[John Riley]

The Last Step

I shouldn’t have come to this meeting where people
are complaining about their lives before whispering
they’re grateful, the force of the lie dropping
their eyes to the old church’s floor, where beneath
the waxed pine there is a cellar full of things
unseen and unsaid— cracked vases
that once held wilted Easter flowers,
children’s lost shoes and hats and the still-alive
searching fish waiting to be lifted by a net
and taken to the narrow river running below
the cellar floor, to swim away and search
for the promised peace, escape the arrangements
of earthly things sitting in stacked boxes
leaning between old lamps with gold tasseled shades,
cracked violins, rusted music stands, closed books,
all gathered under a too-blue sky painted on the cellar’s
ceiling, a sky with no stars to triangulate.

[Bill Dyes]

John:

This poem (as I think many of yours do) utilize an uncanny technique of circular breathing.
It both inhales and exhales in a single long tone descending through levels of self-deception and lies.
I feel the great breath of air quietly taken in at the beginning and yet more air taken in at "whispering they're grateful".
And then words are delivered in succesive rushes as their eyes move to the floor, beneath the floor to the cellar and then beneath the cellar.
Then small breaths are slyly taken in to deliver the "still alive searching fish", the "narrow river below the cellar floor" and listing what are in those "boxes of things".
And that same breath is finally expended as we are lost utterly beneath a false sky with counterfeit stars.
A devastating effect.

Bill

[Jim Moonan]

Originally Posted by Bill Dyes

John:

This poem (as I think many of yours do) utilize an uncanny technique of circular breathing.
It both inhales and exhales in a single long tone descending through levels of self-deception and lies.
I feel the great breath of air quietly taken in at the beginning and yet more air taken in at "whispering they're grateful".
And then words are delivered in succesive rushes as their eyes move to the floor, beneath the floor to the cellar and then beneath the cellar.
Then small breaths are slyly taken in to deliver the "still alive searching fish", the "narrow river below the cellar floor" and listing what are in those "boxes of things".
And that same breath is finally expended as we are lost utterly beneath a false sky with counterfeit stars.
A devastating effect.

Bill

Wow Bill — I actually see exactly what you're saying. I hadn't given the poem more than a quick read last night and, before reading it again today, I read your comment. It dramatically enlightened my reading. Either I need to up my game at reading a poem with all the doors of possibility wide open or I will have to rely on others like you to be my eyes — Ha!

So much of everything — not only poetry — depends upon the moment in time that it is experienced. That's why it's important to come back to a poem at least a few times to give it a chance to open for you. Too many times I place an inordinate amount of importance on first impressions when reading poetry. A good poem has so much more to offer than a "first impression".

John, I'll come back in a bit when I've more time.

.

[Cally Conan-Davies]

John, a quick note with a promise to come back . . .

Like Jim, I loved your reading, Bill!! It is a wonderful guided tour of the poem, and description of John's technique, which is one I've tried to copy many times, and fall flat on my face!

What you do, John, is extraordinary. You are a poet capable of taking my breath away. And I think this is one of your great ones.

Anon!

Cally

[W T Clark]

I think this is a wonderful thing. It has that river-like current that sweeps you to somewhere truly unexpected and alien. The lines are jagged, but they are part of the current, it is that lineated quality that sweeps you off your feet, from one stepping-stone line-end to another, until the shore is far behind you. The opening has a piercing power. I think you have exercised this form many times: it is not a movement to somewhere new, some new form, but it is a glorious part of the holding pattern. One for your "Selected Poems".

Hope this helps.

[John Riley]

Bill, thank you for applying yourself to the poem. It is an honor to have someone spend time with one of my poems. I am of course thrilled you feel the music. I wrote so many prose poems and now I'm enjoying trying to use line endings for rhythm. I've also tried to use what is in the poem at that point, is there a pause in what is happening, a sort of thought rhythm? I don't think that makes any sense. Thank you again for your comment.


Jim, you're right about reading a poem a few times before commenting. A good poem, imo, has a kernel and sometimes it takes more than one reading to see it. I'm talking about poetry abstractly here. I'm glad Bill's reading helped you see the music.


Thanks, Cally, you know how much I value your input. Your readings and comments help hold me up.


Cameron, thanks. As I said above I've been enjoying using the lines like this. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

About this not being a new form. I was sitting around unable to write and it suddenly occurred to me: Just go write a poem the way I think the poem should be written. I want to write, not spend time picking a form. Just write and let the form pick me and if it's something I've done before so what? I need to write more than I want to work on different forms. I'll see what happens.

