Dylan Thomas
Selected Poems : 1934-1952
@1953
New Directions Publishing
There is a famous quote from a Blaxploitation film. Something to the effect of "Some cats just aint right". Dylan Thomas is definitely one of 'those cats'.
A little background, for the uninitiated. Dylan Thomas is a Roman Catholic Irish poet from the mid 20th century. He therefore fits rather squarely into the height of the Modern Poetry age, and school. Like Robert Frost, Thomas did not see a point to free verse. While his poetry does not possess a hard rhyme scheme (example: the first line ends with bee, the second with tree), he does impose a strict rhythm and meter to his poems. He also is fixated on three major topics: 1) Love of people, 2) Love of God, 3) Love of Life. The 'aint right' part comes in his expression of these particular loves. Worry not, I will provide quotes to prove my contentions.
Love of People
Dylan Thomas has a strange way of showing his affection for people, and yes, I do mean ALL people male and female. As he writes in the poem If I Were Tickled By The Rub of Love (p. 12):
'Shall it be male or female? say the fingers
that chalk the walls with green girls and their men.
I would not fear the muscling in of love
if I were tickled by the urchin fingers
Rehearsing heat upon the raw edged nerves.'
The 'I would not fear' line is indicative of a lot of Thomas' poetry. This 'do not fear' motif is a regular thing with the Irishman. It's as if he's done fearing stuff, and he's going to neurotically demand that every body should follow his example. A noble impulse until you get to the "urchin fingers" reference. Urchin can refer to a shellfish, but oftentimes it indicates young children. My mind does not wish to explore the thought that is currently taking residence in one's imagination. However, Thomas has this tendency to write such contentious words and metaphors. I think on a certain level he wants to start a fight, or violate someone. As shall be seen with-
LOVE of GOD
Whoo boy. This is the big one. Thomas was a devout Roman Catholic, true. But he was also this dude ready to spar with anyone and resist the urge to fear or submit himself. There are many confrontational and potentially odious pieces of verse I could quote here, but I decided to go with the least problematic, the debate with God titled Do You Not Father Me? (p. 51):
'Do you not father me on the destroying sand?
You are your sister's sire, said seaweedy,
The salt-sucked dam and darlings of the land
Who play the proper gentleman and lady.
Shall I still be love's house on the widdershin earth,
Woe to the windy masons at my shelter?
Love's house, they answer, and the tower death
Lie all unknowing of the grave sin-eater.'
To be fair, I'm not entirely certain all the imagery he uses here, but it seems to me that he has a tendency to view his lord in a strange light. This seems to parallel conversations prophets have with the creator in the old testament. Where people rail at God until they get the matter explained or handled (more often than not, explained and not in a satisfactory manner). Here however, this seems to be a debate with God about whether or not the lord will serve as love's house, despite an incident of incest (you are your sister's sire). It makes you wonder two things: a) what biblical story he's referencing, and b) why would one want to discuss such things with God? Did Dylan Thomas know from incest? Did he fear the unknowing brought about by this grave sin-eater? I'm afraid the religious part leaves way more questions than answers.
This brings us to:
LOVE OF LIFE
In many poems, Dylan Thomas is aware that sleep is 1/60th of death. To sleep = die. He's painfully aware of that, and brings it up time and again. You become aware that Dylan does not wish to die. That he might very well attempt to lie in wait for the Grim Reaper and beat the entity senseless. Were Gaiman's Endless analogy accurate, he would probably not care to meet death even if she is a cute goth chick with an Ankh around her neck. To prove this inverse display of love for life I quote my favorite of his poems, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night (p. 122):
'Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Bind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.'
While he seems to be fighting against sleep, this is in point of fact a declaration of war against Death. Dylan does not want anyone to die. He wants them to fight until they collapse of the effort and live on forever. On this point I tend to disagree with Mr. Thomas. While life is great, and I would not mind getting a full measure of life out of it. There's something to be said for death. Death is an endpoint, yes, but it's not the end. While we are not given to know what happens in the next round of existence, I think it's only part of the greater adventure that is your life to find out. Sure, one loves life, but if my dad's death of an industrial mishap taught me anything back in 2002, it's that life is not meant to last forever. At least not life as we know it, in this fleshy body that we wear for however many years.
