"The Pattern", Robert Creeley
The Pattern
As soon as
I speak, I
speaks. It
wants to
be free but
impassive lies
in the direction
of its
words. Let
x equals x, x
also
equals x. I
speak to
hear myself
speak? I
had not thought
that some-
thing had such
undone. It
was an idea
of mine.
Robert Creeley, 1967.
---
What do you make of this poem? What's the subject matter? How might it be relevant to 1984?
LT
posted by Unknown @ 12/07/2004 01:11:00 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Hi Rubberband,
Sound analysis. I think you got it pretty much covered, didn't you? I think that the key to the poem is in the end - as you pointed out: "I / had not thought / that some- / thing had such / undone. It / was an idea / of mine." "Something" is missing in the lines - "had such undone". That something had undone so much? had such X undone? And the "it" is slightly ambiguous. While it may refer "the idea of mine", it is possible that "it" is also linked to the earlier line, to that "something".
So perhaps you are right - that language and poetics change the way we express ourselves - the speaker set out to question the way we speak or use langugage but ended the poem bound by the 3-line structure, and perhaps also trying to show us the very process itself, of how language makes and masks meaning?
Post a Comment
<< Home