Wednesday, January 03, 2007

God's Ode to Creation

I'm kind of curious what my resident curmudgeons (DMB? Mr. J?) might make of this poem, "God's Ode to Creation," by Maura Stanton.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't know about the "curmudgeons," but I say..."wow!" Awesome poem, may have to print that one out...

- Katy

mrjumbo said...

My apologies for not cantankerating sooner. I've got espresso brewing in one room and West L.A. Fadeaway playing in the other, so I keep shuttling back and forth until either finishes. Not easy to be a crank in two places at once.

Nice piece, though. She seems to get the point.

--MrJ

Anonymous said...

A well-written poem, but this god guy sure is one hell (!!) of a narcissist; "oding" creation and all that.
When the poem gets poetological towards the end the poet—the god of poems—seems to become a naïve narcissist himself. Dale's patient was right after all ;o)

P.S. The religious terms are intentionally not capitalized.
P.P.S. You sure love to play around with the colors of your blog now. A new look every day. :o)

Donald Brown said...

Nice try. I got convinced at this point:

You give me credit for the natural,
flame trees, tansy, sleek dangerous leopards,
and even tiny mites like the golden neotode
worming down into the rich potato plant,
the jerboa, the noon, and the stargazer perch,
but I'm the author of the artificial, too,
those bolts of homespun Khaddar cloth, and guns,
concertos by Mozart, and tiny micro chips.

and from there to the end of the stanza kept it. The ending of the stanza works really well too in giving us a solid example of how knowledge about the random things that occur is no consolation when we still suffer from them.

The second stanza is less good -- though the part about "praise for my handiwork" suitably impresses with some good handiwork, rhythm-wise. Then one wonders: how to end it? Stanton winks at herself and us -- "we ourselves flash and yearn," as Berryman says -- but I don't really like the hubris of saying that God is aware of more poems than prayers, nor am I more than a bit entertained by the implied reversal of Joyce Kilmer: "trees are made by gods like me, but only poets write po-e-try." Meh.

Andrew Shields said...

"I'm the author of the artificial, too" was the line that caught my attention. The artificial is also part of the universe, after all! (Connection to Frost?)