (a passage I won't forget easily), but I'll end on a piece that made me smile.
she needn't steal your heart
if you give it to her
the cops and robbers
of your childhood
neglected to teach you
such simplicity (131)
Such simplicity...yes. If only it was as easy as giving away your heart. To some, perhaps, to others...not so much. Yet still, I pause to think....
Anyway, tl;dr, amazing book of poetry and if you're up for some interesting words pieced together in a way that is non-traditional in the way classical poetry is, then I think you may just enjoy it.
I'm only starting to realize that I post a lot. I'd apologise for rambling but I've already been chastised rather frequently this past week for my apologises so...I won't. How's that? :)
And I haven't written a single word of any fic today. I think I'll try and work on my 30 Days of TV for right now and, perhaps when it's a tad later and the frustration at sleep settles in, I'll write. Something short. Maybe.
(I also took an hour before even beginning this post, and it's approximately 2100 right now, tinkering with the routers and cursing Comcast for being such a pain in my ass. I found out that the reason why my Internet connection was so shitty was probably because the wireless channel was set at a default of 11. I can see on my wireless card utility that another wireless access point also has a channel of 11. I set mine to 10 and...bingo! Speedtest.net scores are back to where they should be! Yes! Although my mother's Internet connection still sucks.)