Poetry & Blindfolds

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VINCENT TRUMAN: THE POETRY YEARS
by Dr. E. Herman G. Delvin H.K. Martin

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Any analysis by a professor in or researcher of literature when tackling the subject of poetry has to begin with the question, ‘What is poetry?’  Certainly, defining poetry, or indeed any target of study, is essential when taking up the task of judging its value.  Unfortunately, there is one class of person involved in poetry who does not ask this question, and that is the teenage poet.

Take this verse from Vincent Truman’s poem from sophmore year of high school, appropriately titled ‘Disillusionment’:

How I’d love to fly to you
And hide in paradise
No more crying; nothing to do
Nothing to realize.

Am I foolish or am I blind?
Are you the one for me?
Are you the same or one-of-a-kind?
Can we be all we can be?

Vomit.  In this poem, Truman, whining like a lost dog, disposes with meter and form while hijacking a slogan for the US Army.  Additionally, having read too many lyrics that rhyme ‘rain’ and ‘again’, Truman takes it upon himself to up the ante by rhyming ‘paradise’ and ‘realize.’  One wonders, in his poetry which he has saved through the years for no fixed purpose, if there exists a poem that rhymes ‘concubine’ with ‘alabaster.’

The only question of this piece we can ask is with respect to the title of piece: “Disillusionment.”  Is that something Truman is feeling or something any intelligent person reading the poem would feel.  Noting his lack of being “meta” in his work of this period, we must conclude the former.

In “A Torrid Collection of Memories in Verse (Part One)”, a piece dating from his junior year of high school, Truman captures the carefree days of youth. 

I recall the good times when there weren’t any crimes
No caring for my new day
But tomorrow came so soon and I remember feeling doomed
The fork we felt was the only way.

Puke.  Again, Truman throws at us a painful rhyme (soon/doomed), nauseating imagry and an utterly disgusting lift from Robert Frost - unless the last line is actually referring to cutlery.  The best thing one can say about Truman’s writing here was there was no Part Two - surely the closest to a literary threat Truman has manufactured.

There are numerous factors that inform a teen’s writing.  These days, it is the nonstop stimulus of networking sites, leading the youth of the world to stop saying ‘we are mature enough to vote’ and start saying ‘i can haz cheezeburgers.’  However, in the pre-internet days, young people the world over found things that they sought to emulate as well, and they failed just as painfully.  In one untitled poem, Vincent Truman’s momentary love of the band Rush inspired this work (and I call it ‘work’ because that’s what it takes to get through it):

Visions of deception which radiate the wind
Black holes of far away which permeates time
Targets of laughter
Homes for the insane.

Darkness of realization is at pitch as the night
Still the ones are voted to determine what is right
Drury Lane not seen
An unfulfilled dream.

Truman nearly sounds like he is on to something here, but ultimately, a thoughtful analysis of this piece will give rise to the burning question: what the fuck is he talking about?  Indeed, it is hard to discern; it was no doubt hard to Truman to discern as well.  About the only thing clear here is the utter disgust the reader feels when Truman ambitiously compares darkness with lack of light.

Finally, let’s look at the poem that everyone - including, unfortunately, this hack - has written.  Entitled “What is Love?”  While most of us have given up on the question, or have resigned to equating it with pornography (ie, we know it when we see it), adolescent writers still think, if they concentrate really hard, they can figure it out.

So without further adieu, let us take you to Vincent Truman’s mind in his senior year of high school:

Is love something you make at night?
Or is it something to steal?
Is it something that just makes you feel right?
Is love actually real?

Is it something that brings out the best?
Or something that just hurts so bad?
Maybe love is looking for the only one?
Or it’s happy?  Or it’s sad?

Is love something I take for granted?
Is love just tears when alone?
Could it be a need for someone to be with?
Is it talking on the phone?

Yes.

Eat a lot and purge.  Truman here skips on the theories and just asks a series of contradictory questions about love, leading to the conclusion of “yes.”  In this poem, he seems to accept the unknown properties of love as well as its grand and minute gestures.  And, because he was 17 at time of writing, that makes me hate him even more.

