In class on Thursday, we continued to
discuss Ed Roberson's City Eclogue. I
really enjoyed reading the second half of the book better, probably
because the writing style and the layout of the poems were much more
creative and weird in a sense. For example, I noticed that there was
somewhat of a pattern in the layout. In “The Open”, there are
many spacings between the words, as well as the lines. 'The Open' and
'42nd
Street's Tunnel' look similar on the page. However, poems such as
'Monk's Bird Book' and 'The Counsel of Birds' are in more of a
paragraph form. I also noticed that in the 'Eclogue' section,
Roberson writes his poems in paragraph form, then he leads into the
style he used in the beginning, which was the more spaced out words.
The
poem that caught my eye the most was 'Engine' on page 76. I really
enjoyed it mainly because of the idea behind the poem. Although it
was a bit confusing, it really had me thinking of my own
interpretations. I believe it is about society as a whole, however,
we are all stuck in our own repetitive routines. I feel Roberson is
expressing his thoughts of a lifeless society. The poem could perhaps
be somewhat of a 'pep' talk to the people who get wrapped up in the
business/material world, and encouraging them to step outside of the
box and try something different. For instance, my favorite line in
the poem is 'strip you down' at the bottom of page 76. This is so
amazing to me because I feel he is telling us to start over and take
new risks. I think people let work and business take over the true
beauty of life, and he is saying we must break free. He also says, on
page 77, 'throw things into a gear you wouldn't know would shift'.
This is quite inspirational when I think about it, because it says
'just do it'. The title is “Engine” and I really like how he uses
words that relate to that topic, such as 'gear' and 'trunk'. This
gives me the idea that the world is just like a machine and is
running continuously in the same pace, and Roberson wants to change
that pace.
I also
liked how he set up the poem. The words are broken apart and the
lines are scattered. I feel when I read the poem out loud, and said
the words slowly and broken apart as it is written, then it gives the
poem a lot more emphasis. I think it is pretty cool how he can change
the whole dialogue of the poem just by using enough spaces. For
example, he says the line, 'in the mirror scatter', yet he spaces in
between the words 'mirror' and scatter'. When I said this line aloud,
it made it seem like the words were given an emotion, and they
weren't just words. I could feel what he was trying to make the
audience feel. When I wrote my version of this poem, I tried to use a
similar word spacing technique because I thought it could make the
poem look different than any ordinary poem, and I think that's what
he was trying to do, as well.
After
Ed Roberson's 'Engine'...
Ignite
a revolution out of a tank
of
desperation. You would expect one
to
become bored with
your
daily routine- on repeat.
Pinstripe
suits cloud the room
from
corner to corner
enclosing
us with bullshit.
The
time has come to shatter
this
trend. To become an infant.
Strip
you down.
Jump.
