My favorite poems move me without me understanding how and why they are moving me. I am transported, but I cannot see the vehicle that is doing the transporting. It's basically actual magic. -John
I enjoyed the language but I'm not clear I really get it and maybe that's okay too. I'll have to revisit it again to try to understand - which is my favorite part about poetry.
I’m not sure if I’ve interpreted this poem or if I’m way off the mark, but to me, this spoke of what it’s like in the aftermath of death, when you’re in the midst of grief trying to make sense of a world you’ve been forced into; a bleak and stark reality not of your choosing. I guess the ambiguity means that it takes a shape and life of its own that resonates a little differently in each of us. One of my favs so far.
Are you speaking about the ambiguity of the poem, or the ambiguity of grieving death? Both, I think, take their cues for shape and meaning from each individual. The entire poem feels like the presence of an unidentified absence
I'm going to throw a theory out there, and it's going to sound wild, but hear me out. The speakers are rabbits. The first hint is the cover, a nest. Rabbit nests look similar to this. The line about white hairs also stood out to me. While it could refer to older humans, the characters say that they get old AFTER this line. The last line about hearing the animals could refer to development in a formerly wild area as a "war." It would also explain why the definitions seem so strange, as they don't understand human language. It's my theory, at least.
I find it most brilliant that readers in this comment section are reproducing the experiments in myriad unique forms: what is it, a metaphor? No, it cannot be a metaphor, as it resists the phenomena of perceptible meaning; what is it, a testament, an account? No, it cannot be a testament, it is absurd, no reality could approximate to it; You can devise countless methods of interpretation, but a correct meaning will forever evade you; it has none, this poem will be perpetually missing a meaning, that is the design.
That’s the beauty of poetry, and all forms of art. When something is thoroughly understood right away it can lessen the impact it has on one. It can be interpreted many ways, however the listener/reader feels. None are wrong or absolutely right.
probably the third time I've come back to this poem. despite still not fully understanding it, it has such a strong feeling attached to it, even if I can't explain/understand what the exact feeling is. Mesmerising, every time.
I found this poem super touching, perhaps because I was feeling something similar yesterday, searching for words to describe how I was feeling, but not able to be conclusive. I really liked how the poem had almost a scientific method of going through the options, creating this wonderful repetition
In the beginning she said the poem is about searching for what is always missing. If something is always missing can we classify what it is? Can it be found in other forms, unknown to us?
I am curious as to the process of choosing poems and their readers - not because I wish to criticise but rather because I simply wish to know how *do* you choose? How even, when the world is full of words?
I put it in a few comments, but this poem made me feel the presence of an absence. The confusion, mixed with hope, fear, and longing that give a person the will to reach into the darkness looking, even if they know not for what. Thank you all for the beautiful poetry and conversation
I was doing a poetry writing challenge and I really struggled through most of it. Your collection Wild Milk helped me so much. Thank you for your incredible writing ♥
It's interesting how despite the whole poem being very puzzling and hard to decipher, the last line seems to stand out as literal and true - "a war is when you cannot hear the animals."
This poem somehow reminds me very strongly of the interludes of the investigator in the 'the expanse' novel series. It reaches out and it reaches out and it reaches out and it reaches out. And it doesn't know what it is reaching out for. It isn't even aware it is reaching out at all.
I kind of tentatively have been calling the feeling this poem gave me the presence of an absence. That you can feel and understand that there's something to be reached for, something missing, but it's not the thing being reached for that's important, it's the longing itself that indicates the absence exists at all
Of all the places to run into someone else that's read The Expanse, I hadn't expected it should be in the comments section of a poetry video, but I'm pleasantly surprised. You're spot-on about the similarity though! They were few and far between, but those passages were some of my favorites - "The investigator is aware, and it wonders, and because it wonders it looks."
This is definitely a tough one. The poem that helped me feel like I got meaning from a poem even if I didn't fully understand it is Ode to a Nightingale. I've felt a little more comfortable with poetry ever since I read it.