[Nick McRae]

Originally Posted by John Riley

About this not being a new form. I was sitting around unable to write and it suddenly occurred to me: Just go write a poem the way I think the poem should be written. I want to write, not spend time picking a form. Just write and let the form pick me and if it's something I've done before so what? I need to write more than I want to work on different forms. I'll see what happens.

I've gone through a similar process, the form emerges from how I want to express the idea.

A lot of your recent stuff strikes me as very prose like, and one possibility that you could try for fun is to break the text up into a different pattern or shape. Some of the prose I've written will end up in jagged pieces that emphasize certain passages, words, or phrases. This kind of idea:

I shouldn’t have come to this meeting where people
are complaining about their lives

before whispering they’re grateful,

the force of the lie dropping their eyes
to the old church’s floor, where beneath
the waxed pine there is a cellar full of things

unseen and unsaid—

cracked vases that once held wilted Easter flowers,
children’s lost shoes and hats and the still-alive
searching fish waiting to be lifted by a net
and taken to the narrow river running below
the cellar floor, to swim away and search
for the promised peace, escape the arrangements
of earthly things sitting in stacked boxes
leaning between old lamps with gold tasseled shades,
cracked violins, rusted music stands, closed books,

all gathered under a too-blue sky
painted on the cellar’s ceiling,
a sky with no stars to triangulate.

[John Riley]

Nick, I try very hard to not react negatively to a comment but I have to say that I've long ago realized that when someone says the word "prose" in a comment it tells me that the commenter has a cripplingly narrow concept of what poetry is.

If you take a look at your revision you can see what I mean. It's a teachable moment. You've managed to take out all the rhythm and turned it into a discourse as flat as the most boring professor. Why is that not prose-like? Because the regularity of the lines looks more like a conventional poem on the page?

I'm not flattering my poem to say what I attempted by using line endings and internal rhymes as well as rhymes at the end of words, although they haven't plodded to the end of each line, alliteration, and pacing to make a poem far away from what I assume is being said when one says "prose."

I'll no doubt be called down and probably appropriately so for saying this but for years I've heard people say non-met poetry is prose and other stupid things. If someone is incapable of seeing rhythm and pacing and line dynamics, all of which are restrictions btw, outside of them being placed in a received order, that's something they could learn more by taking a look at much more than I can from doing anything similar to what you've done to this poem. (It's the same way I know when someone uses the word "pretentious" they are saying they don't understand something and aren't interested in trying to do so.)

Sorry that you're the recipient of my frustration but it is something to think about as you continue writing. I know it's your opinion, so it isn't necessary to defend what you said using that argument. (I honestly don't know why people say that as a defense. Just because it's my opinion doesn't make it valid. It was Hitler's opinion Jews were evil.) I'm simply saying your opinion misses most of what is in this poem and it would be helpful for you to see that.

[Nick McRae]

Originally Posted by John Riley

Nick, I try very hard to not react negatively to a comment but I have to say that I've long ago realized that when someone says the word "prose" in a comment it tells me that the commenter has a cripplingly narrow concept of what poetry is.

If you take a look at your revision you can see what I mean. It's a teachable moment. You've managed to take out all the rhythm and turned it into a discourse as flat as the most boring professor. Why is that not prose-like? Because the regularity of the lines looks more like a conventional poem on the page?

With my revision I wasn't intending it to be less prose-like, it was just a possibility you could play around with. It's really the same poem, just a different shape that emphasizes different parts of the writing.

I wasn't trying to imply that my revision was an improvement, it's just an idea of something you could do if you want to mess around with the form of your poems.

[Mark McDonnell]

Hi John,

I'll be the one to state the obvious, as nobody else has yet, I don't think. The meeting is an AA meeting, I assume, and the title refers to the "12 step program". It's a great title. The poem is a wonderful sinking reverie, a giant cosmic sigh. The one sentence technique that you've utilised many times works utterly effortlessly here and the "form", the uninterrupted flow of text, is exactly what it needs. I really love this one.

I'll no doubt be called down and probably appropriately so for saying this but for years I've heard people say non-met poetry is prose and other stupid things.

Well, if that silly argument is still rumbling on in the face of a poem like this it's best to smile and ignore it.

Edit: to be fair to Nick, he probably wasn’t saying anything quite as blunt as that. But I don’t think his idea of chopping the poem up would add anything in this case. It would break that meditative sinking through the layers.