Our Hitchock Childhood
Cary Grant points out the train's commotion,
like we are some great prize.
Little snot-nosed pre-teens devour
the many-storied buildings like a
hungry beat in autumn.
My insides shift, like my 1986
red Tercel on the Pacific Coast Highway.
Sally's mixes the pesticide of of her
childhood in circular motions.
The latest privilege lies in the fact
that Jimmy Stewart spies on our nocturnal
adventures of tee peeing my neighbors house.
I am really enjoying the imagery portrayed in this draft. What would happen though, if some of the lines were reorganized? For example, in stanza one, could it help to put the first line closer to the end? Mabe something like...
ReplyDeleteThinking we are some great prize,
little snot-nosed pre-teens devour
the many-storied buildings
like a hungry bear in autumn, munching
along to the background music of Cary Grant
pointing out the train's commotion.
Stanza two gets even more interesting with its specificity. But, would it help the draft to provide even more? For example, could "My insides shift, like my 1986 red Tercel" become more specific in reading "My insides shift in unison with my 1986 candy-red Tercel."?
Lastly, I can't help but wonder how we got from pre-teen years to driving a car. Would it help the reading of this poem to add some details in between the first and second stanza to transition the speaker into this age?
A very interesting draft draft; it will be fun to see where it leads.
While Zac read the fifth line in this draft as "a hungry bear in autumn," the draft post actually reads "a hungry BEAT in autumn." Is this a typo or a misreading? While the imagery of a hungry bear in autumn is evocative, the idea of a hungry Beat in autumn (after all, how would a Beat describe autumn? voraciously?) is almost more interesting. For instance, how could this draft be made to dialogue more with the Beat poets? Or if it was set during the Beat generation? How would the Beats read the suave actors of Cary Grant or Jimmy Stewart or the director Alfred Hitchcock? Or could this poem somehow dialogue against the Beat movement? If this is set comtemporarily, is it any longer innovative to champion "obscenity" or be a non-conformist or bohemian? Or has the Beat notions become more mainstream and are now ways of conforming, of being one of the "cool kids?" In such a light, in what ways could the "tee peeing" mentioned in the draft be a sort of distortion of an appropriated "Beat" attitude among today's youth who don't really understand what the Beat movement stood for or how the Beat movement might have dialogued against the mainstream Hollywood ideals portrayed by actors such as Grant and Stewart? These are just suggestions to give the draft more form, the imagery is somewhat ranging and it is hard to decipher exactly what is being described in portions, but I could see this "Beat" element becoming very interesting if fleshed out in subsequent drafts.
ReplyDeleteJumping from “Cary Grant” to “snot-nosed pre-teens” makes the work a little difficult to follow. Maybe grounding the piece in a particular location will help strengthen their connection.
ReplyDeleteIn the second stanza, similar logic issues are present. Why are we on the “Highway?” Who is Sally?” I really enjoy her mixing “the pesticide of her childhood” and want to know more about why. The work is very specific, but could benefit from stronger imagery as well. Perhaps the thoughts and feelings of the characters could be explored more richly.
Chris's draft, here, is quite wild. He's taken some of Darren's ability to let language dictate the terms. Now, as both Darren and Zac suggest, he might try to "tame" the wilder imagery and "stray" associations:
ReplyDeleteOur Hitchock Childhood
Though we're nowhere near Mount Rushmore,
little snot-nosed pre-teens,
still we imagine Cary Grant granting us
the train's commotion, the great prize
of our coming here.
For here is not the many-storied
buildings of London or even the lost
and decrepit tenements of New York.
No. Here, is my neighbor's house,
which we're tee-peeing.
And then go on, filtering this act of adolescent transgression (rather safe) through the films of Hitchcock. It's a wonderful dichotomy to play with--the sanitary world of suburbs, where tee-peeing is some risque act, and the violent murders and cold-blooded deceit of Hitchcock films.
I adore the "pesticide of her childhood,
and you should definitely include that. Still, I wonder if that could be ACTUAL Malathion. I remember still growing up in California during Malathion sprays at night. It was awfully freaky.
Good beginning, here, Chris.