Marianne Daniels

A Symphony in White

by Marianne Daniels

Thursday 8th August 2013 9:47 am

Pure, unabsorbed –

the gallery doesn’t welcome visitors.

Cured of insult, modern unsympathetic,

eased of innocence with passive

resting scores of nothing; no anger,

no urination of thought –

a globe of cleansed weapons,

white washed scars -

here is your superiority, as inspiring

as a closing lid.

I hear you smirk

within the folds of sterile walls;

the beauty overwhelms –

your wit, your control, your aggressions

for I have none

and to you I am still a child;

a thin white girl with a sycophant

grin, loosening her hair to any wind.

Yes I hear you smirk

and perhaps I am ,

in many ways a coward, stupid;

only knowing something vaguely,

only knowing the hint

beneath the folds of my skin, some undecided fear

throbbing in the swallow

of what you persist – white, precise

the position of your delight

in what perfection is, what your heritage is;

a definite hold over my common law.

◄ The Window

Rock pool ►

Comments

Laura Taylor

Tue 20th Aug 2013 13:50

No, it's not waffle at all, and I completely understand. Sometimes I want a little knowledge ahead of it all, sometimes I don't, but what I hate most of all is having someone else's knowledge imposed on me. Monothought makes me itch all over.

I enjoyed reading your post as much as your poem, as it goes :)

Marianne Louise Daniels

Tue 20th Aug 2013 11:10

Thank you for your time and comments and for following too Cynthia!

Laura - yes! Thank you for taken what you have taken from this poem for that is, unfortunately, how I feel sometimes. I do think that there is an elitist attitude sometimes that strips away the question of a differing response to art being accepted rather than just being simplified and i think sometimes this is due to a self imposed importance that sometimes academics place upon themselves. I encountered a few pretentious exercises during my undergraduate degree when it came to the prospect of working with certain tutors - almost as if it was proving your intellectual fuckery (if you pardon my language) in order to write which is not how I see it all at all. (I must say i did end up work with two excellent people during that time - Michael Schmidt and the late and beautiful Linda Chase who inspired me a great deal).

The further I continue with my own little writing journey, the more I am confused and the more art I see, the more child like I wish to become - I have this wish to stand in front of work as if i was the only want to see it, without the jargon of write ups or all those who have had their opinion before which cannot help but add to mine sometimes. I know this to be quite selfish I suppose but I am sometimes quite solitary in my walking about life, and so I suppose its my way of wanting to be friends with what I see! I do believe I am waffling now.

I had a bit of head on me this day. there is so much to love in the poetry world today too for I must say that my heart always wants to read those who throw their emotions completely into the wind and don't care how obscure, or how grandiose, or how unstructured their work chooses to be. That they have expressed some beauty within or outside themselves which is too painful to keep in rather than write tightly and appreciative of competitions and alike.

I love reading stuff at Ravenna press at the moment too. Beautiful work there.

"Beauty will be compulsive or it will not be at all." Andre Breton (x)

Thank you and again sorry for waffle! x

Laura Taylor

Wed 14th Aug 2013 10:59

Mmm like this a lot. Love these lines

'a thin white girl with a sycophant
grin, loosening her hair to any wind.'

'here is your superiority, as inspiring
as a closing lid.'

And 'urination of thought' - fantastic idea.

I think I understand what you are getting at, and will give an example...

When I was reading The Master and Margarita years ago, in the middle of doing my 'Literature, Life and Thought' degree (which focussed on how writers either write with or against current ideology), I came across blank pages. I thought, 'ooo, I wonder if that's symbolic of a character being disappeared by the Stalinist regime', and was all excited by it. Turns out it was a mis-print. :D

I think what you're saying is that there is a certain snooty attitude, a certain 'this is the only way to think, in our academic way, about art', that you must have a knowledge of 'their' choosing in order to appreciate art.

I could of course be pulling all this out of my bum :D

Whatever, I enjoyed this piece :)

Cynthia Buell Thomas

Tue 13th Aug 2013 17:16

Ive run out of 'computer time', Marianne. I'll start here and catch up with your most recent ones, hopefully tomorrow. I haven't been on line much lately.

If you wish to post a comment you must login.

Please consider supporting us

Donations from our supporters are essential to keep Write Out Loud going

Bringing poetry to people

Click here to donate now