Author Topic: Postmodern poetry  (Read 1360 times)

Fellfrosch

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Postmodern poetry
« on: February 22, 2006, 03:42:52 PM »
I found these on the net, and I dig them:

The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.


Glass Box
You know, it's the old glass box at the--
At the gas station,
Where you're using those little things
Trying to pick up the prize,
And you can't find it.
It's--

And it's all these arms are going down in there,
And so you keep dropping it
And picking it up again and moving it,
But--

Some of you are probably too young to remember those--
Those glass boxes,
But--

But they used to have them
At all the gas stations
When I was a kid.


A Confession
Once in a while,
I'm standing here, doing something.
And I think,
"What in the world am I doing here?"
It's a big surprise.


The Situation
Things will not be necessarily continuous.
The fact that they are something other than perfectly continuous
Ought not to be characterized as a pause.
There will be some things that people will see.
There will be some things that people won't see.
And life goes on.


Clarity
I think what you'll find,
I think what you'll find is,
Whatever it is we do substantively,
There will be near-perfect clarity
              As to what it is.

And it will be known,
And it will be known to the Congress,
And it will be known to you,
Probably before we decide it,
              But it will be known.
« Last Edit: February 22, 2006, 03:44:02 PM by Fellfrosch »
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MsFish

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Re: Postmodern poetry
« Reply #1 on: February 22, 2006, 06:39:41 PM »
I like those too.  Who's the author?
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fuzzyoctopus

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Re: Postmodern poetry
« Reply #2 on: February 23, 2006, 02:11:24 AM »
Hmm. Not my cup of tea, but interesting.
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Fellfrosch

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Re: Postmodern poetry
« Reply #3 on: February 23, 2006, 01:20:39 PM »
My favorites are definitely The Glass Box and The Situation. There's something very cool going on in those, though I like the structure of some of the other ones.

The best part, these are actually not poems--they're transcripts of Donald Rumsfeld's speeches, formatted as poetry: http://www.slate.com/id/2081042
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JP Dogberry

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Re: Postmodern poetry
« Reply #4 on: February 23, 2006, 07:22:57 PM »
Glass box is interesting, since it is probably a reference to Glass Cage, an interesting postmodern concept/artwork/thing. I can't explain it well so google it.
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Re: Postmodern poetry
« Reply #5 on: February 23, 2006, 11:04:44 PM »
Or Glass Box may be referring to the old Crane game machines where you'd try to get a prize from the bottom with the crane that would grab at said prizes.

I don't agree with comparing him to WCW, since Williams was a more imagistic poet than what we have here. A better comparison would have been Gertrude Stein. But then, there aren't many people that would truely know that...

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Fellfrosch

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Re: Postmodern poetry
« Reply #6 on: February 24, 2006, 12:27:22 PM »
I don't know if this is the one you mean, Jam, but I found it on google and I really like it:

Cage of Glass
Look around and wonder who
these people are who move
their lips and look with pity
smiling secret to themselves
then frown again and turn away
with shaking heads from side to
side while walking quickly off
to join the mobile others who
just seem to understand so well
when all that you can figure out
is that the things you know you
need to know were left out of the
book of life that you received
when doors were shut behind
that marked the entrance to a
world of bad decisions capable
of stealing reason to believe
there is a meaning if a life is
spent surrounded by so many
yet is always lived inside itself
alone.
"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die." --Mel Brooks

My author website: http://www.fearfulsymmetry.net