Pugilist

Apr 22, 2010 ⭐ View statistics (Premium feature)

Reflections on a Flaunted Glass

Reflections on a Flaunted Glass

I strolled along the fragrant way,
My mind and heart at ease and rest,
Partaking of the fragrant day.

The Crystal Sun was on display
And though was I truly impressed,
I strolled along the fragrant way.

Upon the wind without dismay
Pearl ravens poised with zeal and zest
Partaking of the fragrant day.

A silvered sigh put trees to sway
And though it called me from my quest
I strolled along the fragrant way.

The topaz beetles were at play,
With rad'ant eyes and shim'ring breast,
Partaking of the fragrant day.

Though seduction charmed me astray,
Disdaining love at lust's behest,
I strolled along the fragrant way,
Partaking of the fragrant day.

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April

    * Villanelle
          o http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villanelle
    * Open Subject
    * Contest code = 043010
    * Prize = Antique Fountain Pen

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Motivation and Focus

The Motivation and Focus section is provided to detail my intent and inspiration for a particular piece. As I do a great deal of experimentation on form and style and structure and theme, it is, at times, helpful to know what I had intended and how well that succeeded.

This is an example of a Villanelle that was written for the April 2010 contest at Neopoet.com, the poetry workshop in which I participate and at which I mentor.

To be honest, I'd never written much less attempted a Villanelle but as I am a structure geek when it comes to poetry and often design complex experimental forms, this would be a piece of cake. Yeah, right. It was one of the most difficult constructs I have done in a long time. Firstly there is the rhyme scheme which allows the use of only two (2) rhyme seeds and then there is the first and third lines which alternate as end lines for stanzas one through five but then act as the end couplet in stanza six.

So you have a high degree of repetition and a need to convey a complete story that does not sound too awfully contrived within five 3 lines stanzas and have a resolution within stanza six with the first couplet but have the last couplet support the resolution. I am convinced whoever designed this did so as a practical joke and is howling with amusement each time others give it a go.

To make my attempt easier, I choose tetrameter, my preferred meter and though I initially decided this would be a FlatEarth poem I decided to add an extra twist and include it in my recent exploration of passion poetry but from a different perspective. What I am trying to do with this piece is set a light and appealing tone with stanzas one through five and have the meaning become sinister with the opening couplet of stanza six but confirm the fidelity of the protagonist with the final couplet and have the meaning of the title come into sharp focus.

That's my intent, what message is actually conveyed remains to be seen.

And a final note. The order of the stanzas details an increase of temptation as the situation progresses. The temptation decreases in distance and increases in interaction. This progression is intentional and, I feel, provides additional depth to the situation, as if "With rad'ant eyes and shim'ring breast" was not enough of a hint.

— Pugilist, Apr 22, 2010

About This Poem

About the Author

Region, Country: Jacksonville area, FL, USA, USA

Favorite Poets: Keats, Kipling, Carroll, Yeats, Tolkien, Shakespeare

This user supports Neopoet so it can be free to all

Critiques

pamela

16 years 1 month ago

awesome

Dear P., I love this piece. I believe you fulfilled your intent and then some. It reads so well out loud. Upon the wind without dismay Pearl ravens poised with zeal and zest Partaking of the fragrant day Is my favorite. I would have never thought to describe a raven as pearl even though I know they come in black. "loved It" I kind of wondered about the title, and what you were thinking. Your language use is excellent. I thought your ending was perfect. I love the way you use jewels in your poetry. P.

Jonathan Moore

16 years 1 month ago

Your observations are greatly appreciated

Pamela, Thank you very much for your time and review. To be honest, I struggled with your favourite stanza the most because I knew what I needed but just could not find the words. Onyx was too expected and Obsidian too long and a black diamond is too much of a stretch and gives too harsh a feel. Finally, even though I already knew pearls come in black as well, finally I realised I could use pearl and have the ravens provide the color in what I hoped worked as a subtle twist. I'm extremely pleased this appeared to have worked for you. There is one more level to the piece I had forgotten to include in the Motivation and Focus section, I'll add it now but a synopsis is the proximity of temptation increases as the poem progresses. Again, thank you very much for your kind words. --Jonathan Annoying the world, one person at a time (Group discounts available)

DawningDaytripper

16 years 1 month ago

Hello Jonathan, Well I

Hello Jonathan, Well I loved it. I have to say after trying one of my own, villanelle is not the easiest structured poetry to tackle. It was very satisfying when done. I think you hit the mark with this one on the nose. And I appreaciated your details at the end. Is each line supposed to be capped? Thanks for sharing and taking the time to break it down for us, much appreaciated Pugsli! JK Don't suppose you would lend your eye to my attempt? http://www.neopoet.com/node/37895 Julie D.D.