This was beautiful. I the transition of verbs to nouns and non generic definitions. It also made me think of Welcome to Night Vale. It feels like Night Vale Community Radio ad copy or the traffic report.
I have a theory, but I’ll preface it by saying that I’m okay with the vagueness of this poem, which I understand is part of the point: to not know for sure. It’s very moving and brilliantly written. My theory is that this is a poetic narrative of a couple trying repeatedly to conceive and the developments in their relationship.
I interpreted it as a group who is trying to find meaning. Is this genesis? Is this stillness? They're trying to make sense of the world around them (I'm not 100% sure, this is just an interpretation 😊)
I got that @@user-dt4yj5kz5u but a group of what? Scientists I guess? Why are they asking whether the thing is these weird, cryptic guesses and then saying no because of such weird cryptic reasons? It is almost eerie
@@AspienPadda I took it as two soldiers in the midst of a battle. They're trying to imagine the unknown as anything but what they're actually facing: they continually try to evade the fact that they're in war. For example with this line,"We touched our instruments... we agreed to not look at the boy...", I imagine that the "instruments" are weapons and if they were to look at the boy then they may have to kill him.
Ohhhh @@Adrian-bi4cc this is the best explanation so far! I love it and agree. This is now also my headcannon. I'd still hear more interpretations though
@@AspienPadda I'm wondering if it has something to do with the Biblical account of creation, perhaps from the perspective of angels observing it. What led me there was the mention of Genesis and what I think is a reference to Chapter 1 verse 2: "The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters." That may be a bit too on the nose, but it does kind of fit. We start with sleeping darkness (a Nocturama), move to Genesis, then stillness as God creates the world, then the boy as He creates man. Then there's a betrayal of some kind (the fall of man) where fear and separation and lies enter the picture. Then the father as man starts to repopulate the earth, and finally war as heaven and earth drift further and further apart (perhaps even referencing the great flood from Genesis 6-9). But then it ends with hope declaring that it's not a war, because we can still hear the animals, more life is still getting created every day and there must still be some harmony between the heavens and the earth.
I'm not sure I understand the poem because the explanations don't make sense to me, but I was particularly moved by the lines "we climbed a tree to watch it from below" and "We weakened. We could no longer touch the thing. The thing, we were afraid, had lied to us. What is this, we ask, a father?" and "A war is when you cannot hear the animals." I was also curious as to why the "we" were constantly digging a hole. In the beginning it seemed like they were searching for something, like a treasure. In the end, it seemed ominous, like the "we" were digging a trench to try and protect themselves from the thing.
When I first read the poem I couldn't make any sense of it. I kept reading it again and again until I found myself doing exactly what the group of people in the poem are doing. The group of people represent my thoughts trying to make sense of this poem, "the thing". I keep asking my self hypothetical question in case it fits, what does this mean? we dig a hole ..... no it's not what it means. And it never makes sense because thats the point of it, it shouldn't make sense (We could no longer touch the thing. the thing, we were afraid has lied to us) That's my take on it. What do you think?
I think the speakers are searching for meaning, a meaning they haven't found that doesn't necessarily exist. If I had to wager a guess, I'd say that the poem is a really cool mirror, wherein she describes the search for a lost meaning in such precisely disjointed terms, that it leaves the reader mimicking the speakers, searching for a thing that may never come, the pin of understanding that would hold the poem's meaning together. I dunno, just my thoughts
I didn't understand anything, but I loved it xD Because it's written to tell a story and I think it was very beautifully written And english is not my first language and I think it makes it even more complicated especially with poetry I just felt like the last line was telling me something ''is it a war? no, a war is when you cannot hear the animals'' besides that, I luiked it in the strange way when you don't really get what the person wants to say or what is her point so you just keep listening (and kinda like it)
Meaning constructed in dissociation I think. You can say what a thing isn't by what you know something is. The line of genesis being when he walks across the water is obviously a biblical reference and the others could be other symbols wither more personal or more shared. I think the language is vague enough that it's up to the reader to make their own connections to what the specific dissociations are, but the point is that by seeing what something isn't, maybe there's something that can help see what it is. A look into the failures of the human sight and understanding and how those failures can lead to successes in the end. Or not. The end is open enough to wonder that question for yourself.
