#idk but hot is the first thing i can think of when i see dynamo. could be bc of his fashion sense

[pybun]

idk how else to describe dynamo other than hottest orb known to man

[your-ace-cousin-clover]

hey, this one's gonna be long, so grab a chair and a snack.

first of all i wanna say thanks for the poetry recommendations! (I'll keep the anti-love poems and postcard from the heartbreak hotel in my back pocket, just in case...) always glad to expand my to-read list! :))

moving on: to be honest, no, i haven't read a lot of eastern poetry - mostly due to my past conviction of "reading translations sucks". but i've read translations of some arabic poems recently and there's sort of a melancholy that sneaks up with it? see, my grandfather on my dad's side is iraqi, but my dad never taught me arabic, so i'm always partly grieving a hypothetical what-could've-been.

anyway, i've checked out some stuff by tagore (& darwish)!

on tagore: i read "gitanjali 35" & loved the line "Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake." feels like a dam bursting open. i rly enjoyed "crossing 16" and "on the seashore" too! idk, but it feels like the last line in tagore's poems is the first breath you take after you finish running a mile? does that make sense?

on darwish: i especially liked passport & he is quiet and so am i! darwish seems like a very storyteller-ish kinda poet? and i like the rhythm of his writing; it's very.... alive? like if i stare at it too long it'll blink.

also, i gotta agree with you on ginsberg! i love, love, love vivid poetry and i used to really want to study film - because writing seemed (to me at least) like it lacked the visual aspect?

to answer your question about siken: you are jeff definitely hits hard, but i think planet of love might be my favorite. it's hard to pick just one, but something about the director/actor dynamic really speaks to me. the certainty of "you know your lines" & "you've memorized it" juxtaposed with the general sense of uncertainty throughout the poem feels very real? its choppy, the sentences are short, "there's a gun in your hand. it feels hot. it feels oily." there's a gun in your hand and each sentence is a bullet wound. and the way it ends! it builds and builds and builds suspense but there's no resolution, it's just tense. it asks whats next? and never answers the question. it just hits the brakes - suddenly you're rigid and frozen in time. it's being trapped in a fraction of a second and "everyone's watching, everyone's curious, everyone's holding their breath." and i didn't always like it, but somewhere along the line i started having panic attacks and it REALLY grew on me lmao

this ask is getting long, so i'm gonna end it here, but thanks again!

P.S.: would you maybe be up for giving me a poetry prompt? i could send you the poem in another ask. (might be fun)

-cat

Cat! :)

First of all, I want to complement your style of describing things. It's so poetic. Tagore like "the first breath you take after you finish running a mile" and Darwish like "very storyteller-ish kinda poet and rhythm of his writing; it's very.... alive". AGHHH, I squealed reading those lines, like what???? That is so fucking raw (Sorry for cursing, but ahhhh). You are poet in the way you just like talk about things.

Also, quick side note, I'm glad that the poems are in your back pocket. Hope you never have to turn to them, due to their nature, but if you ever do, I hope they help.

I'm glad you like Darwish and Tagore. "My father led my country awake" always punches me in the gut. It's so strong and emotive. I sympathise with you about the language barrier. I suck at speaking languages other than English, but I'm not a native english speaker. So even I want to enjoy poetry in languages than English, I have to read the translations which puts a damper on it. But, God bless translations, I love the way you described it in your last post that makes them seem so pure and the fact that someone weighted all these words to convey a human emotion across a pages and across ages is just.. mwah.

Ginsberg is my shit. (Again sorry!) The openings lines of Howl hit my Christian Iconography Yearning, like the vivid imagery..? "angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night," I vibe with that feeling of wanting to reach divinity and holiness with your writing. The raw, exposed nerve of that writing.

And before like I got heavy into poetry, I also felt the same way about how 2d writing can be. But, then you have things that help transcend the page like : slam poetry or hybrid forms which combine writing with more dynamism like choreopoetry. But even within itself, poetry transcends the page, by drawing out emotion and just speaking to you. This was a piece I read a while ago that has performances online and is very acclaimed : "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf." (Although it deals with very heavy topics though so heavy tw)

And I read Planet of Love! The abrupt way it ends just hits you so strongly and absolutely leaves you frozen. Have you read "Wishbone" or "A Primer for Small Weird Loves"? Both hit very strongly as well.

And I'd absolutely love to give you a prompt: "Saint Valentines". Does that work?

[And don't worry about long asks, they are funny to read through and answer :)))) ]

Look forward to hearing from you and reading the poem! Prompt poetry is pretty fun!