Susan Comninos has a style of poetry that is very different from poetry that I'm used to reading. Her poems aren't simple but more complex with deep thoughts built into them. You couldn't just read it once and be done. You have to read it again, maybe even a couple times, to really grasp a full understanding of what she is trying to say through her poem. She writes a lot about religion, which is not something that I read a lot about, especially in poetry. "Knocking or nailing?—a crucifix at the door, or hammer from the flat below?" from her poem Rome Visits When I’m in the Bath. Her poems leave me with many questions because she doesn't just come out and say what her poem means. She leaves it up to the reader to uncover to message weaved in the words of her poems. In her poem Covet she sends the message of how a person shouldn't get something by wrongful means or hurting others... " Thou shalt entertain no note without instruments, sloth without toil – sweat from strong languor. Thou shalt not stroke wood of others’ baseboards, nor bewail banisters to a barren house." Another reason Susan's poems are different is because she uses words from other languages in her poems. In her poem Pecan, Rodef, Clam she uses Hebrew and Yiddish words. "Like any nut zipped up tight in its shell. Like a clam’s clipped momser, the locked maw talked open by fire..." the word momser is Yiddish. I think using these words in the poem gives the author a different voice. Susan also has a unique style to her poems. She breaks up her stanzas in the middle of the sentences which makes the poem read differently. She does this in her poem Deconstruction Workers
"Green’s the grace
most of us would like. To miss
you netted by needles
is to have the foresight
of a wood pest, eating
what builders won’t abate —
blind." I think she wants to put emphasis on certain words and create a pause to add dramatic effect.
Questions: What do you think makes a poem powerful?
What makes poetry different from other types of writing?
No comments:
Post a Comment