Understanding Modern Poetry
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Today, we shall study Modern Poetry and its semantics through the interpretation of one of its most famous pieces, Frei De Fisch's Freedom from Early Morning Phlegm.
(The poem is reproduced below for reference.)
(The poem is reproduced below for reference.)
***
FREEDOM FROM EARLY MORNING PHLEGM
Nose.
Earmouth.eyeeyelasheyelideyewash. eye-o.
Yeehaw!!Ernest Hemingway wrote, "Yeehaw!!".when will my pretty mama come to me?
before MaMa, i come home?
Yesterday's sufferers are Today'sUnderwriters; Underwear understands underlying underlings' under underrated undervaluation.
Yeh under ki baat hai.
Ali Bhai is a Spy.
Sometimes, I look back pregnantly at poignancy and wonder Why?
Old Sailor told Gifted Sundararajan Ramanamoorthy not to cry.
Why?
Yeh under ki baat hai.
Feel fuckin free. FREE!
go
away
today
no?
***
Rhyme and Meter: Few people know, that as a kid, Fisch had this disorder by which he would stress on every third syllable, and to get the inner meaning and rhythm in his poetry, it is essential to stress on every third syllable. It is also rumoured that at the time when Fisch wrote this poem about his traumatic early morning experiences, the Enter key on his keyboard was malfunctioning, giving the poem its broken structure. In an interview, shortly before his accidental demise, Fisch said, "My life mirrors my Enter key. Often, just like the key, I feel pressed."
This poem's third verse is Fisch's tribute to the early years of poetry, when rhyme was considered important. Fisch always maintained, however, that although life is poetry, life doesn't rhyme.
Understanding the Poem: Most Modern poetry, is freewheeling, inward looking and unbound - it does not answer questions, but asks questions of you. Early Modern Poetry, however, has a verse that lays down the broad framework within which the poem will operate. In this poem, the first verse tells you that the main theme of the poem will be the nose - a recurring theme in Frei's work (Frei always thought that his nose was too pointed and often worried that he might injure someone with it.) - and the rest of the verse tells you that it will also involve the ear, the mouth and various parts of the eye.
Crucially, the poem will deal with a problem and a solution - characterised by the exclamations, "eye-o" (Frei's crude transliteration of the Tamilian, "Aiyo!") and "Yeehaw!!"
Note Frei's characteristic style of pairs of words strung together to form a sentence in the first line of the second verse. This line is an empty signifier - it means nothing, and shows that life starts with a sense of nothingness. And then figured start populating it - like Ernest Hemingway, whom Frei shared a close relationship with. He often dreamt of Hemingway as an employee of the Income Tax Department chasing Frei around Portugal's farmlands in a Samurai outfit, screaming, "Yeehaw!!"
After the men, come the women, and lastly, Ozzy Ozzbourne. This poem is set in the time when Ozzy was Frei's greatest inspiration. Photographs of Frei's house with a painting of Ozzy standing like Jesus Christ are widely available on the internet. And while Frei suffered in those days not being able to tell the difference between his obsession and his religion, he took up a job at a company that engaged in underwriting.
His work brought him to India, where the famous ad for Lux underwear led to the landmark trademark decision of the Supreme Court of India on the word "under" - that similarly pronounced words in different languages having similar import in certain circumstances could be used interchangeably. Frei takes a dig at the Supreme Court's undervaluation of the damages in that suit.
This was around the time when Frei met his closest friend, and later greatest enemy, Ali Bhai. Ali Bhai had a running nose for most of his life, and their close association led to Frei contracting the same problem. Ali Bhai alleged, being high on Himesh Reshammiya's music, that Frei had contracted this from Ali's wife. Frei then accused Ali of spying on his bedroom and never spoke to him again.
Just like Gregory David Roberts, Frei was given an Indian name - Sundararajan Ramanamoorthy. Frei's prose consists of only one book - Sundararajan - that sold only three copies - all bought by The Frei Memorial Library in Portgual. Frei often refers to his publisher, Penguin, as an Old Sailor in his poems. The reasons are unknown.
The last verse of this poem, say some Frei scholars was a printing error that crept into only the later versions of his noted collection of poems - Fourteen Feathers and a Football.
Yeh under ki baat hai.
Ali Bhai is a Spy.
Sometimes, I look back pregnantly at poignancy and wonder Why?
Old Sailor told Gifted Sundararajan Ramanamoorthy not to cry.
Why?
Yeh under ki baat hai.
