Men lived among mighty mountains and eternal forests for ages before they realized they were poetical; it may be reasonably inferred that some of out descendants may see the chimney-pots as rich purple as the mountain peaks, and find the lamposts as old and natural as the trees . . . For while Nature is a chaos of unconscious forces, a city is a chaos of conscious ones. . . There is no stone in the street and no brick in the wall that is not actually a deliberate symbol."
This quote (and maybe the 'fag' thing) explain my incapacity as well as anything, I suppose. What little facility I do have in understanding high-falutin' things like poetry flashes into focus when there is some type of topical grounding -- when I can project my own thoughts or experiences onto something, or when I stumble across something that jives with thoughts I've had bouncing around in my head already. To that extent, and really as in most things, my understanding of poetry is relational. To be honest, I don't have much experience with nature or natural imagery, which in my limited experience there is a preponderance of in well-received poetry (then, of course, there is Love, but I have too much lingering recoil from the caricature of the emo-16 year-old pining over the girl who sits next to him in geometry class.
That being said, I do dig walking down Ashland Ave. and thinking of all the different conextual meanings everything I see could have to anyone: the Bank of America that just opened in the Polish Triangle is a place to me a place to deposit checks, to the cute teller I almost picked-up yeasterday (ah he who hesitates is lost) it's "her work," to the hipster contingent it's further evidence of damnable gentrification, to the building's ownder it's a stable tenant, etc.
contraevidence My younger brother does have a talent for such things, so who knows?
That being said, forgive the listless Sunday-morning ramblings. I think I'm jsut trying to limber up so one day I can address the big questions.
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