Jonathan Moore

16 years 1 month ago

Julie, thanks for the review

I will be happy to take a look at your attempt. One of the main reasons I do the notes is for myself. If I am clear as to my intent I can be the first judge of my result and take criticism and critique and build from it. Again, thanks for the review and comments. --Jonathan Annoying the world, one person at a time (Group discounts available)

xena465

16 years 1 month ago

Jonathan

I don't know what villanelle is, but your poem took me on a journey amid the wonderful smells of nature. I have to go by what I feel and that's what your lovely poem did for me. Rosina xena465

Jonathan Moore

16 years 1 month ago

Thanks for the review and comment

They are appreciated --Jonathan Annoying the world, one person at a time (Group discounts available)

Jonathan Moore

16 years 1 month ago

I know what you mean

This took me a week just to find the right couplet and hours and hours afterward to match form and structure with intent. Thanks for the review and commentary. --Jonathan Annoying the world, one person at a time (Group discounts available)

Kailashana

16 years 1 month ago

Since I am taking a day

Since I am taking a day off... I have to comment here. The flaunted glass just begs to be called fluted. (Or any other such adjective) It has no rhyme or reason imo to be called flaunted if viewed within the context of the poem's body. Your poem is too sincere, too delicate to be *flaunted*. Also the abbreviations you made of the words: radiant and shimmering did not work, imo. The poem just doesn't have that *ye olde english* feel. Other than these two issues, the poem is a very good example of what a Villanelle is. (Rosina, he left a link!) I know you wrote this for the contest, Jonathan, but I would love to see you just write a fucking poem without a dissertation. Sorry. I get nasty when I'm away from my daily Neopoet fix. ;-) ~A Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other' doesn't make any sense. --Rumi

Jonathan Moore

16 years 1 month ago

I have to write a dissertaion

It's who I am. I put a lot of thought and effort into my work and since I am at a poetry workshop and serving as a mentor and the mentor director, well . . .it rather makes sense to me. But I understand your point. "Flaunted" in this case refers to the temptation presented in ever increasing intensity. In my mind "glass" refers to a looking glass and a flaunted glass here refers to a "see what you could have if you just embraced it?" taunt the protagonist decides is not worthwhile. But I do appreciate your observations and comments and will take them into consideration and most of all I appreciate the time and effort you took to review and comment. --Jonathan Annoying the world, one person at a time (Group discounts available)

Kailashana

16 years 1 month ago

I like your explanation of

I like your explanation of your word usage (flaunted) and your reference to a looking glass. It is indeed *appropriate* under that particular microscope even if I think your poem is way beyond that form of *taunting*. (That, should you ask, Mr. Phelps, is a resounding YES! to your poem; both as pure poetry and as example of poetry constrained in/as a villanelle.) And I get *who you are*. All I'm saying is that you're more than what you think you are and your rigid compartmentalization of poetry, regardless of how you or others see you in the execution of your duties as mentor, director, etc. Get my meaning? I know I'm hard on you, but..... ~A Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other' doesn't make any sense. --Rumi

Jonathan Moore

16 years 1 month ago

I believe I understand your point

And I know that many people who prefer free verse believe structured verse is limiting and to explain, like most always, I need to tell a story. Back in the 1980's I lived in a the town of Hanover, PA with my son. He visited his grandparents on weekends and I was not dating so this left me with much free time. Radio Shack was the only near-computer store in the area and I would drop by several times a week to look at games, components, etc. and would invariably end up offering advice to other consumers who normally engaged me as I was looking or talking to another employee. To make a long story longer, the folks at Radio Shack decided I would make a great part-time employee and I took the job. My style of sales is to determine what people actually need and then get them it for as little money as possible. This annoyed the Radio Shack people as they pushed me to "suggestively sell" which means if someone needed a $1 item, you sent them out with a $10 item. It was not my personality and I refused. Fast forward three months and the quarterly sales figures come out. I had the highest sales per hour figure in the store. Since the customers knew I had their back, they came back to me all the time and would often buy something on my recommendation alone. When these figures were released, I thought my head-butting and tension with the store management would cease. Wrong. Their response was to say: "Think how much higher these could be if you did suggestive selling." I quit the next week. What you see as rigid and compartmentalised Anna I see as rife with possibilities for experimentation. In my opinion while you see the form and structure I so love as limiting, I see it as giving me complete freedom to explore ideas and circumstances and delve into the wildly surrealistic because, not in spite of, because the structure I so like gives the poem an anchor to the reader. The structure does such a good job of providing focus that I can concentrate on the most bizarre constructs of my imagination. With this piece the allegory hides behind the images and the intensity hides behind the inferred resulting in a piece that reads a bit differently for the same reader the more they consider it. And if they only consider the pretty images and wordplay, that's OK too because as I have observed before, no one can write great poetry we can only do our best to write competent poetry that time and audiences determines is great. All of this said, I am not a huge fan of this poem. I like it well enough for the form but I do not believe the intent is clear enough and some of the transitions bother me. No doubt other works I think are much better would not do well in a direct comparison. Which is why I listen to every criticism of my work with an eager ear. I am a long-winded and cantankerous old bastard, I know this, but I do appreciate your time and commentary especially when we do not agree. --Jonathan Annoying the world, one person at a time (Group discounts available)

