Drawing by Susan C. Price
Odysseus
By Eric Meub
Odysseus
By Eric Meub
[Originally published on February 11, 2017]
His every sentence pitted mortal thought
against that ruthless, terminating dot,
as if annihilation might precede
a new Aeneid no one needs to read.
He trimmed opinion, snipped off every bloom,
let feng-shui tyrannize his living room.
The world became a dollhouse, where the play
décor’s been curbed by, say, Corbusier.
He watched as vanity, knocked overboard
in all the rush to get new worlds explored,
abandoned ego to the wave’s caress,
while Indies bubbled up from emptiness.
For, in the end, who cares if loss arranges
all of Ovid and the Book of Changes
in a fermentation of the soul?
So many grapes will still be eaten whole.
| Copyright © 2018 by Susan C. Price & Eric Meub Eric Meub, architect, lives and practices in Pasadena, the adopted brother of the artist, Susan C. Price. They respect, in their different ways, the line. |
I still mostly fail to comprehend this difficult poem of Eric Meub, even if Susan C. Price’s drawing derived from a photograph I sent her of myself. Maybe it’s because I’m no Odysseus? Please, anyone, including Eric, if you have moment and inclination, give me some clues, a key to unlock meaning from this poem’s elusive lines!
ReplyDeleteExploration and the introduction of wine making to the New World (Christopher Columbus?) is all I can come up with.
DeleteYes, I can see that possibility. I wonder whether the “he” – who wrote “sentences” – might be (or have been) a writer, and may have written about explorations, several of which might be being alluded to here. And “feng-shui” and “Corbusier” suggest he may have written about gardens and architecture as well? “Trimmed opinion” – a critic? Le Corbusier died in 1965 – could “he” have been within the last half-century or so?
DeleteA poet?
ReplyDeleteA lyricist. Sounds like someone I know.
ReplyDeleteOr a playwright! I think it's Samuel Beckett. The "ruthless terminating dot"? Godot!
ReplyDeleteJohn Steinbeck
ReplyDeleteYou really think so? Doesn't feel right. What particular clues are you going by?
DeleteLet me know what clues you are using to determine this is about Samuel Beckett so I can see it from your perspective.
ReplyDeleteYes, forgive me. Besides “terminating dot” (Godot):
Delete* “annihilation” is, for me, symptomatic of Beckett’s world view.
* the bare (minimalist) “living room” suggests Beckett’s theater “world...a dollhouse (Ibsen)...the play[‘s] décor’s [having] been curbed by...Corbusier.”
I haven’t sufficient knowledge of Beckett to rationalize the rest:
He watched as vanity, knocked overboard
in all the rush to get new worlds explored,
abandoned ego to the wave’s caress,
while Indies bubbled up from emptiness.
For, in the end, who cares if loss arranges
all of Ovid and the Book of Changes
in a fermentation of the soul?
So many grapes will still be eaten whole.
Some comment that has so far been confined to Facebook (horrors!):
ReplyDeleteBettina: John Steinbeck? He visited the Indies to review original documents from Christopher Columbus.
Corbusier's Weedpatch is referenced in The Grapes of Wrath as Wheatpatch. The Weedpatch Camp was housing built for migrant workers during the Dust Bowl, built in a minimalist fashion and all looking the same, perhaps referencing Corbusier's ideal farm. Corbusier was an architectural minimalist and a contributor to social reform and transformation. Who Knows?
Steimbeck was also a playwrite. Of Mice and Men is notable.
Morris: True enough. One begins to wonder whether all of Eric's "clues" neatly "add up" to a particular author? I'm bothered by the reference to ALL of his (or her) sentences.
Bettina: They may not add up to anything, however, enough intelligence and one can connect dots that may not have been intentional.
Of course, what is poetry without coherency?
Morris: Yes, incoherency does not signal admirable poetic work.
And planted ambiguity, for levels of reference or interpretation, is an art in itself.
Bettina: Therefore, we can conclude that somewhere in that poem there's some coherency - we just don't know where it lies.
Morris: Exactly! I trust Eric implicitly.
Eric has filled me in (via email):
ReplyDeleteSorry that Odysseus poem has caused troubles: might as well chuck it. It’s because of poems like this that Susan hates poetry (or thinks she doesn’t “get” it). I didn’t know you were the subject of the portrait when I wrote it. I love the “Godot” theory, but, alas, I am not that clever. The picture looked like a sailor, so I took that as my theme. But it’s really about the creative process: trying to frame nebulous thoughts into logical syntax (the “dot” is merely a period); trying to create for an “audience”; trying to let go of “self” in the creative process; and looking at the possibility of being transformed by one’s work, instead of the other way around. At least, I suppose, those were some thoughts in my head as I was writing about this “sailor” in front of me. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t! I never mind an ornate failure.
Well, now that Eric has reminded me that Susan’s drawing (or portrait, certainly in this case) is virtually always his starting point, and inspiration, and that there is something sailory about Susan’s rendering of my image, I can make some sense of “he” as a creative explorer through his art, writing, escaping quotidian self and transformed, on a good day, unto something newly created. Sounds aspirational, anyway.
ReplyDeleteThat was a lot of fun.
ReplyDelete