Philosophy Now Forum

xxxx

Evolution saw
its ultimate achievement
and jumped off a cliff.

.



Awesome, AWESOME poem by the original poster.



A nice follow-up post also.



I thank both of you.



.

xx

Sheer brilliance, both

Wish I could do that; hold moments of time and space, in so many beats.

marjoramblues wrote:

Sheer brilliance, both

Evolution saw
its ultimate achievement
and jumped off a cliff

In what sense is that "sheer brilliance"

Re: Street poet
It takes a certain kind of person to write this poetry.
It is beyond most people to express in this way merely
because they lack the imagination and life experience to do so.
This person must understand art in a particular incisive way and
also he has many kinds of understanding .
Very rare stuff.

Lakin wrote:

marjoramblues wrote:

Sheer brilliance, both

Evolution saw
its ultimate achievement
and jumped off a cliff

In what sense is that "sheer brilliance"

It is a haiku poem created, I believe, as an immediate heart-felt response to the 'They are going crazy over there'.
Haiku, despite appearance, is not a simple art form to achieve. There are plenty places you can visit to understand more, but here is a starter:
http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Haiku-Poem

1. the 3-line form, expressed as a breath of 5-7-5 syllables is a distillation of, and reflection on, the longer poem.
2. the juxtaposition of 2 ideas at the start and end: 'Evolution' and 'Suicide'; the jumping off the cliff of 'those going crazy over there'. The cutting off point.
'Evolution saw' > 'they have looked and found' > 'nothing'
3. the 'leap' between the 2 parts : 'ultimate achievement': empty lives > 'the uncertainty of every bleak day'.
4. the sense of time or season: the behaviour of lemmings, when the population gets too big, is to search for somewhere new. Results in crowds pushing and shoving to point of death > 'paint runs down the canvas...' the canvas as cliff...

Possibly not the same as Skip's interpretation...
However, this is why I described it as 'sheer brilliance'

Well , I admire your work ethic here and I think you have made some good analytical points.
But I am not sure that the paint running down the canvas is to do with suicide in the sense
that it is an allegory for suicide.

Lakin wrote:Well , I admire your work ethic here and I think you have made some good analytical points.
But I am not sure that the paint running down the canvas is to do with suicide in the sense
that it is an allegory for suicide.

Your question stimulated me to examine more closely what it was I enjoyed about Skip's haiku. I found myself revising what it was about haiku that made it so challenging and fascinating.

Thanks for asking the question; I learned a lot from trying to answer it.
However, I am no expert; just offering my thoughts...

I would be interested to get feedback from Skip...

Can you explain about the 'paint running down the canvas' as an allegory for suicide ?

Are you sure that is what it is ?

Lakin wrote:Are you sure that is what it is ?

It is what it is.

I edited an earlier post to ask you to clarify your comments re the suicide paint job...

It was that first thing marjoram blues said: a heartfelt response. They are going crazy over there describes so exactly and passionately what I've been seeing happen just down there, and here, too, more all the time. It feels an awful lot like mass insanity, heading for mass extinction. And there is Gustav, over yonder, extolling the tradition of which this state of affairs is the culmination, and I... sortalostit - usually more cool and rational in my responses. Ta for reading more into it than I put: that's how things grow.

Skip wrote:It was that first thing marjoram blues said: a heartfelt response. They are going crazy over there describes so exactly and passionately what I've been seeing happen just down there, and here, too, more all the time. It feels an awful lot like mass insanity, heading for mass extinction. And there is Gustav, over yonder, extolling the tradition of which this state of affairs is the culmination, and I... sortalostit - usually more cool and rational in my responses. Ta for reading more into it than I put: that's how things grow.

Ta to you too...

Haikus sound like fun
Maybe I'll try to write one
But not today