Kailashana

16 years 1 month ago

Some of my best friends are

Some of my best friends are cantankerous old bastards... must be because I'm a cantankerous old bitch. HA! There's much I can reveal in my own life to correspond with your experiences. Now is not the time. However, I will say this much.....poetry, when the poet is *willing and accessible* to their own craft is a free-flowing stream-of-consciousness-thought written into a poem. It doesn't need to take weeks of preparation and dissection, chewing each word like grass. It's not a martial art, even though *engaging the chi* is simultaneously one's friend & enemy. Martial arts needs years of preparation, whereas one creates poetry devoid of maudlin sentimentality and ignorant pomposity of one's beliefs by engaging in writing writing writing until the grosser aspects drop and only the refined poem shines through. I would like to see you lose the constraints around your craft to experience that *flow* as Mihaly Csikszenmihalyi wrote in his book *Flow*...you have already had the optimal experience in work, in your martial arts and it's ready and waiting for you in poetry. Trust me, there's nothing else like it. It's as good as making love. Ok, almost. ~Anna Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other' doesn't make any sense. --Rumi

Jonathan Moore

16 years 1 month ago

See here I believe we have a fundamental misunderstanding

And it may be just that we have different ideas of what poetry is. I am too lazy to consume large quantities of a poet's work in hopes that I may read something I like or finally see the common thread in their work or gestalt the whole of their intent. Poetry to me is the shortest of short stories, is the snapshot of emotion, the strobe of life caught for that instant and for me it is the poet's duty to take their raw emotion and feeling and refine it for presentation because if I want to experience nothing but raw emotion, I'll interact with kids having tantrums. Raw emotion, raw talent, raw life is not the goal for me, it is the inspiration. Anyone can scream at the top of their lungs and call attention, and for some people that is enough. Since I am a shy individual, I prefer the whisper that people hear, think about, consider, replay in their mind, and then react to. Barring medical breakthroughs, all of us will be dead and gone in 200 years and in the intervening space and time millions upon millions of raw emotional torrents will be penned and presented and forgotten. And I do not wish to compete in that arena. For me poetry is consideration and weeks of effort and chewing each word for taste and feel and trimming like a stonemason building a mortar-less wall. Within each idea is a poem waiting to be born and I view the process more like sculpture than painting. In painting it's all about what you add. In sculpture it's all about choosing the right medium and taking away everything that does not belong. It's not a matter of good and bad, just a different approach. --Jonathan Annoying the world, one person at a time (Group discounts available)

Kailashana

16 years 1 month ago

We do not disagree,

We do not disagree, Jonathan. I am much like you in both approach and personality...and I thoroughly enjoyed your highly personal dissemination/deconstruct into the nature and art of poetry. I, again, reiterate the experience of *flow* in poetry. That being an experience waiting... should you, Mr. Phelps, choose it by being *open* to its experience. In truth we really are begging for new experiences, no matter how we kick and scream sometimes when we are in the midst of them. It's how we become better poets. Have a nice day, Jonathan, don't forget the milk and stay away from strawberries. ~Anna Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other' doesn't make any sense. --Rumi

DawningDaytripper

16 years 1 month ago

Oh you two are HILARIOUS,

Oh you two are HILARIOUS, sorry to but in at the end. Debating on the nature of Poetry, only Poets! You are both right, are you happy now! JK, what an enlightening debate, and with all seriousness. You are both right. Structure gives me a freedom to not have to decide on form, and focus on content and impact. Where freeform gives me freedom to express what is on my mind at that exact moment. Both have thier advantage's. But I loved reading your guys reasons! Julie D.D.

