About I-V

I have published in this blog my first five verses of a collection of fifteen that I had hoped to publish in 2007, or thereabouts.

A few notes for the more discerning viewer:

The use of capital letters at the beginning of each line is for the most part, for aesthetic purposes. You will see that it is not the case everywhere, so don't focus your literary criticisms thereon as it's really not important.

Also these first five poems of my second collection (as I mentioned the first was lost forever to a certain friend at school with all of the originals, and of course at that age I didn't think to make copies) and none have titles. In fact I have avoided titles for the most part is for a couple of reasons:
As a long-suffering literature student, I have found at all levels of study, that far too much is made of the titles of poems. I really, really disliked this as sometimes I felt that by (over-)analysing the title, much of the significance and beauty of the verse was lost. It is just so crude when one decides the meaning of a work by looking at the title. I feel that when titles are given, it should be because it adds more meaning to the work and that it is not placed there simply for the gratification of the editor and reader.
Where, on the very few occasions that I have used a title, it is for a specific reason. Usually I do not give my work titles. Partly due to my writing process and partly due to my opinions on the literary analysis and criticism of titles (and subtitles for that matter).

At this stage in my work, I was still under the bewitching spell of Andrew Marvell's influence, who I studied at school in the A-level English literature syllabus, despite of course, the fact that I-V were written during my first year of university. Andrew Marvell, whilst by no means my favourite poet, provoked my thoughts a great deal for some time: especially when channeling my thoughts and creating verse about certain themes.



Just one more thing:

There is no specific meaning to my work. Like many readers and critics, I hope that you will not automatically assume that my work is either self-referential or autobiographical as in the majority of cases this just isn't the case. In fact it's a huge problem in modern literary criticism and the way in which literature and poetry is taught to the masses. Most people are forced into the manner of thinking that poetry is by and large self-referential when it comes to certain 'generic' themes within poetry. This idea of poetry as a personal manner of speaking about the unspeakable for the poet is something that, since I began writing, I have wanted to break down.


Just take the verse as it comes and try not to think about what it means in terms of my life as the author. In terms of my thoughts: if you can read my mind and predict it, then good for you. I will say that I am more interested in subjective interpretation as opposed to attempting to stab in the critical dark by attributing words and ideas to the poet's life and experiences (I'm anti-Freudian literary analysis).


I do hope that you enjoyed these first verses of mine that were written around spring/summer 2006.