Ultimately, I thought he's a pretty good poet. But as indicated, there are some interesting issues going on in that man's head. Poetry is the expression of your emotions, your thoughts, your beliefs. By creating a world of strong emotional reactions, you get the real sense that something was not entirely 'on' about Dylan Thomas. To sum up, 'that cat aint right'.
Still, if someone wanted to read modern poetry, I would recommend him.
Showing posts with label Modern. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Modern. Show all posts
Monday, April 12, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Annotation 4: Brokeback Mountain
Brokeback Mountain: Story to Screenplay
Story by Anne Proulx
Screenplay by Larry McMurty and Diana Ossana
@2005
ISBN: 978-0743294164
Scribner
This was a book I found on display at my local branch of IMCPL. I had always been curious about the film, but never enough to actually go watch it. Therefore, I figured, it would be better to actually read the novella they adapted, and since it accompanied the story along with some essays, why not take a stab at the screenplay.
I have not read very much gay fiction, and until this book I never cracked open a Western that I can recall. I've seen a good deal of western films (The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, Shane, Unforgiven, Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine, Wyatt Earp, 3:10 to Yuma, The Searchers, Dead Man, Once Upon a Time in the West only begin to scratch that suface), but had never thought, "I feel like reading a western today." I seriously regret that I had not, because much like those wonderful films, there's something brilliant about landscape fiction. I know plenty about Fantasy (I may even finish writing such a book one day), and the setting is as much a character as the people who inhabit it are. Without Middle Earth, Bilbo Baggins wouldn't have a strange pastoral landscape to inhabit. Narnia would be useless without the land only accessible to pre-pubescent children from our world. If Elric hadn't grown up in Melnibone, he would never have developed the character he possesses in that excellent series by Michael Moorcock.
This is the long way round of saying that Westerns too live or die by their landscape, and for my money the lonely Wyoming Mountain called Brokeback is one of the most heart-breakingly mind-staggering, lonely and isolated spots of beauty mentioned in the Western genre. Imagine if you will a huge snow capped mountain with nothing but trees and campsites dotting it. Most of the campsites are very abandoned, and have not been used for some time. It's tree line of grass, however is an ideal summer location for sheep to graze. To save costs, the rancher employs two young men each summer to ride up by their lonesome selves. One serves as the cook and camp tender. The other is the shepherd and sleeps with the sheep at night, returning to camp only for meals. So is the expected fate of Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist the summer of '67, when they undertake this seasonal gig.
While I have not seen the film, the images of Heath Ledger as Ennis and Jake Gyllenhaal as Jack, are so ingrained, that's precisely what I saw in my mind's eye when I read this strange Western romance. Although I have to say, it's not much of a romance. There is but one sex scene, and they get it out of the way at the beginning of the story. For those who are curious, Ennis is the pitcher and Jack is the catcher. This detail plays itself out over the course of their lives. Since Ennis is the forceful dominant personality of the couple, Jack spends his days and months and years anguishing to spend more time with Ennis. Ennis, however, won't have it. First, he only refers to their relationship as 'this thing'. You never hear the words 'I love you' uttered in the entire piece. Second, Ennis has seen what happens to the openly gay cow-folk. He recounts a story about these two queer ranchers he knew as a child. One day, his father is taking him into town and they stop by the corpse of the one gay rancher. His face and body have been wrecked by what Ennis surmises is a tire iron. As Ennis wishes to stay alive, he abjures Jack not to make this 'thing' too serious or official.
Ennis and Jack manage lives apart from each other. In fact the script (which carefully and lovingly adapts the story) follows this tale as it unfolds over many years, and occasional meetings of Ennis and Jack at various motels and lodges all over Wyoming. This proves difficult to do often, as Jack lives in Texas. So Ennis must bide his time, and wait the coming of Jack's beaten up, ancient truck. Over the course of this story, Ennis has a few daughters, and Jack manages a son. Ennis divorces and remarries. Jack simply quits after the first wife. He longs to be with Ennis, who won't hear of it. It's Jack who in the screenplay and the story comes closely to admitting love in a back-ass-wards sort of way: 'I wish I could quit ya.' Not that he can, mind you.
