"moderns" poems
(3 hours. 3 years. A lifetime.)
1. 'and the Doctor said, "are you saying you feel guilty unless you are hungry?"
Discuss, with reference to the roles of female c haracters in the American moderns, particularly to Plath's representation of Esther in The Bell Jar , the relevance of this quote to your adolescent development.
(10 marks)
2. Should a poet's work invariably utilise enjambment or read in sequence, allowing the poet freedom to let the poetry find it's own form?
(Candidates are encouraged to explore the source to which the question above alludes, and to formulate an original argument with an effective use of rhetorical devices to communicate it,)
(8 marks)
3. Elucidate your role as a daughter, then compare and contrast it with your role as a student. Use quotes directly taken from personal experiences and your own examples to clairfy your explanation.
(5 marks)
4. They are all looking at you and laughing at you. You are a joke. You are hallucinating and haven't slept in days. How does this make you/the reader feel and do you think this was a part of your plotline intended to elicit a particular response?
(5 marks)
5. Love is not unconditional. Discuss.
(10 marks.)
6. "To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering."
This famous quote by Nietzsche presents him as a nihilistic and misanthropic individual. Do you see him in this light or can you find hope in his hopeless stance? Use examples of your own suffering to corroborate your viewpoint.
(8 marks)
7. Is morality a prerequisite for appreciation of art? Are you? Are you appreciating/appreciated? Discuss.
(10 marks)
8. Calculate the 369th digit of pi as the fractal proxy to represent the infinite worlds contained witin each human being, and in doing so determine the contribution that you and the offspring you will most probably never have cannot contribute to the world shared between the infinite number of individuals posessing their own words, continuing on to deduct your own value from that of the mean value of the population considered in this infinite data set and draw up a graph to visually demonstrate the extent to which the world doesn't need you.
(15 marks)
9. Using the individual calculations formulated in question 8, derive the meaning of Y.
(5 marks)
10. Draw the shape of your sadness
(20 marks)
11. Don't you think you should have learnt by now?
(25 marks)
12. Explain what you are hoping for, and substantiate your hopes with empirical support.
(5 marks)
Dec 28, 2014
Dec 28, 2014 at 11:25 PM UTC
stone monuments are big here
circles and chambered tombs
monoliths, stone houses.
Folk from the stone age
building stone age stuff.
Thousands of years of
history.. going way back.
We moderns will leave
our own, personalised.
The graveyard for granite
headstones, wonder how
long they will stand.
Oct 2, 2016
Oct 2, 2016 at 12:30 PM UTC
The sun was out strong
and there were ducks
and swans on the water
in the park
and Julie
was there with you
clothed
in her hippy dress
and her hair let loose
and unbrushed
in sandaled feet
beside you
on the park bench
she had her legs
out straight
in front of her
as if she were making sure
they were still there
need a fix
she said
need it
like hell
you took in her eyes
lightless as if someone
had switched off
the bulbs in the rooms
of her head
can’t they give you stuff
back at the hospital?
you asked
they’ve no idea
they’re stuff shirts
and narrow heads
she said
that ward sister
doesn’t no ****
you sat
and looked away
some kid
was feeding ducks
at the fence
enjoying the excitement
of the feeding process
lost on the less innocent
it’s all if you do this
such and such will result
and if you take
such and such
this may go away
she said bitterly
how about an ice cream
up there on the rise
of the hill?
you said
she pushed her hands
between her legs
as if to push back
the fix hunger
as if that will solve
the fix ****
she said
didn’t say it would
but it sure tastes good
you said gently
seeing the kid
clap her hands
for more bread
Julie got up
and walked away
and you followed
watching her hips sway
unsteadily
like a ship buffeted
by rough seas
she spoke over
her shoulder
said words about
her parents
the rich
middle class
suckers
about the do-gooders
who came
to the ward
with their bright eyes
and second hand faith
you just listened
walking beside her
her hands going up
and down by her sides
as if out of control
how about that ice cream?
you said
watching her eyes
staring ahead
I know what you’re after
she bellowed
either my soul
to save
or a quickie in bed
an old woman
on a park bench
gazed at her passing by
with that
o dear me look
in her ancient eye
you asked about
maybe take
in the art gallery
look at the Moderns
you had neared
the ice cream van
and she stood there
looking with her eyes
on the menu
on the side
hands motionless
and still
what are you having?
you asked
a fix if I could
but that ice cream
with chocolate flakes
and sauce
will do for now
she said
and so you bought two
from the Italian looking guy
and gave her one
and kept one yourself
and walked on back
by the water
and bridge
she quiet
slow walking
you eating and *******
no thought of ***
or her fix
or side room
*******
Jul 13, 2013
Jul 13, 2013 at 3:56 AM UTC
i like pop music
some oldies too
i dont like Mudhoney
but you do
I like rivers
I like the ground
you get thrills
im safe and sound
I like Disney
I like Pixar
You like pulp fiction
its just who we are
im not obscure
ive tried to be
its not who i am
its not who ill be
this isnt an attack
just recognition
of who i am
of what im missing
im trying to fit in
but thats not what im about
i dont get along
with the out crowd
i dont get cult movies
or grungy rock bands
it doesnt make me
less than i am
i like classic poets
but moderns good too
but i dont get those poets
you watch on youtube
maybe i thought
i could learn or understand
but im beginning to see
thats just not who i am
this is a message
or maybe just a thought
i had to say it
im all i got
ill still try to watch your movies
ill listen to your bands
ill try to get it
ill try to understand
i dont always get you
but boy do i try
i guess im just tired
of trying to lie
Oct 1, 2014
Oct 1, 2014 at 11:47 AM UTC
I wanted to meet you
outside the National
Gallery, Julie says, but
the doctors weren't keen,
said I ****** up my drug
medication, and not let
me out for days. She
was a drug dependent,
on the cure, or so she said.
