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Authors Note: I've done extensive commentary on this poem twice for two different venues as it was both an assignment and a special experiment. I've taken it all and placed it after the poem. Read it if you like. Enjoy!
“Automaton”
We’ve developed a much too distinct reputation, to favor suspended
Animation. We’ve these amber capsules with fluid manna
And we’ve forgotten real manna, forsaken the green.
Oh, we’ve just digital-fucked and gestated mechanical.
And out it comes in a puddle, kicking and screaming –
Our lovely automaton. God would you just look at him.
Curling and pulling his placenta around him.
Then he’s suddenly snatched by two arms suspended
From the ceiling, gears grinding and scraping in hydraulic screaming
Louder…than he’s screaming, for new oily manna
His U joints and L joints are so brazen mechanical
Grinding themselves – it’s so loud – we don’t care – for we sleep – and dream his green
This poor little boy automaton with eyes of God’s most brilliant green
And no compliment from parents who wrought him to use him
So he doesn’t know… They plug him now… into this thing mechanical
Half asleep, while we sleep, and he’ll be suspended
In his own hell, like new heaven synthetic manna
God, he’s half us – he wants more – he’s screaming, he’s screaming
Weep, God weep for our little automaton. He’s like a new man-ape hopelessly screaming
He’s like – years ago—we traveled to—an African Green,
Fucked an ape, for the sound of it, surrounded by manna,
And brought a child on the ocean, winds howling, waves suspended
For what we’d done for fun, for science, for God to confound him.
And this child blew his brains out when he saw the mechanical.
Our automaton is weeping in human-mechanical
Tears. For he hears, in our sleep we’re all screaming
He’s lonely, Goddamn, and he’s left his post to view us suspended
Then he sees we’re all fat and contorted, copper tubing turned green
But we’re smiling, how on earth, and the earth shuts around him.
Father, Mother, Child in one room – sounds drowned in the most potent new manna.
Teenage automaton walks to the top of the hill (of wires) and drinks his last bit of Automatamanna.
It’s good, and it oils his now perfect mechanical
Sadness, and he now sees it all rising around him.
He’s a onematon, an alonematon, and he turns off the screaming.
He’s got mechanical ears after all, mechanical eyes—he never knew were green.
Naught for why, true no life, serving his time, forever, in a world suspended.
Dreamt forever is dream death, in the richest of manna.
The green is quick fodder for the wretched mechanical.
The automaton no longer knows he’s alone, knows nothing, no screaming, God bless him.
--
Andrew Lee Poff
Dr. Ellen Malphrus
English 464 – Poetry Workshop
December 4th, 2008
Sestina
From Wednesday, December 10th
Originally Posted at the beginning...
I've included extensive commentary on this poem, at the end of it, because I already had some on file that I used for my Portfolio for my Poetry Workshop, and because it's a unique and established format, and I wanted to provide some info on it, and encourage any of you "serious" [;-)] poets to try it out!
If you do, I'd love to see what comes of it! Pass it on to your friends for comments if you like! Thanks!
I’m posting this because it’s the apex of my ‘journey’ (ß pretentious… “struggle” maybe? Mein Kampf? ) through Dr. Malphrus’s intensive poetry workshop. I know that these are semi-taboo to some of the more purist poetic masters—I suspect those who live their poetry, and are wary of the possibility of corruption and pretension in academia. But academia has kept my hand strong and moving where otherwise it would grace the keyboard of page impulsively and sporadically. And academia has taught me the RULES, so that I may choose whether or not to accept them. It’s kept my reverence of the richest language in the world high, and my comprehension of it great.
This poem was well received at Megan Summers’ “Potluck Poetry Night” at the Campenella Studio of the arts this past Saturday, December 6th. I had the opportunity to read it between performances of some of my good friends’ music, which I love. There was interest in it, and I wanted to provide it here, conceitedly, for further scrutiny. I hope that you will read it, and that it will mean something to you, and touch you in some way. I wrote it entirely subjectively, from my imagination, without respect for prospective readers, and so I was pleasantly surprised at it’s appeal. I’ve made some changes to it here. I hope they work. Thank you all for your appreciation and inspiration. Enjoy.
--
Beginnings
I have a rare opportunity here, because I’m completing the assignment late while simultaneously compiling my portfolio and providing commentary, to briefly discuss the formation of the poem before it makes it to paper. I’ve little regard for the restrictions of the format now. This is how I’ve approached the formulaic poems so far the Poetry Workshop. I have to begin with an idea, a strong one, on which anecdotes and metaphors will inevitably follow, or the poem will fail in the face of its restrictions and become mediocre. I’ve just had an idea, a spark (a relatively dim one in comparison to some in the past) while reaching for a bottle of pills in the medicine cabinet, and suddenly the task does not appear so daunting. It’s like a key that unlocks the format and turns it into an ally instead of an enemy, at least I hope. We have yet to see. Once again subjectivity has saved the day. I’m going to draw on my current state of mind, and I’ll preserve this passage here, no matter if the poem complies with it or not, to at least preserve the truth of my intent. I’ll call it “Automaton” – off-hand one of my favorite words, replete with diverse meaning and open to interpretation, though for most, it instantly creates a picture of the mystical aspect of contemporary technology.
Afterword
Whew. Jesus Christ that was a dark one. So I don’t want to sound conceited, but in order to truly appreciate the poem, it’s probably better to not read an explanation about it. Tee hee. But here goes anyway, quickly.
I feel like I achieved the translation of the idea I had and then some. This one will go down in a series of poems I have that someone on Lit.org aptly called “dystopian wasteland” poems. The point of these is to create extended metaphors to serve as my subjective commentary on aspects of society that include: disconnection, surrender of humanity to technology, the rape of the planet, the loss of Godliness, etc.
