The Giving Point June 18, 2012

  

There are two over arching schools of literary criticism that incorporate either internal or external material when evaluating a work of art.

Those who follow the external school, almost anything goes, meaning that a work can be evaluated by factors beyond the boundaries of the work itself to include the artist’s biographical data, looking for aspects of that artist’s life that may have influenced the creative process.

Purists, however, believe an evaluation must include only those elements contained within the framework of the art itself. If something isn’t in poem, for instance, it shouldn’t be used, unless there is some allusion inside the work from which an inference can be made to something beyond.

Most criticism is hardly one or the other and generally even the so-called purists sometimes draw on biographical and other materials if they can build a strong enough case for them.

In dealing with her poems to this point, I’ve bended to use a purist approach, keeping things out of my evaluating her poems that I might know happened to be transpiring in her life, focusing instead on what she appears to be trying to convey in the poems rather than explaining her motivations.

With the poem she posted today, I need to deviate from that methodology, partly because there are several overpowering external influences that clearly influence the creation of the poem, one influence less significant than the other, the other which might be seen as a macro vision of her life as a whole.

She seems to be evaluating her struggle, her successes and failures over time, how she seems to return to the same spot where she must start again.

But in her view as expressed in the poem, each time she has to start over – at that point where the whole thing might fall apart permanently – she seems to start at a spot slightly more advanced than the last time she had reached that plateau, suggesting that if she continues to struggle, continues to work her way through the maddening pattern of climb and fall, she will eventually reach a point where she attains what she is seeking.

Yes, she reaches a point at which she started but just a bit beyond.

Each of her efforts seem to be structure the same. She begins a cycle as a novice, and then at some point her ambition kicks in and she sees herself as having earned her wings, only in each case, it all comes crashing down on her, leaving her pretty much clinging to the place she started, on the precipice of total collapse, but don’t quite, and so she starts all over, the claw to the top at some new chosen profession with the hope this will lead her beyond.

The poem calls this “the giving point” at which things could go either way, down or slightly up.

She, of course, is writing this poem at a point in the current cycle where she thinks she has moved beyond novice. She just met with the owner to ask for a raise and may even have made big plans for what she might do to ascend to the next level.

The poem’s language use suggested a great struggle in her “creeping” passed the giving point and defying gravity that has the potential to bring her down.

She seems well aware of the potential for failure.

Unfortunately, some of the factors have changed and the poem seems to reflect this.

We have seen a change of leadership at a critical point in her rise, from a mentoring temporary boss to a harsh task master in the regular boss returning from maternity leave. The land scape poses more risks.

Leaving out the internal office politics that might better explain our boss’ need to put her in her place, the poem leaves open the question of how far she has actually come and raises the specter of continued struggling as well as the risk gravity might still pull her down after all.

In some ways, she seems to be retelling the myth of Sisyphus, who faced punishment by being forced to push a boulder up a hill only to have it roll back down once he got it near the top. Her poem seems to seek a way out of that dilemma, offering herself a molecule of hope that she has advanced towards the top if only slightly.

If this is indeed an allusion to Sisyphus, you want to wonder what she thinks she is being punished for, why the Gods or fate denies her what she believes she deserves to achieve.

And as with all mythological gods faced with the prospect of eternal torment, she is desperate to find some sign of progress no matter how meager that will provide her with some sign of eventual redemption.


2012 menu


email to Al Sullivan

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Taking control Aug. 2, 2012

Image
The poem she posted today echoes in tone if not in content that of her quicksand poem. While as short at the previous poem, this poem about compassion is much more structured, using parallel phrasing to give it power and impact. Yet despite its brevity, it is incredibly complex, and creates a number of possible alternative interpretations, depending partly on for whom the poem is written. My ego (my narcissistic self as she referred to me in an earlier poem) would like to think the poem is directed at me, and so like the poem about quicksand, offers a certain measure of condolence or compassion for a clearly defeated man. But the poem may well also be directed at herself, about the idea of compassion or perhaps pain. While the overtly it claims to be about compassion, in fact, the poem goes beyond both pain and compassion and may well allude of a philosophy of survival. As with the quick sand poem, this poem seems to be offering advice, although less fatalistic. The most
Read more

Reflections of Coelho March 2, 2013

Image
    At some point in all of this mixed up, jumbled up world of hers, she posted a saying by Paulo Coelho, which said, “If you’re brave to say ‘Good Bye’ life will reward you with a new ‘Hello’.” Coelho de, born in August, 1947is a Brazilian lyricist and novelist and a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters since 2002. Coelho wrote the best-selling novel, 'The Alchemist,' which sold 35 million copies and is the most translated book in the world by a living author. He has been frequently described as an author that “thrives on contradictions and extremes,” which may well be why she is attracted to him, and why she recently got into the role of Mata Hari in her real life, perhaps influenced by Coelho’s fictional take on the well-known temptress and spy. Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Coelho attended Jesuit schools and was raised by devout Catholic parents. He was obsessed at an early age with the idea of becoming a writer, something his parents frowned on, and his i
Read more

Forgiveness is not possible July 13, 2012

Image
   By far this is the most painful of all the poems she has directed at me to date, partly because it is dismissive, and in some ways inaccurate, and uses some of my own statements taken out of context against me. I need to resist trying to defend myself here and attempt to focus completely on the statements she is attempting to make, dealing later in other pages of this journal in an attempt to set the record straight. Right from the opening lines, she dismisses the need for forgiveness, largely because she said it would imply the possibility of a “next step” or somehow getting back to a previous stage before all the hostility transpired, when it is clear that is not possible. While the poem does not explicitly say so, there is no going back, too many bad feelings, too many unforgivable things said. She describes the “ugly mornings” and the “sweat-streaked days of locking and unlocking” her door. The implication here is fear of violence, something she alluded to in an earl
Read more