Poetry: "All Too Brief"
Two years ago, I entertained a little project I called to as "Viral Formalism."
The idea was to take all of the poetry that is currently languishing on my external hard-drive, my collection of sonnets in particular, and videotape myself reading it. I would then upload the videos to YouTube where they would either find an audience or they wouldn't. But they would be available for public consumption rather than collecting virtual dust on a computer, and as Michael Everett himself says, the point of literature is: "Writing to be read; speaking to be heard."
So from August to November of 2009, I recorded 32 poems, including thirty sonnets, a villanelle, and a special presentation of Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky," and posted them to YouTube. Some of them have, indeed, found an audience. One has amassed 195 views, one has 69, one has 67, one has 50, about a dozen have more than 30, most of them have more than 20, and the rest have fewer.
Some of the poems are quite good (in my biased opinion), a few are great, most of them are okay, and several of the rest make me cringe today. Suffice it to say no poetry should ever be written about Sarah Palin, not even to criticize her. I sometimes posted three poems in a week, and I think that's why the project didn't last. I burned myself out on it. In retrospect, I should have established a weekly Saturday schedule with an occasional Sunday Special Presentation (I had recorded Edgar Allan Poe's "Annabel Lee" and Thomas Paine's "Liberty Tree," and selected a handful of other poems whose copyrights had expired).
In particular, I'm probably proudest of the Avatar sonnets, which emerged from the nature of the project. I never would have conceived of that concept had I been merely writing down words on the page or typing them onto a screen. The visual aspect of the project inspired the notion that, while I may be sitting at my station at work in North Carolina, a digital image of me may be reciting my poetry on a computer in Bouches-du-Rhône. It occurred to me that the image of me that appears on YouTube isn't really me: it's a representation of me that has transcended the limitations of the physical and temporal world. It is an avatar.
But I digress. The point of this history lesson really was to present one of those poems again here. We're just three days past the two-year anniversary of the original posting of this threnody, and a couple of months shy of the 14th anniversary of the death of the man it honors. And as a sonneteer, I have a special affinity for the number fourteen. So here's "All Too Brief":
Beneath this metal sky like faded chrome
nigh on the verge of bursting to the north;
returning to his parents' native home,
this hill that overlooks the Firth of Forth.
Upon this yellowed lawn in Meadowbank,
draped by the mythic mist of April's breath;
into the Earth's still nothingness he sank,
marked by this nevermoving monolith.
Before this jagged stone engraved with care,
his name etched on its face in sharp relief;
two dates too close together to be fair,
the span that separates them all too brief.
The North Sea throws its brackish, bracing spray,
each second stretching like an endless day.
You can also watch my amateur reading if you'd rather, but you will have to forgive my hair.
The idea was to take all of the poetry that is currently languishing on my external hard-drive, my collection of sonnets in particular, and videotape myself reading it. I would then upload the videos to YouTube where they would either find an audience or they wouldn't. But they would be available for public consumption rather than collecting virtual dust on a computer, and as Michael Everett himself says, the point of literature is: "Writing to be read; speaking to be heard."
So from August to November of 2009, I recorded 32 poems, including thirty sonnets, a villanelle, and a special presentation of Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky," and posted them to YouTube. Some of them have, indeed, found an audience. One has amassed 195 views, one has 69, one has 67, one has 50, about a dozen have more than 30, most of them have more than 20, and the rest have fewer.
Some of the poems are quite good (in my biased opinion), a few are great, most of them are okay, and several of the rest make me cringe today. Suffice it to say no poetry should ever be written about Sarah Palin, not even to criticize her. I sometimes posted three poems in a week, and I think that's why the project didn't last. I burned myself out on it. In retrospect, I should have established a weekly Saturday schedule with an occasional Sunday Special Presentation (I had recorded Edgar Allan Poe's "Annabel Lee" and Thomas Paine's "Liberty Tree," and selected a handful of other poems whose copyrights had expired).
In particular, I'm probably proudest of the Avatar sonnets, which emerged from the nature of the project. I never would have conceived of that concept had I been merely writing down words on the page or typing them onto a screen. The visual aspect of the project inspired the notion that, while I may be sitting at my station at work in North Carolina, a digital image of me may be reciting my poetry on a computer in Bouches-du-Rhône. It occurred to me that the image of me that appears on YouTube isn't really me: it's a representation of me that has transcended the limitations of the physical and temporal world. It is an avatar.
But I digress. The point of this history lesson really was to present one of those poems again here. We're just three days past the two-year anniversary of the original posting of this threnody, and a couple of months shy of the 14th anniversary of the death of the man it honors. And as a sonneteer, I have a special affinity for the number fourteen. So here's "All Too Brief":
Beneath this metal sky like faded chrome
nigh on the verge of bursting to the north;
returning to his parents' native home,
this hill that overlooks the Firth of Forth.
Upon this yellowed lawn in Meadowbank,
draped by the mythic mist of April's breath;
into the Earth's still nothingness he sank,
marked by this nevermoving monolith.
Before this jagged stone engraved with care,
his name etched on its face in sharp relief;
two dates too close together to be fair,
the span that separates them all too brief.
The North Sea throws its brackish, bracing spray,
each second stretching like an endless day.
You can also watch my amateur reading if you'd rather, but you will have to forgive my hair.
Click to view