I didn’t intend for this to be a story, but it panned out that way. So the “automaton” is a wretched transitory cyber-baby who has no place in society and longs for one, but eventually finds out that he’s not needed or even acknowledged and so he surrenders the little bit of his humanity in order to simply exist without concern… or something like that. It’s difficult to explain. Hopefully the poem elucidates enough. Either way it’s an extended metaphor for several of the things I highlighted above.
Notes About Sestinas
A Sestina is a stiff format, I suspect developed to force creativity through limitation as well as act as an exercise to hone poetic skill. As much as I dreaded it, I enjoyed working around the limitations. Here’s a rough overview of the format, if you want to try to write one.
A Sestina has six 1 word refrains that will appear at the end of each line in the first of its six stanzas, and then two of the refrains will appear in each line of the ending envoi. Each of the six stanzas before the envoi is six lines long. 666. Haha.
Thirteen Ways of Looking for a Poem by Wendy Bishop recommends that you choose your six words ahead of time, as I highlighted above. I found it easier to just write the first stanza and then check the ending words on each line or versatility and make changes if necessary. Here’s the formula for the refrains. From Thirteen Ways:
Each subsequent stanza [after the first] begins with the last word of the previous stanza and uses the top word to end line 2, goes down for the next-to-last word to end line 3, goes back up t the next-to-top word, etc., until all six words are used. (Numbers and letters in the following chart will help you count.
Stanza 1
1 A
2 B
3 C
4 D
5 E
6 F
Stanza 2
1 F
2 A
3 E
4 B
5 D
6 C
Stanza 3
1 C
2 F
3 D
4 A
5 B
6 E
Stanza 4
1 E
2 C
3 B
4 F
5 A
6 D
Stanza 5
1 D
2 E
3 A
4 C
5 F
6 B
Stanza 6
1 B
2 C
3 F
4 E
5 C
6 A
Envoi
1 A,B
2 C,D
3 E,F
For clarification, here’s an example of an envoi following this formula. Yeah, look, I’ll just use the one from my poem so you don’t have to scroll up:
Dreamt forever is dream death, in the richest of manna. ß Whoops, left out “suspended” (A)
The green is quick fodder for the wretched mechanical.
The automaton no longer knows he’s alone, knows nothing, no screaming, God bless him.
Advice
I don’t know if I’m qualified to give advice, but I’ll do it anyway, because that’s what we’re all about. I think I did a great job on this one, although I see now that I made at least one mistake. Oh well, one never hurt anyone. I could just insert “suspended” at the beginning of the envoi:
Suspended and Dreamt forever is dream death…
I don’t know if that works, but it’s worth a shot if I want to be totally technical. It still fits into the rhythm.
So I’ll offer a little advice on how I approached this thing. I explained a little at the beginning of this commentary, but that’s about how I approach most of my more difficult poems, with a versatile and semi-universal concept in mind—more accurately, if I can pare down a concept to a single word, I can make that word beautiful and full, and its beauty will sustain my motivation to complete an exercise dedicated to its power. Yes, I worship “God’s English”. It’s the most significant gift I’ve been given outside of life and love—anyway. Universality of concepts help the appeal, and gives me inspiration to more effectively draw material from the environment in which I live and filtering it through my imagination, convert that material into powerful, versatile, anecdotal metaphors.
As for what happens after I’ve gotten a concept in mind: first I try my best to avoid being preachy. I’ll explain this in detail. Most of my older poetry is preachy, because in addition to adhering to more rigid and pedantic high-handed concepts, I would start with a message in mind. My advice is not to do this. I know it’s appealing, especially for egotistical control freaks like myself, to tell people in your own ‘beauteous’ way how they should live their lives, and/or how things are and to what they should be giving their valuable and limited attention. But we have to avoid it.
With a long and thorough format like that of the Sestina, the lure of peachiness becomes even more dangerous. Imagine if I went on for 39 across-the-page lines espousing a personal belief or conception of some worldly wrong, or worse, some religious message. Imagine if I wanted to say that technology is threatening our humanity—and I did—but instead of creating a character and giving him a story, I just said it, over and over and over again in many different ways:
And the Television saps you
And the internet zaps you
Into a state of disclusion
Seclusion
And utter confusion
Until you’re dead
Big dead bed head
Get a life
Play Ball
And fornicate with something real
Instead of fucking yourself into a towel
And hiding it, under your bed
Where you keep your other vices
-fin-
Imagine if I created a series of poems to this end—over and over again.
It’s a theme pervasive in my life, and I want to tell people all about it, of course. I’m that kind of person. I want to tell people everything I know, both to have them think, believe, or know I’m intelligent (I’m not sure which) and to relate to them, because my need to be attended to is insatiable, and I love, love, love human contact. But pontification jeopardizes relationships, especially in art, and if you’re an artist, it jeopardizes the subjective gift of your talent.
So anyway, I’ve expounded that quite enough. You know the dangers of preaching.
What I did, to overcome this complex problem, was use, unwittingly at first, the Sestina formats conduction to story-telling. It’s a long and thorough format and can support a small plot, one or two characters maybe, and a rich line of anecdotes and metaphors. I took my Automaton from birth to catharsis, and final resolution. You can take a bird across the ocean, a man through a city, whatever. It worked for me. I urge you to avoid the “statement” and avoid the “ode”, and to concentrate instead on a humanistic, natural, and inherently warm approach in story telling. It’s not cheap, and everyone is enriched by it. That’s all I have to say about that. Thanks for reading, and I hope it helps.
------
Siredwinsantos@gmail.com
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Automaton (sans Commentary)