Conclusion: wait for these to be assembled in a book and don’t buy it.

I have an mp3 CD that lasts about six hours that I listen to most nights when I go to bed.  It is my full collection of Beatles bootlegs, er, ‘alternate takes’.  From the Decca audition tapes to the demo for ‘Help!’ (done on piano very slowly, which adds a different shade to the happy pop of the final version) to Take 1 of ‘Paperback Writer’ to the rehearsals for ‘All Things Must Pass’, the disc is full of low fidelity gold.  Tonight, and I fear this will only make sense to people who know the Beatles catalogue, I fell asleep around Take 4 of ‘Misery’ and woke up during the demo of ‘We Can Work It Out’, then the orchestra overdub for ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ and finally the runthrough of ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.’

My mind, full of irrelevant and irreverent thoughts, has driven me out of bed and onto this page.  And some of the top irrelevant and irreverent (and VERY unedited) thoughts tonight are:

*Why does one person walk at their regular speed, yet if there are two or more people walking together, their speed is slowed down by at least three times?

*Why do people stand on escalators? 

*Iran stopped its nuke program in 2003 and is still viewed a threat by the White House.  Why - because they don’t recognize Israel?  I’ll admit that I wouldn’t recognize Israel if I saw it at a party.  I hope Bush won’t want to go to war with me anytime soon.

*An attorney collapsed with appendicitis in my office yesterday.  After she was taken away, I walked up to the guy who does office assignments and asked if that office was now free.  He called me a ’sick fuck’ but admitted that he was irritated that his meeting with that attorney at noon would probably have to be pushed back.

*Whenever my friends are flying, I offer them $20 to embark on their plane and yell “let’s roll.”  Call it a macabre sense of humor.

*We need to stop calling people who shoot a lot people ‘gunmen.’  This evokes a certain heroic quality.  Jesse James.  Wild Bill Hickock.  Clint Eastwood.  I think, to discourage lunatics from going to a mall and shooting people (and then invariably themselves), these people should be referred to on the news as ‘pussy farts.’  “Tonight, in Omaha, a pussy fart shot dozens of people.”  Nobody wants to be called a quief, even lonely, ugly, down-and-out losers.  To prove my point, go up to the biggest loser you know and call them a pussy fart.  Gauge their reaction.

*There was a woman in the subway last night who was doing a Q&A, presumably for some magazine, about peoples’ opinion of god.  I admit I thought up my responses to her questions, even though she never got to me prior to my train arriving (must have been a miracle).  Among my imagined answers was something like: god’s good fun, the ultimate mental band-aid.  If ever you don’t understand something, you can say ‘it’s god’.  Like 911.  Either you can see it as an inevitability for how we hosed al queda in the 1980s and kept putting military bases on so-called holy land, or… you can say it was god.  Punishing the US for the feminists and the fags. 

*I don’t like that the events of September 11, 2001 are called simply 911.  Makes it sound like a film.  Like ID4.  It’s very reflective of the A.D.D. culture we live in.  I cannot imagine Pearl Harbor Day being referred to as 129.

*I don’t think you can support the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan by owning a magnet you put on your car.  You can, and do, support magnet manufacturers.  And why a magnet?  Do you anticipate changing your mind?  Then you can say, ‘whew, glad I didn’t paint this one; that would have been a bitch to remove.’

*My comedy group is involved in Sketchfest, which is a big festival featuring 100 sketch comedy groups from around the US and Canada.  While I respect and recognize the value of this endeavor, I must admit to not liking being in a room with 500 people just as funny as I am.  It’s not because of jealousy or competitiveness; rather, it’s because funny peple should be the odd-man out in social circles.  The odd observer.  The wry commentator.  Plug half a thousand of these fuckers into the same room and it’s a Star Trek convention with rubber noses instead of pointy ears.  Fookin’ terrifying.

And now I lay me down to sleep, or stare at the clock until I have to wake up - and then I’ll be exhausted.  Woot.

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