10-13-2021, 05:52 PM
i love that this is the Mandelbrot set. i didn't recognize it as such at first, especially as the formatting breaks on mobile (this is written in my computer), but that's more on me than on the piece.
i do think that'd be the experience for a lot of readers, though, because while the set is instantly recognizable, one needs to be in a particular headspace for it to *be* so recognizable, otherwise it becomes some sort of Rorshach test instead. it might be easier if the presentation were horizontal than vertical, but that might turn out to be quite a stretch -- what i'm surer of is that the *earlier* draft, by virtue of being more faithful to the usual presentation of the set, is somewhat easier to get.
but as for the words themselves, while i see a sort of internal logic to it -- tropical revolutionary third world contrasted with greedy suburbian capitalist sprawl -- i find them kinda grating xD the emphasis put by the new draft on certain words feels especially unearned, as they remain a word soup even when taken on their own.
the poem's dream logic simply isn't grounded enough to connect -- "an unseen hand to pillage" might be a reference to the invisible hand, for example, but "golden memories"? "evanescent pockets"?? -- which, for a subject (or the semblance of a subject) that's so *lived*, makes it kinda, idk, poseurish? i'm reminded of a song by Arcade Fire that makes a similar point to what i guess this piece is trying to achieve, but with far more simplicity:
"living in the sprawl,
dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains
and there's no end in sight---"
ie the way the first world decays looks a lot like the speaker's native Haiti.
that said, this piece as a whole *works* for me, the same way as a lot of songs do. the words give a semblance of sense, but immediately break down on closer reading, however the concreteness -- much like a song's melody or production -- really does save it, if not as a poem then as a work of art.
i do think that'd be the experience for a lot of readers, though, because while the set is instantly recognizable, one needs to be in a particular headspace for it to *be* so recognizable, otherwise it becomes some sort of Rorshach test instead. it might be easier if the presentation were horizontal than vertical, but that might turn out to be quite a stretch -- what i'm surer of is that the *earlier* draft, by virtue of being more faithful to the usual presentation of the set, is somewhat easier to get.
but as for the words themselves, while i see a sort of internal logic to it -- tropical revolutionary third world contrasted with greedy suburbian capitalist sprawl -- i find them kinda grating xD the emphasis put by the new draft on certain words feels especially unearned, as they remain a word soup even when taken on their own.
the poem's dream logic simply isn't grounded enough to connect -- "an unseen hand to pillage" might be a reference to the invisible hand, for example, but "golden memories"? "evanescent pockets"?? -- which, for a subject (or the semblance of a subject) that's so *lived*, makes it kinda, idk, poseurish? i'm reminded of a song by Arcade Fire that makes a similar point to what i guess this piece is trying to achieve, but with far more simplicity:
"living in the sprawl,
dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains
and there's no end in sight---"
ie the way the first world decays looks a lot like the speaker's native Haiti.
that said, this piece as a whole *works* for me, the same way as a lot of songs do. the words give a semblance of sense, but immediately break down on closer reading, however the concreteness -- much like a song's melody or production -- really does save it, if not as a poem then as a work of art.