Thank you @@sliverteddy1776 here it is: Michael This blank slate vanilla icecream is tainted by misdiagnosis. That's why they do not stick, the you who was might have had them but the you who is can't yet. Coreen Benadie
Oh thank you @@ourspoetica my friend and I have been discussing his personality reset, trying to explain it by use of metaphors when this popped out - at first he couldn't understand it at all so we decided to turn it into a poem.
I picked this poem apart by looking at what the answers weren’t. From that perspective, we know these things: You can catch their breath (you can see the breaths in the cold winter air); it’s warm but it doesn’t make him sweep across the water; their legs do not come close (they are moving or neutral); there is a boy and the narrators are looking up (perhaps they are looking up at a helicopter and determining the only time a helicopter comes for boys is when boys are dead or missing, meaning _this_ helicopter comes on its own); you don’t raise the cloth to his lips (a man is nearing the boy and is not putting a covering over his body like you would a corpse); you can hear the animals. I think we are forest animals witnessing experiments being done on a young person under a large ‘tent’ with artificial lighting that keep it bright during the night and dark in the daytime. The animals find it warm but it’s not fire. The only time it’s fire is when someone goes over the water, maybe in a boat. A sudden incident occurs where the humans freeze in place and the animals wonder if it happened on cue as part of a drill, but assume not because the humans usually all walk closer toward each other when that happens. Perhaps a boy suddenly died and everyone else stood still in shock. A helicopter comes down, leaving an older man to check on a younger. The animals cannot come close to him because he will yell at or try to hurt them, and we can assume the boy was kind to them by contrast from their surprise. The older man, who is responsible for the experiments, doesn’t view the younger as human. He doesn’t cover up the boy’s corpse with a cloth. There might be more boys dead nearby. The animals are still around living their lives unaffected. This is unnecessary. War is not occurring here. This is just cruelty.
This poem kind of pisses me off. Partly because I don't get it, which just makes me feel cheated. But mostly because I feel like if I _did_ get it, I would really like it. But I don't, so I just feel even _more_ cheated.
My favorite poems move me without me understanding how and why they are moving me. I am transported, but I cannot see the vehicle that is doing the transporting. It's basically actual magic. -John
John you've quoted TS Elliott before on how the world would end, won't you please read us The Hollow Men? "Not with a bang but with a whimper."
I enjoyed the language but I'm not clear I really get it and maybe that's okay too. I'll have to revisit it again to try to understand - which is my favorite part about poetry.
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"The thing, we were afraid, had lied to us. What is this, we asked, a father?" Best line.
This read to me like a dream. I am brought along as there is a stream of consciousness to follow, but I gain no understanding.
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I second the gain no understanding part.
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I’m not sure if I’ve interpreted this poem or if I’m way off the mark, but to me, this spoke of what it’s like in the aftermath of death, when you’re in the midst of grief trying to make sense of a world you’ve been forced into; a bleak and stark reality not of your choosing. I guess the ambiguity means that it takes a shape and life of its own that resonates a little differently in each of us. One of my favs so far.
Glad you liked it! It's one of our favs, too!-Paige
SuperShania81 I think so too - they dug a hole and lowered a thing that was no longer a boy into it
Are you speaking about the ambiguity of the poem, or the ambiguity of grieving death? Both, I think, take their cues for shape and meaning from each individual. The entire poem feels like the presence of an unidentified absence
I had no idea, that this could be it, when I started reading your comment.
But it fits so well.
They got you good. You're all searching for the meaning in this poem but really it is missing
The search continued through winter...
