https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/section-519-aphasic-s-athenaeum-of-illiteration sobriety, and sundry dissociated corollaries en 2005-2012 shakespearesmonekys@gmail.com 42.65593 -71.33391 Tue, 09 Jun 2026 11:33:30 GMT yacs http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 70 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13284-a-strange-furtive-quake https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13284-a-strange-furtive-quake Hardly experimental--'it' can only get beta? laura doom Monkey sperm Tue, 30 Oct 2012 19:43:47 GMT /section-534-monkey-sperm#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/13284 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/13284 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A13284 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13136-az-is https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13136-az-is A form of soup, one ingredient being a scene that is heard after the children have gone upstairs to explore the concept of innocence... laura doom Monkey sperm Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:36:59 GMT /section-534-monkey-sperm#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/13136 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/13136 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A13136 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-7376-some-thoughts-on-the-fertility-of-turtles https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-7376-some-thoughts-on-the-fertility-of-turtles Not being conversant in 'critique', I accept the notes below may constitute utter bollocks - but they may also reflect the extent to which poetry can capture the imagination of the reader. I've recently read a host of comments in the discussion thread regarding 'bad poetry'. For me, bad poetry is stuff written and published for the exclusive benefit of the writer, to fulfill a personal need, with no regard for the reader. How do you identify a writer's motives? Well, I have no idea - that's as far as I got :> Perhaps it's a gut feeling, although the comment process usually proves to be a solid indicator of attitude. So, anyway - a personal appreciation/exploration of... The Futility of Turtles - Austin Gorsuch  Title - two aspects...does it make me want to read the poem? The Futility of Turtles? Why? I have no idea, but I care because it's a statement, and I'm a sceptic - so that's a 'yes'. Does it say something meaningful about the poem? How should I know? Revisit... The car did not stop. Wheels continued to spin as my father and I looked to the curb - the struggling turtle attempting to work its way back onto its feet. "The car did not stop." Classic first line delivery - monosyllabic, abrupt. Impact - the importance of first impressions/primacy. A line with consequences, preceded by caesura/endash. "The struggling turtle" - (intention behind the use of) definite article (i.e. not a/any old struggling turtle, but the/this one) - implying that the turtle in question has been noted/noticed prior to the reader's attendance, an integral part of this story. So, was it struggling before the (assumed) incident with the car? Or is the car incidental, yet also relevant in metaphoric terms? Does this epitomise the futility of turtles? Did it merely fall off the pavement and tip over into the road, onto its back? If the result of an RTA, wouldn't this have been 'the turtle, struggling, attempting to...'? So perhaps - turtle struggling, car doesn't stop = life goes on, wheels continue to spin, and the reader constructs a drama to accommodate meaningful interpretation? Its legs, splayed to the sunlight, flailed in the crisp breeze of a day just beginning. Observation - no intervention, no interpretation, attitudes or feelings expressed, purely (superficially) descriptive (detached?), with no indication as to where this is going, beyond 'a day just beginning' (there's more to come..) Suggestion of assonance (splayed, flailed) and onomatopoeia (crisp breeze) Contrast (re. 'Later') - sunlight, crisp breeze = a fresh, new day Later, I went out with Mother. She told me stories about how she had been dreaming of being raped, of shooting her husband, and as I tuned the voice of convolution into a studded white noise, Mother capitalized, no 'possessive' pronoun. Formal/impersonal? Alien? Contrast between 'my father and I', + two stanzas of shared experience - and 'Later, I went out with Mother.' - stark, unembellished one-line event. Stories - fantasies/self-indulgence, emphasised by combining 'stories' with 'dreaming' (intentional redundancy). Contrast 'dreaming' with violence of rape and shooting. Joined-up writing ...tuned/voice/white noise. Convolution (compare revolution/evolution - progress/outcome) Studded? Sardonic allusions to...? Ornamental? Hard (rivetted, but not rivetting?). Star-studded? (many connotations e.g. poetic aesthetics & media) Also, interesting (re. discussion thread on use of commas) to see end-of-line comma combined with double line break - says 'this is connected, but' (?) (hesitation - example of the art of manipulation?) And finally (yeah - right)...'being raped, shooting her husband'. The relationship, or not (and the relationship) - repression/distortion > inverse displacement & aggression - fantasy/futility. I began to imagine her, on her back, her arms reaching in futility for the sky from the dark recesses of her verdant shell. The turtle metaphor doesn't appear out of nowhere, we've already 'seen' the 'real' turtle, so this readily paints a picture and forms a strong impression. "I began to imagine" - where/how far would this have gone? Sentiments of (unknown) depth. The 'Mother'/turtle pose - portrays helplessness/hopelessness, but also consistent with a 'rape' scenario and even suggestive of someone having been shot? (irony/poetic