[Poetry] Church Fair, 1984

[jon_chaisson]

Our church held its annual fair every November at the Town Hall,
And in my preteen years it was one of the few times
I'd get to hang out downtown past dark and see my friends,
and I'd get to wander by myself without supervision.
In 1984 my mom had bought me the new Paul McCartney album,
another acquisition to my burgeoning record collection,
And I couldn't wait to listen to it, but I'd have to wait.
My family and I would meet at my father's office down the street
after we had our evening supper and he'd finished for the day.
I'd stand in the display window, looking over his picture boards
at the locals heading up to the fair, watching them laugh and smile.
My dad was off the clock, but ever the reporter he'd bring his notepad
to cover anything that might happen, who won prizes and who said what.
I looked up eagerly at the clock tower, the sky dark at six o'clock,
as we walked the block and a half, past the bank and the record store,
Cross the street near the YMCA and the insurance agency,
Up the hill past the mom-and-pop restaurant and the smoke shop,
Past the library where my dad and I spent so much time then,
And up the side steps to the main floor of the Town Hall.
I always felt we were sneaking in the back doors going that way,
past the tax collectors' office and the selectboard meeting room,
until we got to the wide central rotunda, where we saw upon the wall
the Honor Roll of local soldiers from the wars past
(I know I knew some of these men, some of them my uncles too).

Inside the main hall was a party, a big central square lined with
tables filled with all sorts of fun, from toys to blankets to food
to books to gifts to crafts and everything in between.
My parents handed my sisters and I a fistful of tickets and smiled,
letting us go hog wild, dropping them in paper-covered shoeboxes,
in desperate hope that we'd win that which we coveted most that night.
We'd gone to this for years, and most of the time I'd gotten bored
by mid-evening, and my mom would bring us home in the family car,
and we'd be informed the next morning if we won anything.

They wouldn't call the prizes for another couple of hours,
so I'd while away the time with friends of mine I knew from church,
walking around the Town Hall and investigating the forgotten rooms
and quiet hallways this old building held in store for us.
Downstairs was a smaller speaking hall with a book and record sale
(where I'd purchased comics and music and fun things many a time),
While the second floor held more offices and the entryway
to the upper tier, lined with the old wooden slat seats that folded up.
I used to fall asleep as a kid up there, back in my early youth
when I couldn't force myself to stay up that late.

This time, though, a few of my friends had found an exit door,
leading to darkened back stairs we we shouldn't have been on.
Dimly lit by night lights, the stairway led down a strange way,
not quite down to the first landing but actually to the back stage.
The back stage! We weren't supposed to be up there! Though it seemed
Those who saw us didn't mind, knew we weren't up to trouble,
knew we were just adventurous and fascinated by this maze.
Down one further, it stopped at that lower hall, the landing dark
as if someone had forgotten this stairway was here.
One push and we'd startled someone on the other side, and we all laughed
shut the door, and backed up, tripping over each other,
And still...one last flight down, into total darkness.
How far could it possibly go down? Where did it go to?
And with a final push, we soldiered on, until we hit that last door...
which led to the dusty and cold parking lot overlooking the river.
We didn't quite feel cheated, but for that moment we lost ourselves,
The silliness and excitement of adventure ending prematurely.

And back in the main hall, the fair started winding down,
one of the church leaders up on that squeaking wooden stage,
the platform we thought so amazing just moments ago,
making final announcements and calling out names and numbers,
the tickets being pulled blindly from their makeshift boxes.
I ran back to the far wall where my parents stood, coats in hand,
half-listening to the speaker and half-chatting to friends nearby.
I couldn't quite see above everyone so I climbed aboard a platform
where fold-up chairs were locked up and held in place,
knowing full well the clatter it would make if I fell.
I climbed aboard anyway, out of rebellion and youthful boredom,
and perched there until every number and name was called.
I never won anything I was looking for, not that toy or that game,
but as I got older I didn't mind as much...it was because I was there,
surrounded by the community I knew growing up in this small town,
knowing so many of these older people through my parents,
knowing the younger kids through my catechism classes.
All I wanted at this point was to have fun, to be among the others,
and to feel the excitement and the life I'd seen and known then.


crossposted at my Dreamwidth blog

Comments

[mekkasimian.livejournal.com]

WARNING: CRITICAL MODE, AS MEK CONTINUE TO BE PERPLEX BY [POETRY] ENTRIES...