THIS
I'm going to throw a theory out there, and it's going to sound wild, but hear me out. The speakers are rabbits. The first hint is the cover, a nest. Rabbit nests look similar to this. The line about white hairs also stood out to me. While it could refer to older humans, the characters say that they get old AFTER this line. The last line about hearing the animals could refer to development in a formerly wild area as a "war." It would also explain why the definitions seem so strange, as they don't understand human language. It's my theory, at least.
That's so creative! I love that interpretation so much
I find it most brilliant that readers in this comment section are reproducing the experiments in myriad unique forms:
what is it, a metaphor? No, it cannot be a metaphor, as it resists the phenomena of perceptible meaning;
what is it, a testament, an account? No, it cannot be a testament, it is absurd, no reality could approximate to it;
You can devise countless methods of interpretation, but a correct meaning will forever evade you; it has none, this poem will be perpetually missing a meaning, that is the design.
That’s the beauty of poetry, and all forms of art. When something is thoroughly understood right away it can lessen the impact it has on one. It can be interpreted many ways, however the listener/reader feels. None are wrong or absolutely right.
This is such a wonderful way to approach poetry! There is no wrong or right!-Paige
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probably the third time I've come back to this poem. despite still not fully understanding it, it has such a strong feeling attached to it, even if I can't explain/understand what the exact feeling is. Mesmerising, every time.
I found this poem super touching, perhaps because I was feeling something similar yesterday, searching for words to describe how I was feeling, but not able to be conclusive. I really liked how the poem had almost a scientific method of going through the options, creating this wonderful repetition
Sabrina has a very soothing voice. Whether I did or did not understand the poem, I still enjoyed the reading.
This like a whole new language. Stunning.
In the beginning she said the poem is about searching for what is always missing. If something is always missing can we classify what it is? Can it be found in other forms, unknown to us?
I am curious as to the process of choosing poems and their readers - not because I wish to criticise but rather because I simply wish to know how *do* you choose? How even, when the world is full of words?
I have also wondered. As well as whether I could read one of my own poems here even though I live on another continent
Somehow, that last sentence of yours (How even, when the world is full of words?) has really gripped me, and it keeps bouncing around in my head.
Agreed @@katrijndekeersmaecker1904 now that you've mentioned it I see it too
As sad as it is to not find what you're seeking, and to be lied to, I am glad they didn't stumble into a war.
This poem - and this entire channel - are quite refreshing.
I put it in a few comments, but this poem made me feel the presence of an absence. The confusion, mixed with hope, fear, and longing that give a person the will to reach into the darkness looking, even if they know not for what. Thank you all for the beautiful poetry and conversation
I was doing a poetry writing challenge and I really struggled through most of it. Your collection Wild Milk helped me so much. Thank you for your incredible writing ♥
It's interesting how despite the whole poem being very puzzling and hard to decipher, the last line seems to stand out as literal and true - "a war is when you cannot hear the animals."
This poem somehow reminds me very strongly of the interludes of the investigator in the 'the expanse' novel series.
It reaches out and it reaches out and it reaches out and it reaches out. And it doesn't know what it is reaching out for. It isn't even aware it is reaching out at all.
I kind of tentatively have been calling the feeling this poem gave me the presence of an absence. That you can feel and understand that there's something to be reached for, something missing, but it's not the thing being reached for that's important, it's the longing itself that indicates the absence exists at all
Of all the places to run into someone else that's read The Expanse, I hadn't expected it should be in the comments section of a poetry video, but I'm pleasantly surprised. You're spot-on about the similarity though! They were few and far between, but those passages were some of my favorites - "The investigator is aware, and it wonders, and because it wonders it looks."
I’m trying to ‘get’ poetry, and it’s not been easy so far. Hope to cross the bridge soon :)
This is definitely a tough one. The poem that helped me feel like I got meaning from a poem even if I didn't fully understand it is Ode to a Nightingale. I've felt a little more comfortable with poetry ever since I read it.