justice? - hmm) But the BIG one - 'verdant'. Verdant?! That's a flag - ambush ahead :] Too clichéd to be anything else? Perhaps, but also marked as lush, fertile . Considering implications of 'lush', but probably too far removed. Verdant qualifying shell - no, too involved for my limited resources. I laughed (foolishly). Why foolishly? Shame? Embarrassment? Indifference towards the plight of the turtle? Applying the turtle metaphor to Mother? The mocking of Mother's dreams? Painting the shell green? Or was it foolish to laugh - Mother is looking at me like I'm weird/stupid/disrespectful. Pay attention! More misdirection? Ha! How stupid is that - making such an elementary error. (which one?) After all, her shell has no color. "After all" - seemingly innocuous, but replete with overhanging meaning here. Conclusion, whether explicit or implicit - as important as first lines even when misunderstood, or a complete mystery, as long as it looks/sounds/feels like a conclusion. So, even metaphorical turtles have shells & shells have colour - which leaves a further metaphor... shell = no life = no colour? And the title...The Futility of Turtles...that's a 'yes'. Final note: If you're still awake - really, you should get out of your shell more often :> Final, final note: I always attempt to approach every poem as being entirely fictional, irrespective of what I may or may not know (if anything) about the writer. Assumptions lure, attribution theory rules... ... more aphasic Aphasic's athenaeum of illiteration Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:57:40 GMT /section-519-aphasic-s-athenaeum-of-illiteration#comments 10 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/7376 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/7376 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A7376 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-10028-prosaic-stretch-marks https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-10028-prosaic-stretch-marks The progress bar is stuck at regression aphasic Monkey sperm Sun, 08 Jan 2012 20:58:56 GMT /section-534-monkey-sperm#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/10028 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/10028 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A10028 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13076-a-suite-of-nothings https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13076-a-suite-of-nothings As I speak the words imprinted on your never mind, a chorus of phones wrings out indifference and hangs it in my closet. The first flush of youth pales to nonchalance, washed away by semantic swirls excreting vapid trails in wasted space.   The voice of reason floats another corpulent anomaly and settles on your bed, expecting redress. In the beginning, it was good; ergo it was not. It was all good, incomparably so, until goodness saw the light and sank its teeth into my ulterior motif. Hysteria repeats itself, its lust for life a copulative tissue that belies the taste of failure; a message mixed in rhetoric becomes forbidden fruit of echolalia. ... more laura doom Monkey sperm Sat, 07 Jan 2012 19:07:15 GMT /section-534-monkey-sperm#comments 4 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/13076 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/13076 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A13076 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-7878-the-flesh-collector https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-7878-the-flesh-collector aka Structural Deficit Redaction? aphasic Monkey sperm Fri, 06 Jan 2012 14:03:46 GMT /section-534-monkey-sperm#comments 9 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/7878 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/7878 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A7878 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-9281-la-vista-koalarama https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-9281-la-vista-koalarama All work and no play gives Joey an inferiority duplex? aphasic Limericks Fri, 06 Jan 2012 12:53:09 GMT /section-523-limericks#comments 2 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/9281 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/9281 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A9281 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12245-object-of-desire https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12245-object-of-desire He says he wants to save her, from herself; she shakes her head of snow. Sex is not the motivation since procreation pushes the norm. Yesterday, he cleared her drive though she wasn't going anywhere, beside the stump on which he draws analogies. Reverting to Latin, the man believes in reading the bible aloud; she receives wisely, according to the strictures impressed by newsworthiness. The subject, nurtured by indifference, has chosen to bear the selfish gene in reverence to insignificance. On balance, the manifesto smacks of dependency, probity raising the expected standard for which attainment is praised; unbearable truth is delegated to the unborn. In spending her, he saves himself. ... more laura doom Monkey sperm Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:49:58 GMT /section-534-monkey-sperm#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12245 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12245 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12245 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-7413-scratch-n-sniff https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-7413-scratch-n-sniff At the risk of repeating myself, allow me to reiterate the above/below gripe of wrath aphasic Limericks Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:48:29 GMT /section-523-limericks#comments 1 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/7413 