I love the idea of this poem. The way things are nowadays, if you call it a poem, it's a poem, even if it's a painting. I feel compelled to straighten out some of the story line confusion though. Not sure whether or not it's intentional, but I have to get some benefit from all those afternoons in Hebrew School. so here it is, best I can remember.
Moses led the Jewish people out of Egypt (Passover) where they had no yeast and thus had to eat matzo. They wandered the desert for forty years. He then went up Mt Sinai (not the hospital, but the real mountain) and received the 10 commandments. When he came down from the mountain, he found that the people were worshiping a golden calf. He did not get any measurements for the calf and did not know they had done that. He was pissed. But he was not on the scene when the world flooded and God reportedly gave Noah the dimensions to build the arc. All things considered, it might have been a good idea to leave some of the critters, like mosquitoes, behind.
Well, this sort of thing could be argued to be subjective, I suppose. But you wouldn't call it poetry, though. It's prose arranged in lines to look like poetry. That's not necessarily to say it's 'bad prose' (personally I think it's mediocre at best, but let's call that my own subjective opinion), just not poetry.
It's important because saturating the poetry sphere with non-poetry does immense damage to real poetry. In the same way that modernism for example does immense damage to classic literature and art. Or commercially manufactured AI-generated slop music does damage to sublime pop songs. And so on. It may have merit on its own terms, but not on the terms of a different genre, in respect of which it becomes damaging.
As for the line about eating/drinking ashes, now I think about it, I am certain I have seen that piece of imagery before (on multiple occasions). Can't remember where, though. I don't think it's Eliot.
I love the idea of this poem. The way things are nowadays, if you call it a poem, it's a poem, even if it's a painting. I feel compelled to straighten out some of the story line confusion though. Not sure whether or not it's intentional, but I have to get some benefit from all those afternoons in Hebrew School. so here it is, best I can remember.
Moses led the Jewish people out of Egypt (Passover) where they had no yeast and thus had to eat matzo. They wandered the desert for forty years. He then went up Mt Sinai (not the hospital, but the real mountain) and received the 10 commandments. When he came down from the mountain, he found that the people were worshiping a golden calf. He did not get any measurements for the calf and did not know they had done that. He was pissed. But he was not on the scene when the world flooded and God reportedly gave Noah the dimensions to build the arc. All things considered, it might have been a good idea to leave some of the critters, like mosquitoes, behind.
I love this poet of the week! Love the humor!
fucking sick last line
Pity about the rest of it
well, I liked the whole thing but I thought that line as particularly good
Well, this sort of thing could be argued to be subjective, I suppose. But you wouldn't call it poetry, though. It's prose arranged in lines to look like poetry. That's not necessarily to say it's 'bad prose' (personally I think it's mediocre at best, but let's call that my own subjective opinion), just not poetry.
It's important because saturating the poetry sphere with non-poetry does immense damage to real poetry. In the same way that modernism for example does immense damage to classic literature and art. Or commercially manufactured AI-generated slop music does damage to sublime pop songs. And so on. It may have merit on its own terms, but not on the terms of a different genre, in respect of which it becomes damaging.
As for the line about eating/drinking ashes, now I think about it, I am certain I have seen that piece of imagery before (on multiple occasions). Can't remember where, though. I don't think it's Eliot.