Chiaroscuro
August 11, 2009 by hames-1977
A little rain. And it started
to chill empty souls as shadows
prowling some pallid walls. Alone
and not a sound. Some midnight walk
without the stars, only lamplight. Blue.
Is the color that falls on these cold
cobblestone, silver shimmering
streams of tears by its wayside.
While the heart has melted
the shape of love, lengthening
into dark shadows embracing
empty spaces. Stretching out
to reach you.
Such a lyrical pronouncement of longing.
You used the word in the title so well to conjure imageries of lights and shadows in the reader’s mind, to conjure in the heart of the reader the bitter-sweet emotion, the joy and sorrow of longing.
The contrasts, just lovely! - I use the same perspective in my works: painting, writing, poetry. The imagery, the emotion, the sentiment laid in my works come pellucid in lights and shadows.
The heart behind the details is conspicuous in chiaroscuro.
I wish you well.
~ Jeques
Marvin,
It is funny, I am writing my Artist’s statement now for my art portfolio and I have to come back here in your site because it was here that I first wrote some ideas for my artist’s statement in one of the comments I left in your poem but I can not remember which one - so I have to scan and browse through your works to find that comment - God, I had a hard time looking but a wonderful time reading back.
Finally found it, it’s in your poem: “Adaptation.”
How nice it is to discover that by reading your works and sharing my thoughts, I actually shape ideas. The comments I dropped here often are drafts for some of my works, remember the train poem?
In your poem, “Bye bye, Yellow Butterfly” is a title of the poem I am currently composing: “The Candle Keeper.”
I wish you well.
~ Jeques
jeques,
i actually had inspiration from “les miserables”, i have watched lea salonga in youtube where, she sings “on my own” as eponine. the backdrop is the cold street of paris.
i am so emotionally attached with lea’s singing, maybe because she is a filipina and have been conquering the broadway. also, i have tried to interplay some wordings from “memory” from the musical “cats”. and then i have tried to put this effective scenarios into a poem.
the images that struck me the most are the alternation of lights and shadows. so in finding chiaroscuro as an apt title for this piece, that settles it.
sometimes, inspiratiosn for poem doesn’t need to be directly coming out from your current situations. poetic materials are almost anywhere, anything and everywhere. we just have to make our observations at work.
Marvin,
It is good to explore writing from the rich resources of inspiration around us because that would makes us better writers.
But I would still stick writing what I feel with all honesty and just use the resources around me as backdrop to my poems. I could use the train and the train station, the wrecked ship, the rabbit, or any poetic material that could inspire me as backdrop but I would still keep my heart and the truth of what I feel. Other people could write better their conditions, and it is me who could write best mine.
After I attended the workshop, I discovered that many poets just write to impress, to create the best lines, to use the most unusual metaphors, to find the rarest words that would obscure a simple thought. I really wonder if an ordinary person would still understand there kind of poetry.
As a writer, I am concern about my readers. I have my mother as one of my imagined reader when I write. I always have her in my mind thinking if she would still understand what I write in case she reads it. She don’t know poetry that much, she only have ordinary background in education, she could very well represent the every day people and they are the people I wanted to read my works because they are the people that need the soothing effect of poetry the most.
As a poet, I wanted to reach out instead of building walls that the common people would hard to climb reading my works. I would rather be known as a mainstream writer than an award winning poet that only a few understands.
The reason why I like the movie Slumdog millionaire, best picture of the recent Oscars, is for its strength breaiking the barrier between pop culture and art. I have seen many great art films but only a few appreciated them because they only cater to those who would understand. Not with slumdog, it is an art film that tackled social issues - so dark at a certain extent - but managed to spice it up by infusing pop culture in the story using the TV reality show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire as backdrop. That for me is very clever! If you watch many filipino art films, they tackle social issues just like in slumdog, but our film makers fail to realize that they need to reach out the mainstream so their intentions would reach a wider audience which the slumdog succeed to achieve. Award winning and yet popular!
I aim to achieve that in my poetry. I don’t aspire anymore to create the best lines, to find the best metaphor, or the rarest words but to reach out some more to readers. I will still write my reality, what I feel, my condition because it is me who could write them best but I would be using many ordinary backdrop like the message in the battle to bring my thoughts closer to my readers.
I would like my mother to read my poem and say: this is easy to read.
I wish you well.
~ Jeques
jeques,
first of all, i want to thank you for such an incisive exploration on poetry with your constructive and well-defining comment on this blogpost. it therefore provided me a yardstick on how i would tackle my poetic subjects later on. forgive me, if it took me time to respond to this comment. i have spend a tremendous amount of time pondering the many issues you have posed on the comments.
i suppose, art thrives in honesty of the expression, whether its real or surreal. as long as it conveys the message, and the beauty of it might be coated in mystery or in the open-no-holds- barred way of exposition, this is what i think of creativity, as such for the poetry.
as in the case of the art films, which being shown as dark and gloomy passages from life experiences. my belief is, as long as they confront the issues head-on and challenge our minds to think of the answers. i will then conclude that they are an effective medium and a catalyst for self-realization.
i don’t believe that the ordinary people or the mainstream cannot be able to grasp the potent messages in these art films. i don’t want to picture them as uninformed and immature audiences.
today, i have seen certain improvements on how ordinary people respond and most of these art films tackles realism, delving on subjects ranging from poverty, morality, religion to social commentaries. these art films often mirrors everyday life, highlighted larger in detail.
so the question of whether an ordinary person failed to connect with it, can be due largely to the fact, that this person might have failed to confront the issues themselves. and disposed these confrontations as something irrelevant or immaterial. the same is true with poetry. it is the message that stand-out, apart from its writer. what poetry demand is the honesty of his expression.
the best lines is subject to the reader’s opinion. it is how the poetic thought connects to the reader. we have varying degrees of thought, varying degrees of emotion and varying degrees of appreciation. more often than not, the best lines occur unpredictably during the process of clarifying poetic thoughts. with the mind on the reader, obscurity is a way of an amateur- who digs for the archaic words in replacement to the just plain and simple thoughts.
what might be a metaphor or rare to you, may not be for some. pop culture cannot be used as gauge on how to ascertain if the poetic thought is effective or not. as poets, we can only hope to drop a needle of conciousness to a pond of hopelessness and indifference. providing an alternative and an avenue for better understanding, suggesting to look on life on a different angle or on a different platform. like telling a usual, predictable story in a whole new way.
i hope that my thoughts would never be construed as aggressive, but a healthy conversation on this topic. nevertheless, i find your comments as thought-provoking. thanks for sharing.
best of times,
marvin