the weight
of your leg on mine
deep in the night
This one had the most impact for me.
The one with the sparks reminded me of that song by Editors
You burn like you're bouncing cigarettes on the road
All sparks will burn out in the end
I don't know why I like the song, but I suspect it's the poetry of that line that echoes long after it's read. All sparks will burn out in the end. There's something quite "haiku" about it.
"Learn the rules, then you can break them" is what I tell my English students.
How do you know? It's that sharp intake of breath when you read or hear a line that is weighty with a part of the human experience you recognize. It's that "damn, you're clever" feeling. It's that whiskey drop distillation of a moment.
You are particularly good at them
I don’t think I know who Editors are/is. I’ll have to look that song up. That’s a great lyric. It brought back so many memories of my teenage and twenty-something years, back when I smoked and spent time around other people who did. I always loved watching ashes fall, drop, bounce, fly through the air, etc.
The funny thing about art is that we try to define it, and we can, I think, to some extent, but then it becomes so subjective from there. Your whisky drop distillation moment and mine could be totally different, so then if you tell me that something is art or haiku because you recognize it as such, do I just have to take your word for it even though I can’t see it as such based on the same criteria that used to make that judgment?
That said, I totally agree with you. It’s that impact that seems to be the deciding factor.
In my reading, I was surprised to see that the same things were being discussed pretty much verbatim almost 1,000 years ago. Kind of funny, isn’t it.
Yes! Except not so fun when they landed in your eyeballs or burnt your favourite tights.
When I started to read more widely I adored Marquez, Kerouac, Hemingway, Kundera, Saremego - people I saw doing crazy experimental things with their writing that seemed so extra-ordinary to the stuff I had read at school or on Mums bookshelves (and she had great books). It utterly moved me. So yeah, the impact is key - none of these writers were writing the same as each other but found their own style. Goodness - so many infinite ways to tell a story! What wonder!
My whiskey drops could indeed be bitter on your tongue. How cool it is there are so many ways for us to be moved by art, and to create it.
There it is. A possible poem right there.
Saramego? That’s a name I don’t know.
I listened to the Editors. I feel like I’ve heard their name somewhere, but their music was new to me. It reminded me of a mix between Depeche Mode and the album Dusk, by The The.