Its about always looking for the missing things. In this case, coherency, sense, understanding, etc
This was beautiful. I the transition of verbs to nouns and non generic definitions. It also made me think of Welcome to Night Vale. It feels like Night Vale Community Radio ad copy or the traffic report.
can you guys please get tommy pico on here? his poetry alone is incredible but his PERFORMANCE of it is mesmerizing
How does a human mind generate something like this?
I have a theory, but I’ll preface it by saying that I’m okay with the vagueness of this poem, which I understand is part of the point: to not know for sure. It’s very moving and brilliantly written.
My theory is that this is a poetic narrative of a couple trying repeatedly to conceive and the developments in their relationship.
Could anyone explain this poem to me? Again I feel like I'm missing something
I interpreted it as a group who is trying to find meaning. Is this genesis? Is this stillness? They're trying to make sense of the world around them (I'm not 100% sure, this is just an interpretation 😊)
I got that @@user-dt4yj5kz5u but a group of what? Scientists I guess? Why are they asking whether the thing is these weird, cryptic guesses and then saying no because of such weird cryptic reasons? It is almost eerie
@@AspienPadda I took it as two soldiers in the midst of a battle. They're trying to imagine the unknown as anything but what they're actually facing: they continually try to evade the fact that they're in war. For example with this line,"We touched our instruments... we agreed to not look at the boy...", I imagine that the "instruments" are weapons and if they were to look at the boy then they may have to kill him.
Ohhhh @@Adrian-bi4cc this is the best explanation so far! I love it and agree. This is now also my headcannon.
I'd still hear more interpretations though
@@AspienPadda I'm wondering if it has something to do with the Biblical account of creation, perhaps from the perspective of angels observing it. What led me there was the mention of Genesis and what I think is a reference to Chapter 1 verse 2: "The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters." That may be a bit too on the nose, but it does kind of fit. We start with sleeping darkness (a Nocturama), move to Genesis, then stillness as God creates the world, then the boy as He creates man. Then there's a betrayal of some kind (the fall of man) where fear and separation and lies enter the picture. Then the father as man starts to repopulate the earth, and finally war as heaven and earth drift further and further apart (perhaps even referencing the great flood from Genesis 6-9). But then it ends with hope declaring that it's not a war, because we can still hear the animals, more life is still getting created every day and there must still be some harmony between the heavens and the earth.
I didn't get it, maybe later.
I'm not sure I understand the poem because the explanations don't make sense to me, but I was particularly moved by the lines "we climbed a tree to watch it from below" and "We weakened. We could no longer touch the thing. The thing, we were afraid, had lied to us. What is this, we ask, a father?" and "A war is when you cannot hear the animals." I was also curious as to why the "we" were constantly digging a hole. In the beginning it seemed like they were searching for something, like a treasure. In the end, it seemed ominous, like the "we" were digging a trench to try and protect themselves from the thing.
I more saw the hole digging as grave digging, putting an idea to rest because it was not the one they were looking for
@@QueerCodedBees that was the other image that kept floating through my head intermittently.
I really didn't get this one at first, but the more I got into it and let the words wash over me the more I liked it
I really like that but I don't know why. I feel that way about a lot of art. Reading the comments, it seems a lot of people feel the same way.
This poem may not have an obvious meaning as it could mean anything, but it left me with a creepy feeling. Great for starting October.
When I first read the poem I couldn't make any sense of it. I kept reading it again and again until I found myself doing exactly what the group of people in the poem are doing. The group of people represent my thoughts trying to make sense of this poem, "the thing". I keep asking my self hypothetical question in case it fits, what does this mean? we dig a hole ..... no it's not what it means. And it never makes sense because thats the point of it, it shouldn't make sense (We could no longer touch the thing. the thing, we were afraid has lied to us)
That's my take on it. What do you think?