IS THIS NOT SIMPLY [PROSE] WITH MORE CARRIAGE RETURNS?

PERHAPS [MONOLOGUE]? OR [VIGNETTE]?

MEK TEND NOT "GET" MUCH POETRY AS FIND MOST OVERWROUGHT, BUT KNOW WHAT LIKE, AND JUST NOT DETECT RHYTHM OR METER HERE...

HELP MEK UNDERSTAND WHAT MAKE FORMAT [POETRY].

=M=

Warning: discourse ahead

[joncwriter.livejournal.com]

Good question, and one I hear a lot, actually. A lot of American poetry from the mid-twentieth century onwards usually gets hit with that question, to be honest. A lot of that stuff doesn't so much attempt to find a meter or a rhythm, so much as try to attempt an evocation. In a way, it's sort of like an extended haiku, where the main focus is on the emotion or image that is trying to be evoked--the meter and rhythm is secondary, if it's there at all. For instance, Ginsberg's "Howl" (http://sprayberry.tripod.com/poems/howl.txt) does kinda-sorta have a rhythm to it but no fixed meter, and it's not the first thing you notice--in fact, you don't notice it until you're conscious of it. Instead, from the very first line you're thrown flailing out into visual and emotional chaos--which is the entire point of the poem, to show how Ginsberg's friends and contemporaries were lost in this new post-war world they didn't quite fit into. In this case, the stream-of-consciousness chaos of the poem adds to the discomfort. (It's also a great example of parataxis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parataxis), a literary technique of shorter sentences that may or may not be completely connected to each other, but that's more on the academic side.)

You do bring up an interesting question, though...my poem could easily be rewritten as prose. On the same token, though, if it were prose and not edited or rewritten (or as you said, "prose with carriage returns"), it would look so:

Our church held its annual fair every November at the Town Hall, and in my preteen years it was one of the few times I'd get to hang out downtown past dark and see my friends, and I'd get to wander by myself without supervision. In 1984 my mom had bought me the new Paul McCartney album, another acquisition to my burgeoning record collection, and I couldn't wait to listen to it, but I'd have to wait. My family and I would meet at my father's office down the street after we had our evening supper and he'd finished for the day. I'd stand in the display window, looking over his picture boards at the locals heading up to the fair, watching them laugh and smile. My dad was off the clock, but ever the reporter he'd bring his notepad to cover anything that might happen, who won prizes and who said what. I looked up eagerly at the clock tower, the sky dark at six o'clock, as we walked the block and a half, past the bank and the record store, cross the street near the YMCA and the insurance agency, up the hill past the mom-and-pop restaurant and the smoke shop, past the library where my dad and I spent so much time then, and up the side steps to the main floor of the Town Hall. I always felt we were sneaking in the back doors going that way, past the tax collectors' office and the selectboard meeting room, until we got to the wide central rotunda, where we saw upon the wall the Honor Roll of local soldiers from the wars past (I know I knew some of these men, some of them my uncles too).

Kinda stilted, lacking direction, and sounding like James Joyce, no?

Warning: discourse ahead Part 2

[joncwriter.livejournal.com]

Sure, I could revise and make it sound like a slice-of-life short story, perhaps add a bit of dialogue and action, and I could just as easily evoke the same images and emotions that I did with the above. Not a bad idea, actually...worth investigating an exercise in writing the same thing in different formats, now that you mention it.

Still--the whole point of my poem is not the meter or rhythm, but that I tried to evoke some kind of image and/or emotion in your head when you read it. If I didn't, well, that's what revising is for. The whole point wasn't to be all flowery with my description or even to put a beat to it, it was more to say "this is what I was thinking and doing that November evening in 1984", and the format was to add to the disjointedness of being a preteen who didn't think linearly, and being constantly distracted by things one might have found fun at that age. And more importantly, to show it without actually coming out and saying "I was too distracted by this to notice that". A poetic show-don't-tell, which is very common in contemporary poetry nowadays.