Kailashana

16 years 1 month ago

Indeed. And thus endeth the

Indeed. And thus endeth the deconstruction of poetry for the characters-at-play, Anna and Jonathan. Applause! (Anna taking a bow so she can more easily be kicked in her arse...) :-) ~ Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other' doesn't make any sense. --Rumi

Beauregard

16 years 1 month ago

Jonathan,

"Within each idea is a poem waiting to be born and I view the process more like sculpture than painting. In painting it’s all about what you add. In sculpture it’s all about choosing the right medium and taking away everything that does not belong." Holy shit you just blew my mind man. Sorry for intruding on your conversation with Anna. I just had to tell ya. Kelsey

Jonathan Moore

16 years 1 month ago

My pleasure Kelsey

And it is never an intrusion. You are a smart and talented person and I appreciate your interaction. I have more to say but I will do it in a blog entry, because I want to get really wordy. --Jonathan Annoying the world, one person at a time (Group discounts available)

Mariposa

16 years 1 month ago

Admirable write

It's always amazing how the structure does not take away from your poem in the least. Some people would become so focused on it the beauty of the poem would be lost. I love the language you use, I love the images called to mind when I read this. Further words elude me, and that is rare! Thank you for this poem. Linked in ink, Jhena

Jonathan Moore

16 years 1 month ago

Thank you very much for the kind words

I am a big believer that structure can add more freedom to a poem because when executed properly, half the work is already done for you. I honestly find free verse much more difficult to write and admire those who can do so competently and well. --Jonathan Annoying the world, one person at a time (Group discounts available)

Jonathan Moore

16 years 1 month ago

Line 16

I reverted to the original "though" to open the sentence. "While" is a fine word but I found myself elongating the first word of line 16 and "though" supports this better than "while" Think of the following: "Thooooough seduction charmed me astray" in comparison to : "Whiiiiile seduction charmed me astray" And the latter sets up a harsh interaction between the first and second words and become nearly a whine rather than a lament. --Jonathan Annoying the world, one person at a time (Group discounts available)

raj

16 years 1 month ago

good value addition..

Dear Mr.Jonathan...I never knew what a Viallnelle is...you have explained it as well as illustrated it so very nicely with your poem..a good value addition to an amateur like me...it sure did also create a wonderful imagery and the mood... warmly...raj (sublime_ocean)

Seren

16 years 1 month ago

Congrates on Evolution, it

Congrates on Evolution, it certainly deserves it ... Jayne-Chloe ("Quote:-For every beauty there is an eye somewhere to see it. For every truth there is an ear somewhere to hear it. For every love there is a heart somewhere to receive it.-Ivan Panin")

pleiades

16 years 1 month ago

your first 2 lines of the

your first 2 lines of the last stanza had me wondering just what it was that caused you to be tempted to sway from your path... i can't fault your adherence to the form [good God, what a form! i think i would rather pull my own entrails out than attempt it] i found i needed to read this a number of times to fully appreciate what was being said, and to appreciate the unfolding scenario i kept coming back to the line "Pearl ravens poised with zeal and zest" how can one poise, with zeal and zest? i thought. that image in my mind, of being poised, stilled... seemed at odds with the implied action of zeal and zest. however, the more i read it in context with the 2 surrounding lines, the more it seemed to fit. i love when poetry stops me in my tracks...makes me think...raises questions. as a free verse writer, i'm not terribly partial to having to follow a rigid structure, but i certainly appreciate good form poetry to me, this seems as if great care was taken with word choice and placement. the more i read it, the more that became obvious this is not a throwing together of words to 'fit the form'...there's intent and purpose in this write actually, i came to end, and felt that there was some subliminal message in it that was just out of my reach...some underlying happening/feeling/current that was hinted at, or given cryptic clues for, within this write i'm probably way off bat, or maybe rambling, and when i start to ramble, i know it's time to finish i completely enjoyed this well writ villenelle best of luck with the comp. this is indeed, a worthy entry cheers p.

shirley harrison

16 years 1 month ago

excellent

i have been studying villanelle, and i take my hat off to anyone who can pull it off , So well done its a great piece! shirley harrison

Jonathan Moore

16 years 1 month ago

Pleiades, et all

Thank you all for the commentary and observations. Pleiades, My main focus is that if people return to read my poetry more than once they get a more nuanced meaning and this is where I find, for me, that structure gives me the freedom to pursue this. And although my goal is always to build a unified vision, I enjoy setting up dichotomies to expand the vision and give them pause. And, although I am a cantankerous old man, my first love is teaching and if what I do can help others, it is a good thing. Because, just as in the other areas of my life, I know I deal with people more talented, with better skills, with more ability and my payback is not having people tell me how wonderful I am but rather that my advice or examples or whatever helped them extend their range. It's not a selfless thing, just as when I open a door for someone I do it becuase it makes me feel good. And since I approach it with this attitude, I can be disappoined in a reaction but never dissapointed in my actions and that is always my primary focus. --Jonathan Annoying the world, one person at a time (Group discounts available)