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/7413 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A7413 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-7639-mundane-child-like-pome https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-7639-mundane-child-like-pome Though I modified the publication date to match the original submission date, this appears at the top of the 'Latest Comments' listing; how do I make it behave the way I want it to? aphasic Limericks Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:10:31 GMT /section-523-limericks#comments 4 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/7639 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/7639 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A7639 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-7414-precious-stone https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-7414-precious-stone on the road to creating a riff Fender Chevrolet lit up a spliff when his thrash of invention succumbed to pretension he christened it 'Das Leitmotiv' aphasic Limericks Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:05:08 GMT /section-523-limericks#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/7414 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/7414 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A7414 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-7412-late-call https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-7412-late-call necrophilia's rise in positionas a funeral parlour traditionreached its climax in criesto decriminalizein the face of some stiff opposition aphasic Limericks Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:00:34 GMT /section-523-limericks#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/7412 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/7412 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A7412 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11780-a-somatic-shadow-cast-by-ambiance-chasers https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11780-a-somatic-shadow-cast-by-ambiance-chasers Jim has, obviously, laid claim to all meaningful titles laura doom Monkey sperm Wed, 29 Jul 2009 22:03:58 GMT /section-534-monkey-sperm#comments 5 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/11780 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/11780 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A11780 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-10590-thinking-allowed https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-10590-thinking-allowed Yeh - I know it sucks - disjointed, dishevelled and contrived, but it's better than...ok, I'll get back to that sometime in the not-too-distant futile (when the justification transcends 'not writing') laura doom Monkey sperm Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:41:10 GMT /section-534-monkey-sperm#comments 8 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/10590 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/10590 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A10590 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-9453-a-crying-sham https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-9453-a-crying-sham To sustain the 'writing' delusion aphasic Monkey sperm Sun, 14 Sep 2008 23:04:57 GMT /section-534-monkey-sperm#comments 15 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/9453 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/9453 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A9453 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-8222-madrigal-misery-tour https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-8222-madrigal-misery-tour Modified - again aphasic Monkey sperm Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:36:36 GMT /section-534-monkey-sperm#comments 20 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/8222 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/8222 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A8222 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-8926-disorder https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-8926-disorder I hate lists, but then we're all gonna die, so here one is in goriest carcinochrome aphasic Aphasic's athenaeum of illiteration Sat, 21 Jun 2008 22:42:24 GMT /section-519-aphasic-s-athenaeum-of-illiteration#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/8926 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/8926 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A8926 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-8925-offence https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-8925-offence - the ultimate anti-climax aphasic Monkey sperm Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:04:18 GMT /section-534-monkey-sperm#comments 4 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/8925 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/8925 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A8925 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-8300-stale-rant https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-8300-stale-rant - the clue is in Le Tit aphasic Monkey sperm Mon, 21 Apr 2008 13:06:58 GMT /section-534-monkey-sperm#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/8300 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/8300 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A8300 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-8066-bogatelle https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-8066-bogatelle (not one of Oscar's) aphasic Monkey sperm Wed, 02 Apr 2008 08:52:54 GMT /section-534-monkey-sperm#comments 3 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/8066 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/8066 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A8066