Post by Ken_Nye on Jan 20, 2008 0:24:33 GMT -5
For those of you who read "Dog Smells," I am going to offer as much of an explanation of the "little lame ballooon man" as I can muster. Some of you seemed to like the two lines that included this image, (and some of those still wondered who this little lame balloon man is), some didn't like it because the word "lame" seemed to shatter the innnocence of the rest of the piece, and some just raised the question of how the little lame balloon man fit in this piece about the way dogs smell.
The image is from e. e. cummings's "Chansons Innocentes," (the poem is sometimes titled "In Just Spring.") which begins, "In Just-spring, when the world is mud-luscious, the little lame balloonman whistles far and wee, and eddieandbill come running from marbles and piracies, and it's spring." (Wring a bell?) (Incidentally, cummings uses all kinds of spacing and no punctuation and I didn't try to include that stuff in my quote here.)
When I wrote "Dog Smells," I did not remember the entire ccummings poem. As a matter of fact, all I could remember was" the little lame balloon man." I did not know from what poem the image came, nor what author wrote it. I simply pulled the image out of the back closet of my brain and associated it with growing up. I was looking for something at the end of the piece to softly and somewhat mysteriously contrast with the innocence of the dog smells and that image seemed to work.
After people started asking "who is this balloonman?" I tracked him down. And now, seeing how the image is used in cummings's poem, I think its use in my poem is exactly what I wanted. (Kind of a case of "You're a poet and you don't know it.)
To those who read and commented on my poem, thank you. I am aware of the minimal amount of reviewing I do on EP, always feel guilty about it, and am sometime reluctant to post something new because of it. I really appreciate your feedback on my work in spite of that.
The image is from e. e. cummings's "Chansons Innocentes," (the poem is sometimes titled "In Just Spring.") which begins, "In Just-spring, when the world is mud-luscious, the little lame balloonman whistles far and wee, and eddieandbill come running from marbles and piracies, and it's spring." (Wring a bell?) (Incidentally, cummings uses all kinds of spacing and no punctuation and I didn't try to include that stuff in my quote here.)
When I wrote "Dog Smells," I did not remember the entire ccummings poem. As a matter of fact, all I could remember was" the little lame balloon man." I did not know from what poem the image came, nor what author wrote it. I simply pulled the image out of the back closet of my brain and associated it with growing up. I was looking for something at the end of the piece to softly and somewhat mysteriously contrast with the innocence of the dog smells and that image seemed to work.
After people started asking "who is this balloonman?" I tracked him down. And now, seeing how the image is used in cummings's poem, I think its use in my poem is exactly what I wanted. (Kind of a case of "You're a poet and you don't know it.)
To those who read and commented on my poem, thank you. I am aware of the minimal amount of reviewing I do on EP, always feel guilty about it, and am sometime reluctant to post something new because of it. I really appreciate your feedback on my work in spite of that.