As we learn from the onset, this story does not possess the happiest of endings. I shall not ruin it here, but may yet in class if people wish to know it. This is a powerful piece of writing by Anne Proulx (who's named is pronounced 'proo' apparently). Larry McMurty, who earned a pulitzer for Lonesome Dove brings what I can only surmise to be the same level of writing to the screenplay. It's not often one gets to read the original story and the screenplay of a film. I'm very glad I took a chance and did so.
Highly recommended.
Story by Anne Proulx
Screenplay by Larry McMurty and Diana Ossana
@2005
ISBN: 978-0743294164
Scribner
This was a book I found on display at my local branch of IMCPL. I had always been curious about the film, but never enough to actually go watch it. Therefore, I figured, it would be better to actually read the novella they adapted, and since it accompanied the story along with some essays, why not take a stab at the screenplay.
I have not read very much gay fiction, and until this book I never cracked open a Western that I can recall. I've seen a good deal of western films (The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, Shane, Unforgiven, Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine, Wyatt Earp, 3:10 to Yuma, The Searchers, Dead Man, Once Upon a Time in the West only begin to scratch that suface), but had never thought, "I feel like reading a western today." I seriously regret that I had not, because much like those wonderful films, there's something brilliant about landscape fiction. I know plenty about Fantasy (I may even finish writing such a book one day), and the setting is as much a character as the people who inhabit it are. Without Middle Earth, Bilbo Baggins wouldn't have a strange pastoral landscape to inhabit. Narnia would be useless without the land only accessible to pre-pubescent children from our world. If Elric hadn't grown up in Melnibone, he would never have developed the character he possesses in that excellent series by Michael Moorcock.
This is the long way round of saying that Westerns too live or die by their landscape, and for my money the lonely Wyoming Mountain called Brokeback is one of the most heart-breakingly mind-staggering, lonely and isolated spots of beauty mentioned in the Western genre. Imagine if you will a huge snow capped mountain with nothing but trees and campsites dotting it. Most of the campsites are very abandoned, and have not been used for some time. It's tree line of grass, however is an ideal summer location for sheep to graze. To save costs, the rancher employs two young men each summer to ride up by their lonesome selves. One serves as the cook and camp tender. The other is the shepherd and sleeps with the sheep at night, returning to camp only for meals. So is the expected fate of Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist the summer of '67, when they undertake this seasonal gig.
While I have not seen the film, the images of Heath Ledger as Ennis and Jake Gyllenhaal as Jack, are so ingrained, that's precisely what I saw in my mind's eye when I read this strange Western romance. Although I have to say, it's not much of a romance. There is but one sex scene, and they get it out of the way at the beginning of the story. For those who are curious, Ennis is the pitcher and Jack is the catcher. This detail plays itself out over the course of their lives. Since Ennis is the forceful dominant personality of the couple, Jack spends his days and months and years anguishing to spend more time with Ennis. Ennis, however, won't have it. First, he only refers to their relationship as 'this thing'. You never hear the words 'I love you' uttered in the entire piece. Second, Ennis has seen what happens to the openly gay cow-folk. He recounts a story about these two queer ranchers he knew as a child. One day, his father is taking him into town and they stop by the corpse of the one gay rancher. His face and body have been wrecked by what Ennis surmises is a tire iron. As Ennis wishes to stay alive, he abjures Jack not to make this 'thing' too serious or official.
Ennis and Jack manage lives apart from each other. In fact the script (which carefully and lovingly adapts the story) follows this tale as it unfolds over many years, and occasional meetings of Ennis and Jack at various motels and lodges all over Wyoming. This proves difficult to do often, as Jack lives in Texas. So Ennis must bide his time, and wait the coming of Jack's beaten up, ancient truck. Over the course of this story, Ennis has a few daughters, and Jack manages a son. Ennis divorces and remarries. Jack simply quits after the first wife. He longs to be with Ennis, who won't hear of it. It's Jack who in the screenplay and the story comes closely to admitting love in a back-ass-wards sort of way: 'I wish I could quit ya.' Not that he can, mind you.
As we learn from the onset, this story does not possess the happiest of endings. I shall not ruin it here, but may yet in class if people wish to know it. This is a powerful piece of writing by Anne Proulx (who's named is pronounced 'proo' apparently). Larry McMurty, who earned a pulitzer for Lonesome Dove brings what I can only surmise to be the same level of writing to the screenplay. It's not often one gets to read the original story and the screenplay of a film. I'm very glad I took a chance and did so.
Highly recommended.
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