I quoted my post here about my vocational background in my blog entry for yesterday.  I included what Amy King said about me–and  a link to a site concerning a book of hers (Litmus Press).  To make sure the link worked, I tried it.  It worked.  While at the site, I read the poem of  hers that was quoted in full there–quite a good one, I have to admit (“LIDIJA DIMKOVSKA HAS MADE A BOMB OF MY EYES“).  And it had this: “beetle-winged chords.”  That gave me the notion to suggest a list of images–not necessarily of the best images, just ones that are extremely potent, simple images, like this one.  I know of quite a few, including ones I’ve made myself–and leaving out ones like “lighght,” my all-time favorite for not being simple–but for some reason I can’t think of any at the moment.

Oh, Cummings’s  “just-spring”–unless that’s not simple enough.  He has a lot, including  “puddle-wonderful” from the same poem that “just-spring” is in.  But I  want stand-alone images for my list, and I’m not sure if  “puddle-wonderful” is wonderful outside a just-spring with children in  it.  On reflection, I give it a thumbs up, but wouldn’t shoot anyone for  disagreeing with me.

Basho’s “old pond” has the same problem–absolutely perfect in context, but almost pedestrian as a stand-alone.  Maybe there should be two lists, one of stand-alones, and one needing, or only possibly needing, its context, as Basho’s pond may need his whole haiku.  Gah, I now think what would really be good would b e a whole book of image lists.  Another would be of unconventional ones like “lighght” and Geof Huth’s “shadowl,” which I just thought of.  And one for long ones, “life is a tale told by an idiot/ full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

To make my list, it seems to me an image must be metaphorical, or at least semi-metaphorical.  And surrealism like “beetle-winged chords” helps, although neither of the ones by Cummings is surrealistic. Another virtue of King’s image is that it is not only at first sight logically “wrong” because of its surrealism, but emotionally–that is, beetles’ wings do not immediately suggest lyrical beauty; but they definitely do when the image held in the mind a while–and happily take the reader into the kind of archetypal platitude that I believe all poem must to be successful, in this case that everything is in some way beautiful.

Does a poem need a master-image to succeed?  No, but it can certainly help.  On the other hand, two many effective images can injure a poem, particularly if it lacks a unifying principle–or is not neatly knit into the poem as a whole in some manner.  King’s poem risks this but proves superior to it–by being quite neatly knit into it.

Note: for those who have been following the saga of Amy Versus Bob and are therefore surprised at how unnasty my text above is, you should know that I believe nastiness works best if you occasionally get people off balance by being nice.

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I quoted my post here about my vocational background in my blog entry for yesterday.  I included what Amy King said about me–and  a link to a site concerning a book of hers (Litmus Press).  To make sure the link worked, I tried it.  It worked.  While at the site, I read the poem of  hers that was quoted in full there–quite a good one, I have to admit (“LIDIJA DIMKOVSKA HAS MADE A BOMB OF MY EYES“).  And it had this: “beetle-winged chords.”  That gave me the notion to suggest a list of images–not necessarily of the best images, just ones that are extremely potent, simple images, like this one.  I know of quite a few, including ones I’ve made myself–and leaving out ones like “lighght,” my all-time favorite for not being simple–but for some reason I can’t think of any at the moment.

Oh, Cummings’s  “just-spring”–unless that’s not simple enough.  He has a lot, including  “puddle-wonderful” from the same poem that “just-spring” is in.  But I  want stand-alone images for my list, and I’m not sure if  “puddle-wonderful” is wonderful outside a just-spring with children in  it.  On reflection, I give it a thumbs up, but wouldn’t shoot anyone for  disagreeing with me.

Basho’s “old pond” has the same problem–absolutely perfect in context, but almost pedestrian as a stand-alone.  Maybe there should be two lists, one of stand-alones, and one needing, or only possibly needing, its context, as Basho’s pond may need his whole haiku.  Gah, I now think what would really be good would b e a whole book of image lists.  Another would be of unconventional ones like “lighght” and Geof Huth’s “shadowl,” which I just thought of.  And one for long ones, “life is a tale told by an idiot/ full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

To make my list, it seems to me an image must be metaphorical, or at least semi-metaphorical.  And surrealism like “beetle-winged chords” helps, although neither of the ones by Cummings is surrealistic. Another virtue of King’s image is that it is not only at first sight logically “wrong” because of its surrealism, but emotionally–that is, beetles’ wings do not immediately suggest lyrical beauty; but they definitely do when the image held in the mind a while–and happily take the reader into the kind of archetypal platitude that I believe all poem must to be successful, in this case that everything is in some way beautiful.

Does a poem need a master-image to succeed?  No, but it can certainly help.  On the other hand, two many effective images can injure a poem, particularly if it lacks a unifying principle–or is not neatly knit into the poem as a whole in some manner.  King’s poem risks this but proves superior to it–by being quite neatly knit into it.

Note: for those who have been following the saga of Amy Versus Bob and are therefore surprised at how unnasty my text above is, you should know that I believe nastiness works best if you occasionally get people off balance by being nice.

.