All that said...that's what I think contemporary poetry is about at this point. I can understand why some might not understand or even like it (emmalyon actually has no interest in it at all), and why some find it fascinating and a thrill to write. It's less about trying to write something in a strictly adhered format and more about trying to write something that will hit the heart of the reader. Thus why some people see a gorgeous automobile or a flawless dancer or a brilliant performance and call them "poetry in motion". ;)

Re: Warning: discourse ahead Part 2

[mekkasimian.livejournal.com]

PROSE CAN BE EQUALLY EVOCATIVE, THOUGH. CAN STILL PAINT PICTURES WITHOUT SUCH DEVICES, JUST WORDS AND SENTENCES AND PARAGRAPHS. WRITERS *SHOULD* BE ABLE TO DO SUCH, TO CAPTURE FEELING WITHOUT EVEN ACKNOWLEDGE "PLOT" OR "CHARACTER".

SO WITHOUT ANY OTHER TRAPPINGS OF "TRADITIONAL" POETRY PRESENT SEEM THAT ATTEMPT CATEGORIZE AS "CONTEMPORARY POETRY" SOMEWHAT COP-OUT "ART BY AFFILIATION" RATHER THAN DEVELOP STRONGER ASPECTS FOR OWN MERIT.

GIVEN LITMUS OF LIVE PERFORMANCE (SAY PERHAPS SWITCH ON NPR WITHOUT CONTEXT), MEK WOULD *NEVER* CALL SUCH PIECE "POETRY", CONTEMPORARY OR OTHERWISE. SURE, THERE IS "FREE VERSE", BUT THEN THERE "NOT EVEN IN SAME BALLPARK". HOWEVER, *WOULD* MAKE FOR SOLID MONOLOGUE, IN FACT MORE ENGAGING THAN ALL PAST JONC-PROSE THAT MEK SAMPLE.

SLICE OF LIFE STORY *IS* WHAT WORK SEEMS ABOUT. AS SUCH FORMATTING END UP BEING DISTRACTION AT BEST. MOREOVER, DIALOGUE AND "ACTION" COMPLETE UNNECESSARY. TO DRAG IN OTHER DIRECTION OF MAKE SHORT STORY WOULD ALSO BE DISSERVICE.

JUST CAPTURE MOMENT IN TIME IS FINE: WHAT PRESENT HERE IS SUCCINCT AND FOCUSED WHEN REMOVE ARTIFICIAL PIGEONHOLING.

(IN MEK-NOT-HUMBLE OPINION!)

=M=

tomato, tomato ;)

[joncwriter.livejournal.com]

Okay, I can see that...and as you say at the end, that's your opinion of it. I could easily use the same type of reaction on some indie movies and shows out there. For instance, I can see how some people loved Arrested Development with a passion and found it hilarious, and yet I couldn't stomach watching it because it bothered me on a lot of levels (part of it being the overall idea of laughing at someone's problems and dysfunctions). I just felt that show was meanspirited and unfunny. Point being--it all boils down to whether or not it's your cup of tea. I can totally understand if it just doesn't click with you for whatever reason.

Additionally, I don't think calling it contemporary is a cop-out. Depending on the poet, you could pick up almost any poet's book from the last thirty to forty years (and most likely earlier) and find all kinds of formats like the one I've used. I've seen lines of four or five words and I've seen seen lines of upwards to forty or fifty. It really depends on how it's written and why. I wasn't trying to pigeonhole anything at all, to be honest...if anything, I edited myself a few times because I felt I was trying too hard to write prose instead. Most of my writing is never about trying to pigeonhole it into a certain format or style...it's more like my take on what that style might be and playing with it.

Re: tomato, tomato ;)

[mekkasimian.livejournal.com]

FAIR ENOUGH.

=M=