Open To Interpretation
Wince
Wince
Sure,
Poems are,
In truth,
Unspoken
Spoken words
We see and hear
And don't know how.
So love ghostly
Passes through walls
Rattles the table setting
Makes a hand held book
Tremble
Eye sockets wincing
To see
Ears rising
To see
Ears rising
To hear unseen
Words unspoken
Words unspoken
Your mind speaking
Ruffling the nape of your neck.
DolphinWords
Notes: hmmph...eye sockets wincing is a bit too anatomical!...a refrain of late in the MidnightMovies has been 'what's beneath our skin', and refrained again in moveAlienCovenant2017 seen last night...more gruesomeness...by 'wince' I'm referring to that sensation around the eyes when one is about to tear up...and the 'ruffle' is the well known 'hairs on your neck standing on end'...I often see in discussions of the physical responses to poems the mention of goose bumps and hair standing up, but not so much the wincing...if one is going to write jokes one should be able to laugh at your own jokes...so a test of a poem is one's own physical response to it...'Wince' doesn't quite get my hairs up, but it does make a sensation at the bones next to my earlobes...there are other physical responses, more subtle, more illusive, to poems...tragedies like Hamlet, or even like the epic Iliad, have something at the end of them...brb...oh, goose bumps have a name...French of course!...Frisson...hmmph...came to that looking up 'catharsis', then 'catharsis serenity' (there's a music group called 'serene catharsis'), and then 'physical responses to poetry'...I cant describe the feeling evoked by a well wrought tragedy, but I recall from classroom lectures that a tragedy without it isn't a tragedy, and more in the nature of a drama...there's a lot of study into these sensations, and has been over the centuries...oh, let me go get Robert Graves on this...brb...
quote
All true poetry--true by Houseman's practical test [does it make the hairs of one's chin bristle if one repeats it silently while shaving]--celebrates some incident or scene in this very ancient story
The White Goddess
Robert Graves
unquote
Surrounding that quote Graves goes on with what I've come to regard as his favorite 'algo', algorithm, the 'ancient story', but let me go find Houseman's quote, which is often quoted!...brb...
quote
The Leslie Stephen Lecture, Cambridge University, May 9, 1933
- Experience has taught me, when I am shaving of a morning, to keep watch over my thoughts, because, if a line of poetry strays into my memory, my skin bristles so that the razor ceases to act...The seat of this sensation is the pit of the stomach. Houseman's test for great poetry.
unquote
A curio would be how Graves acquired that quote!...but back to 'wince'...
quote
All of the listeners experienced chills. Eleven exhibited piloerection — also known as goosebumps — where their skin hairs involuntarily stood on end.
The function of goosebumps, Wassiliwizky said, “could have a beneficial effect on our empathic capacities and therefore influence both personal well-being and harmony within a social group.” Goosebumps can also be socially contagious, like yawning, further promoting shared group behaviors.
a quote from here:
https://www.seeker.com/health/mind/listening-to-poetry-really-can-give-you-chills-and-goosebumps
that is quoting from here:
https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/3778354/The-emotional-power-of-poetry-neural-circuitry
unquote
hmmph...but back to wincing!....well, I was out and about on the web with the iphone, but didn't save sites, and have forgotten how I found them!...gist of those found is that our facial expression muscles are a mammalian thing, and many other mammals can be expressive, notably dogs and horses, and doing another search set while on the computer, I find the subject is huge...and what I'm calling a 'wince' has about it the raising of ones ears, eyebrows, and just by doing that, one is almost at 'hair raising'...what we do when we are frightened...brb...oh, there is a poem in this...thinking on how often I've seen Deer's ears go up when Bear or Bobcat is about...Maya's, my dog, ears go up...and back down, laid flat...for different things!...Graves' algo has it right...there is something frightening about the 'ancient story'!,..Oh, and English has a word for goose bumps too...'horripilation'...added line 'Ears rising', and a few changes...ral...
:)
DavidDavid
No comments:
Post a Comment