[R. Nemo Hill]

There is something almost cosmic about the painting, with all that vast empty space and the dog staring expectantly into it as if seeking/waiting for deity. The poem can be read as the story of a kind of relationship here on earth, Cameron, but I can also read it as if the you of its direct address is God. (And, by the way, I like Roger's suggestion of the drop down line at Language...to emphasize the dramatic turn.) I would not have gone to God without studying the painting, but after a close visual reading, my verbal reading expanded, and that expansion lifted the poem from a merely articulate view of relationship to a tragically transcendent one.

Nemo

[Rick Mullin]

When I look at the Goya painting, I think of a doomed and abandoned and paniced last hope in the landscape of a sudden and final devastation. I have the same response to the Turner painting. An end of the world.

[Jan Iwaszkiewicz]

Cameron,

I find this an awkward read. I could enjoy it more if it was not styled as an ekphrastic piece. The intellectual remove from the painting is too much.

The emotion in Goya’s work is not here. There is so much more to dog than a licked hand. As Rick has said it has so much in common with Turner’s work. The lost, lone and wistful in the enormity of its world. Here is the eternal question of dog as it tilts a quizzical head.

[R. Nemo Hill]

I disagree, Jan.
What is missing here is not emotion, but sentimentality.

Nemo

[Rick Mullin]

I hope it's clear that Rick's reaction to the painting has little to do with sentimentality. There is, however, the current of "man's best friend" abandoned by man in man's destruction.

As mentioned, I too found this an awkward read--pushing something too hard. I like the ekphrastic approach, but this poem doesn't connect with the desolation, which I think is an objective element, in the Goya painting. Nobody is coming back for the dog.

I will link to another work of art that might suggest an alternative rather than a complement to the Goya painting.

RM

I'm intrigued by ekphraksis--in addition to having trouble spelling it, I'm not sure exactly how to go about it. The one wrong way is to describe the source, which you are not doing here. You mention it in the poem though, and it's referenced in the title. Maybe you don't consider this poem prinmarily ekphrastic, Cameron. I'm interested in what you think about all this.

[Jan Iwaszkiewicz]

It is actually both Nemo emotion and sentimentality.

Man’s relationship with dog is unique and is an emotional one. As such a relation ship that is ideal for projection. Goya’s work at this time at his fag end of days, profoundly deaf and somewhat overwrought, out of favour with the court and in ill health, covering the walls of his house with his ‘Black’ paintings, ‘Dog’ is him. This is a work that transcends its medium.

I wish I knew more about Turner’s work and so to Google lol

[John Riley]

Cam, there is an intensity here that I've come to expect and value in your work. I know "Language cannot scrape this scene" refers to the murals being scrapped from the walls of Goya's house, but its reference to the poem, an ekphrastic comment on the ekphrastic poem, has a force outside of its reference--"cute, crushed, there he sits" is another. I've seen and read the Beckett play and remember the female character, her name slips me, buried up to her neck much as the dog is in the painting. It's a reference that imports the futility of the play into the poem. Both of them work well. My one question is "an optimist." It confuses me a little although I know it may be a more specific reference to the play I don't remember in detail.

There is such pathos in the painting. I find myself staring at it. One thing is the dog is almost a blur. There is an ear, one eye, and a nose, but nothing is individual. It's an everdog but we can nevertheless see it pleading. The poem uses that pleading to charge it up. And transferring from the dog to the narrator is brilliant and powerful.

It's another of your poems that sends me further beneath the surface. My one question, and it's a question, is the opening. If the lighter brown is fire, which does take an acceptance, I'm confused by him being eternally behind, below, the hilltop. I understand I may be missing something. The dog is willing to accept this while pacing in chains "to suffer tidally the estrangement." Is it an estrangement if the dog will soon be consumed with fire? Even if I'm missing something I wonder if the fire motif is too confusing at the poem's beginning. I initially don't see fire and then wonder how long the dog can survive such a large blaze. Your poems ask me to move beyond what is usually mistaken for understanding, which is what I find myself engaging in at the beginning.

Outside of that, it's a powerful poem that I enjoy reading and thinking about. The way you can infuse your intelligence into a poem and still maintain a quick pace is remarkable. It's something I envy. Although I do get a bit hung up at the beginning once I move past that my thinking and sense of wonder are both used. Not many poets can do that.

[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by John Riley

If the lighter brown is fire ...

That never occurred to me. I took it as meaning the N burns for the beloved (with passion, lust), but that usage is so outdated, I had to go to the OED to confirm it.

[John Riley]

I'm beginning to suspect you're right, Carl, and I fell victim to literalness. I guess the question is in terms of a poem for others to read, hopefully many others, if the decision there is a strength. I don't know

[Nick McRae]

This is not as much a critique as it is an impression.

This one, and your last few strike me as very cerebral, coming from the conscious mind. Deliberate, measured writing. For reference I get a similar feel from Robert Bringhurst. There's an inclination to control the poem and it's output, rather than let it come out viscerally. There's nothing wrong with this approach, but I wonder if it's one that you've taken intentionally or not.

Some other writers I've looked at, you can feel the fire burning beneath their writing. The words have to come out. When I read them I envision something like a mad artist spilling their inspiration onto the page. To do this well a writer likely needs some level of mastery, which you obviously have.

These two approaches produce a different type of poem. In the cerebral case you get a kind of precise, well thought out poem. In the visceral case you get more of an organic feel. Like the poet is looser and more relaxed. Which of the two someone produces is really a matter of taste, but my preference is usually when I can feel the fire there.

But the other side of this is that we don't control the passion we have about an idea, and I wonder if metrical poetry can be a little too constraining to really let loose.