And waiting you went
to Dobells's record shop,
listened to few jazz LPs,
had a beer, sat and smoked,
thought about *** the having
and not so. Then she shows,
her dark hair neat, pony-tailed,
her tight figure in the clothes
she wears, **** almost touchable.
Let's skip the old stuff, she says,
let's keep to the modern ****
save time, energy, then after
a drink and chat. So you go
in the Gallery, take in all those
moderns, the stuff she likes,
the portraits, the brush skills
involved, who painted whom,
buy a few postcards, look
at books. Then off for a coffee
and chat, you go to some place
in Leicester Square, sit at a table,
take out the cigarettes, wait
for the order, take in her features
as she speaks, her eyes, her lips,
the way her hair is brushed
and kept, her tight top, those
pressing out of **** I liked
the Picasso, she says, his stuff
really gets to me, makes other
works boring as last year's *****
You notice how she holds her
cigarette, the fingers not yet
browny yellow, hold it just so,
not tight or loose, but gently,
like it was some baby kid instead
of tobacco filled paper deadly drug.
The coffees come, neat small cups,
tiny handles, froth and such. I feel
the need, she says,all the time that
need to hit the veins or tongue. You
hear her words, out there, fragile things,
taking flight, like doomed black birds.
Nov 12, 2013
Nov 12, 2013 at 1:58 AM UTC
. *what the hell happened, how did television become more entertaining than cinema? how?! ah... primarily it's the whole binge effect... but... this is us discovers mundane **** and yet... it's enthralling, perhaps the cocktail of very impressive juxtaposition of past and present... it's engaging because of that, esp. for people with short attention spans.. personally? i don't mind the disorientation, very much akin to the t.v. series: sharp objects... which is probably why the genre of still life, in terms of painting is dead twice over and not even, remotely equivalent to rolling in it and screaming like a banshee... it's not... modern cuisine has killed still life... namely? paul cézanne is dead... the whole: fruit bowl, glass and apples, "thing"? with what moderns express their culinary skills? and how a Michelin star restaurant presents a dish? **** me... edible art... more importantly, the former observation... television has managed to **** off cinema... wherever they are, i'm pretty sure it's not Hollywood... cinema is dead, and dead in the sense: not even steak dead, something you could eat... dead as in decomposing dead, gangrene flesh.*
. every single time...
the groove is just too good...
come nighttime
you'll probably find me dancing
a deserted night avenue...
yeah, white boy dance...
who would have thought?!
i thought that white men
can't either jump, or dance...
angry in youth,
resentful in old age...
no, i'm not jealous
about some Arab harem...
don't have the ******* stamina...
but whenever
foster the people's song
pumped up kicks,
my mind doesn't listen,
and my body reacts,
chooses to mingle with the rhythm,
even sitting down,
the pigeon walk...
dum dum dum... blah blah...
and a few minutes later -
the dance?
something akin to
that famous Pulp Fiction dance
of: girl... someday you're gonna
be a woman and...
mr spastic fantastic
riddled by an epileptic episode?
somehow my pelvis becomes
detached from the body,
and does a comet orbit...
the song gets me...
every single time.
Sep 28, 2018
Sep 28, 2018 at 6:20 PM UTC
♪☺☻☺♪
Free verse was captured,
confined to a cell
by readers unraptured
in modernist hell.
And there he did languish
while chained to the wall
and desperate in anguish
gave forth a last call:
“Listen and read me—
my muse is the best!
Applaud and then feed me,
your starving guest !
Don’t fall for that beat…
Please ignore their old line.
I’m here. I’m effete.
I’m a modern divine…
I like it in prison
No, really — I’m free!”
(But his lock was awaiting
Your Readership’s key.
For the moderns all lie,
as your readership knows;
Modern poets don’t die—
they just decompose.)
Apr 8, 2016
Apr 8, 2016 at 8:02 PM UTC
I shall stay home tonight
For head is louder than the sphere's noises
Throbbing with words... I can be less familiar
The moderns, it said, are swallowing us whole
But who are us? Who spoke?
Emily... whispered to me
Through this loneliness of poetry
I am not a modern, she said, we are ancient
But why I am her patient? To her, who told?
Axis of modernity... that's where she is
Through this, we made love to each
So I will settle, I said, to your handsome endowma
Questions, questions... no more conundra
Through and through, I must deify you
Aug 27, 2021
Aug 27, 2021 at 4:41 PM UTC
of all the sand and the rage
there is only one cause
to be either an elephant or a dog
the silence creeps on bad writers
I alone stiffen the rod to heaven
not a believer but in a certain gods
who played the fields and ****** hard
humans and animals alike
a sort of cruel joy
we moderns **** but its all we've got
bark and **** and eat dream
you can only be sad
strength to raise up every day
to see ugly faces with ugly jobs
and ******* preoccupations
where is the passion crime?
Ah my left arm for a solid love
bed and drink and be left alone
Apr 2, 2015
Apr 2, 2015 at 3:57 AM UTC
Neo-Post-Colonial Artificial Intelligence Deconstructed
All intelligence is artificial
We do not huddle in burrows, issuing forth
Only to chase down other living things
Beat them to death, drink their blood, and eat them
We moderns huddle in cubes above the ground
With indoor plumbing through pipes that sometimes freeze
While we are gazing, searching for lost truths
In glowing screens made in slave-labor camps
And we have stopped slaughtering other creatures -
We have machines to do that for us now
Jan 17, 2018
Jan 17, 2018 at 4:44 PM UTC