Eve’s Eyes
Posted by Rob Kistner | Filed under Free Verse, Image, Poetry, art, courage, dark, found poem, mystery, suspense, tragedy, whimsy
• In response to prompt #5 of the newly opened We Write Poems, this is a surrealistic poem I created using a technique of creative omission called erasure. I am generally not a fan of fashioning a poem to or from a form or device — but this was interesting. The original poem I “mined” was entitled “Pointed Roofs”, by Dorothy Miller Richardson. You might find it interesting to compare Dorothy’s piece with my finished piece…
•
plentiful
the long faces
the girls
numerous
brought the sense of misery
the girls
nervous
were part of the remuneration
the very first
eve
playing a melody
swollen
her fingers weak
unexpectedly stiffened
her trembling hands
dreadful
she stood
angry
stupid people
had made her play
her discomfiture forgotten
she simply poked the piano
almost unrecognizable
she played with burning eyes
thumping
and thumping again
she played afresh
laughed into the air
back to the wall
behind the piano
• • •
…the painting above is entitled “HOMAGE for GILLES CARLE”, by: Estelle St-Pierre…
June 9th, 2010 at 5:22 am
Well done, Rob! Interesting how so many pieces are similar, yet different. I like your take.
June 9th, 2010 at 6:46 am
Hi Rob, I like how you made the piece follow your usual look.
June 9th, 2010 at 7:32 am
Glad to see that remuneration line. It fought my attempts to make it fit.
June 9th, 2010 at 10:05 am
there — that didn’t hurt too much, did it?
thanks for playing, Rob!
June 9th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
Did a great job with it…so much fun seeing how we all worked with the same words.
- Dina
June 9th, 2010 at 1:33 pm
Loved this, Rob.
The centering of the words worked well, as did the image above. Amazing prompt and exercise; we all worked on the same words, yet we managed to cull completely different words and emotions from that work. Angie ROCKS prompts!
June 9th, 2010 at 1:38 pm
Thank you Brenda, I whittled it down to an abstract minimalist piece…
June 9th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
Glad you liked the direction of the form Derrick, centered, no caps, sparse lines is my primary “thing”…
June 9th, 2010 at 1:43 pm
As I was deconstructing the original piece Barbara, a vision formed of underworld, speakeasy, ladies of the evening, and a single defiant dame named eve — the remuneration concept seemed to fall comfortably into that…
June 9th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
It proved to be interesting and enjoyable Angie — thanks for tossing down the poetic gauntlet…
June 9th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
Thank you Dina, and yes, there was enough “word meat” in the original to allow imaginations to go where they wanted…
June 9th, 2010 at 1:48 pm
Thank you Amy — as I responded to Derrick, center layout, no caps, no punctuation, sparse content (whenever possible) is my primary thing — but not always…
And I loved the paintings of Estelle St-Pierre, especially the eyes…
June 9th, 2010 at 6:05 pm
Rob, this was fantastic! You’re the first one I’ve read, and I’m anxious to read all the others…you definitely had a different take, and I’m smitten. Thanks!
June 9th, 2010 at 11:05 pm
Thank you Linda…
June 10th, 2010 at 6:32 am
It seems to me that you erased enough of the words to distill a final result, which still conveys the conflict inside the young woman and retains the original story — except for your ending, a creative twist. I really like what you did with this prompt.
-Nicole