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Are antennas lonely?

vurtomatic

vurtomatic

Bluelight Crew
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Are antennas lonely? I pictured them, alone, against a backdrop of the sky, ripples of frequencies radiating from them to fill the sky, overlapping like sets of probabilities, paths crossing. Each and every antenna in the world reaching their tiny fists into the sky, opening, radiating, overlapping and touching across the wide inky expanse; stars shining, flickering in the night. Each star itself a giant antenna, radiating its own frequency, of yet smaller, overlapping frequencies from smaller, alien antennas that're lonely too. That reach out across the empty void of space, between dust motes, reaching out, overlapping, ever overlapping. Each star pulsating with frequencies that radiated across the galaxies, reaching out, filtering, percolating down through the terrestrial atmosphere, to touch the antennas in our hearts. Are antennas lonely? We all are, waiting for the signal out of the noise.
 
Hey vurt, I like this. Which came first: the words or the image? I like 'writing to' an image sometimes.
 
Thanks guys!

The title came first actually. It was something random my friend said when drinking on a roof top, and it stuck with me 'cos of the ideas and images it conjured up. I wanted to save the line for something, so I filed it away. This picture came along while watching an anime and I thought it was perfect, and began writing whatever came to mind.

It's certainly not the "usual" process by which I come up with stuff.
 
Very cool prose piece. Certainly not poetry but that makes absolutely no difference (afterall not everything posted needs to be poetry... I'm glad this is true). You're clearly a great creative writer and I admire anyone who can look at something (a real-world observation, a picture, etc.) and use their imagination to write all about it.

I'm extraordinarily pleased by the elegance and imagination of the piece. Awesome.
 
It's often strange, the happenings that can push a piece of writing into existence. I always like to read about the inspirations and processes going on behind writing that I enjoy.

Certainly not poetry
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Why isn't it poetry?
 
"Poetry: The best words in the best order" S.T. Coleridge

order

This isn't poetry because it has not structure of any kind and is not set up as poetry. Now you can get abstract on me and claim that it has "poetic value" or something, which, it certainly does. But, that doesn't make it a POEM.

What this piece is, is eloquent and awe-inspiring prose. It's work of literature: a paragraph.

I'd like to hear the author's opinion.

But Christ... this brings up a broader issue. What the hell has happened to the structured art of poetry in our modern times? No rhymes, no meter, no structure of any kind...
 
Errm no I didn't write this as a poem. This was written as prose because each previous sentence has to build up to the next sentence in ideas, imageries, and tone, sort of in a "stream of consciousness" way. And it finishes where it began while sort of ending up somewhere else if that makes sense.

I thought about it as a poem and decided breaking up the lines and into stanzas would interrupt the "stream."

I'm guessing by "poetry," wordy is referring to the style or "lyricial" quality.

But I'm not schooled in these things so pardon the lousy explanation
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Sorry vurt, I feel like we're hijacking your thread... but I couldn't let wastedwalrus's comment go unchallenged.

To put it simply, wastedwalrus, you clearly have a much narrower definition of poetry than I do.

The full quote from Coleridge runs thus:

I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose = words in their best order; poetry = the best words in the best order.
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Therefore, for Coleridge, order is not exclusive to poetry. Although I agree that in defining poetry it's useful to note that poetry generally presupposes some kind of order, or orders, whether the poem follows those orders or not.

To say vurt's piece has no structure of any kind is pretty silly if you ask me.

What the hell has happened to the structured art of poetry in our modern times? No rhymes, no meter, no structure of any kind...
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Likewise, if I were you I'd be wary of claiming that contemporary poetry has "no structure of any kind". Granted, a lot of contemporary poetry doesn't follow traditional poetic forms. But perhaps the structure is obscure, ultimately known only by the poet (although I for one would protest this notion)? Or perhaps structure is discernable if you look closely, think laterally, read creatively? Perhaps you don't need a discernable structure for a poem to succeed as a poem? I imagine we'd disagree on this last point, which is fine...

And for the record, I'm not trying to say that vurt's piece IS a poem... just that it could be read as one. After all, there is such a thing as prose poetry.

vurt, you may not have intended it as a poem, and like you say, may even have explicitly made the decision to not write it as a poem. From what you've said, if you'd intended it to be read as a poem, you would've formatted it differently. This doesn't stop anyone from reading it "as a poem". If you were to call it a poem, I'm sure people would be more likely to attempt reading it "as a poem" (whatever that might mean).

A quote to think about, from Stephen Rodefer:

'poetry' doesn't mean a thing - nobody knows what it is or can even recognize it, except as whatever is bought under that heading. 'Art' likewise.
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I do agree that contemporary poetry eschews a lot of traditional structure, and just as wordy said, sometimes the structure might only be understood by the writer, or otherwise, is free to be interpreted by the reader.

However, conventional poetry HAS structure simply by virture of being broken into lines and stanzas. It is the structure and arrangement of words that differentiates poetry from prose, otherwise we'd just call them "a bunch of words strung together."

I feel in a poem, each line is an essence (I quote "economy of expression" from err somwhere), and each line, taken out of the context of surrounding lines, has the power to stand alone and still resonate.

Which is not necessarily the case with prose. That's how I differentiate them.
 
Great post, vurt. I was just trying to tease out people's definitions of poetry, and it's working! ;) Apologies for doing it in your thread though... :o

wastedwalrus, yours is a great post too, even though I disagree with parts of it.

Both of you clearly have a passion for poetry, which is great to see. :)
 
Hey guys, it's all art right? =D

Of course we'll have different interpretations and views but, in the end, all of our ideas are united and bound by the artistic vehicle of general literature.

Wordy, I personally believe that modern poetry, just like modern visual art, has succumb to chaos and lack of discipline. So, that's what I was referring to. I'd like to discuss this more but you're right... we sort of highjacked the thread.

IT IS A GREAT PROSE PIECE THOUGH!!! ;)
 
the opposition of structure is itself a defined, and therefore structured, form.

and i really like that last line...
Are antennas lonely? We all are, waiting for the signal out of the noise.
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:)
 
echo off said:
the opposition of structure is itself a defined, and therefore structured, form.

and i really like that last line...

:)
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I strongly disagree... that's like saying being unpatriotic is actually, in some twisted way, a display of patriotism. Doesn't make sense unless you want to stretch everything beyond its limits.
 
^^^vurt, that's awesome! I was just about to comment and say I dunno how I missed this when you first posted it, but it was really sad and I liked it - I do feel that the image adds a really melancholy touch to it, and formatting the whole thing together as you've done here really suits it.

I also really really like the stars as antennas bit....I'm a sucker for anything that talks about the universe. :)
 
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