I think the speakers are searching for meaning, a meaning they haven't found that doesn't necessarily exist. If I had to wager a guess, I'd say that the poem is a really cool mirror, wherein she describes the search for a lost meaning in such precisely disjointed terms, that it leaves the reader mimicking the speakers, searching for a thing that may never come, the pin of understanding that would hold the poem's meaning together. I dunno, just my thoughts
I didn't understand anything, but I loved it xD Because it's written to tell a story and I think it was very beautifully written
And english is not my first language and I think it makes it even more complicated especially with poetry
I just felt like the last line was telling me something ''is it a war? no, a war is when you cannot hear the animals''
besides that, I luiked it in the strange way when you don't really get what the person wants to say or what is her point so you just keep listening (and kinda like it)
Meaning constructed in dissociation I think. You can say what a thing isn't by what you know something is. The line of genesis being when he walks across the water is obviously a biblical reference and the others could be other symbols wither more personal or more shared. I think the language is vague enough that it's up to the reader to make their own connections to what the specific dissociations are, but the point is that by seeing what something isn't, maybe there's something that can help see what it is. A look into the failures of the human sight and understanding and how those failures can lead to successes in the end. Or not. The end is open enough to wonder that question for yourself.
I don't get it. But I felt it.
I'd love some more insight on this poem 🤔😊
Amazing
I cannot stop thinking about lab rabbits when i hear this
First! Thank you for poems! Shall I add my own poem to this comment section?
Please do I'd love to read it.
Thank you @@sliverteddy1776 here it is:
Michael
This blank slate vanilla icecream
is tainted by misdiagnosis.
That's why they do not stick,
the you who was might have had them
but the you who is can't yet.
Coreen Benadie
@@AspienPadda I love the description of vanilla ice cream as a blank slate! Thank you for sharing this poem with us. -Paige
Oh thank you @@ourspoetica my friend and I have been discussing his personality reset, trying to explain it by use of metaphors when this popped out - at first he couldn't understand it at all so we decided to turn it into a poem.
@@AspienPadda
Thank you for sharing your work. I liked it very much.
Her face in the thumbnail is exactly how i felt hearing this :/
Ahaha relatable
I cannot really grasp the idea of this poem even though I really want to.
"A war is when you cannot hear the animals"
💙❤️💙❤️
That line got to me too.
Hmmm I’m not sure I understand
Stark beauty.
i do not understand this poem at all but cool
I picked this poem apart by looking at what the answers weren’t. From that perspective, we know these things: You can catch their breath (you can see the breaths in the cold winter air); it’s warm but it doesn’t make him sweep across the water; their legs do not come close (they are moving or neutral); there is a boy and the narrators are looking up (perhaps they are looking up at a helicopter and determining the only time a helicopter comes for boys is when boys are dead or missing, meaning _this_ helicopter comes on its own); you don’t raise the cloth to his lips (a man is nearing the boy and is not putting a covering over his body like you would a corpse); you can hear the animals.
I think we are forest animals witnessing experiments being done on a young person under a large ‘tent’ with artificial lighting that keep it bright during the night and dark in the daytime. The animals find it warm but it’s not fire. The only time it’s fire is when someone goes over the water, maybe in a boat. A sudden incident occurs where the humans freeze in place and the animals wonder if it happened on cue as part of a drill, but assume not because the humans usually all walk closer toward each other when that happens. Perhaps a boy suddenly died and everyone else stood still in shock. A helicopter comes down, leaving an older man to check on a younger. The animals cannot come close to him because he will yell at or try to hurt them, and we can assume the boy was kind to them by contrast from their surprise. The older man, who is responsible for the experiments, doesn’t view the younger as human. He doesn’t cover up the boy’s corpse with a cloth. There might be more boys dead nearby. The animals are still around living their lives unaffected. This is unnecessary. War is not occurring here. This is just cruelty.
This poem kind of pisses me off. Partly because I don't get it, which just makes me feel cheated. But mostly because I feel like if I _did_ get it, I would really like it. But I don't, so I just feel even _more_ cheated.
Tell me, where is Gandalf?
Fo I much desire to speak wit him.
I'm gunna be honest, i didn't really get this one... sorry
What is this, a Suicide Squad?