Feel fuckin free. FREE!
go
away
today
no?
***
Rhyme and Meter: Few people know, that as a kid, Fisch had this disorder by which he would stress on every third syllable, and to get the inner meaning and rhythm in his poetry, it is essential to stress on every third syllable. It is also rumoured that at the time when Fisch wrote this poem about his traumatic early morning experiences, the Enter key on his keyboard was malfunctioning, giving the poem its broken structure. In an interview, shortly before his accidental demise, Fisch said, "My life mirrors my Enter key. Often, just like the key, I feel pressed."
This poem's third verse is Fisch's tribute to the early years of poetry, when rhyme was considered important. Fisch always maintained, however, that although life is poetry, life doesn't rhyme.
Understanding the Poem: Most Modern poetry, is freewheeling, inward looking and unbound - it does not answer questions, but asks questions of you. Early Modern Poetry, however, has a verse that lays down the broad framework within which the poem will operate. In this poem, the first verse tells you that the main theme of the poem will be the nose - a recurring theme in Frei's work (Frei always thought that his nose was too pointed and often worried that he might injure someone with it.) - and the rest of the verse tells you that it will also involve the ear, the mouth and various parts of the eye.
Crucially, the poem will deal with a problem and a solution - characterised by the exclamations, "eye-o" (Frei's crude transliteration of the Tamilian, "Aiyo!") and "Yeehaw!!"
Note Frei's characteristic style of pairs of words strung together to form a sentence in the first line of the second verse. This line is an empty signifier - it means nothing, and shows that life starts with a sense of nothingness. And then figured start populating it - like Ernest Hemingway, whom Frei shared a close relationship with. He often dreamt of Hemingway as an employee of the Income Tax Department chasing Frei around Portugal's farmlands in a Samurai outfit, screaming, "Yeehaw!!"
After the men, come the women, and lastly, Ozzy Ozzbourne. This poem is set in the time when Ozzy was Frei's greatest inspiration. Photographs of Frei's house with a painting of Ozzy standing like Jesus Christ are widely available on the internet. And while Frei suffered in those days not being able to tell the difference between his obsession and his religion, he took up a job at a company that engaged in underwriting.
His work brought him to India, where the famous ad for Lux underwear led to the landmark trademark decision of the Supreme Court of India on the word "under" - that similarly pronounced words in different languages having similar import in certain circumstances could be used interchangeably. Frei takes a dig at the Supreme Court's undervaluation of the damages in that suit.
This was around the time when Frei met his closest friend, and later greatest enemy, Ali Bhai. Ali Bhai had a running nose for most of his life, and their close association led to Frei contracting the same problem. Ali Bhai alleged, being high on Himesh Reshammiya's music, that Frei had contracted this from Ali's wife. Frei then accused Ali of spying on his bedroom and never spoke to him again.
Just like Gregory David Roberts, Frei was given an Indian name - Sundararajan Ramanamoorthy. Frei's prose consists of only one book - Sundararajan - that sold only three copies - all bought by The Frei Memorial Library in Portgual. Frei often refers to his publisher, Penguin, as an Old Sailor in his poems. The reasons are unknown.
The last verse of this poem, say some Frei scholars was a printing error that crept into only the later versions of his noted collection of poems - Fourteen Feathers and a Football.
Posts
7 replies:
a master piece....
Jesus man. I can think of only two possible gastronomic inputs that could have inspired this : either 2 well-rolled and slowly smoked spliffs, or a particularly weak Narasu's filter coffee.
Did you know Frei is rumoured to have worked in his early years with a mythical cult by name Dead Poets' Society?
As the Cambridge school commented famously, "Rasam, rasam, rasam, minus the sambar, and a little chutney."
Cheerio,
- A.X.
@s
Thanks.
@A.X.
I think you mean the Alive Poets Society and their World Famous poem, Brushing Food at Night.
And it was bad machine "cappuccino" that did the trick. As the old adage goes, "Cappuccino Coffeeaa, Sophiya?"
I see you've been reading Woody Allen's prose a bit too seriously! A good effort, though a bit unoriginal, if you'll forgive me.
@spero
I acknowledge the unoriginality fully! See, even a bad effort at doing what He did is better than my originality. (Or GTTTT as we tamilians would say - people who didn't get it - the old joke, "oru G naalu T")
Poetry is just bad prose. I wish people would get over it. Except Ogden Nash and maybe Vikram Seth
@red
Kipling!
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