Comments on: Ode to a Claw Hammer

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 19:29:44 +0000

joan – I’m sorry, I missed this comment until now. You’ve got a real gift for light verse; don’t look it in the teeth! (Or something like that.)

Every time I sit down to write a poem, I say to myself, “Nothing doing! I can’t think of anything,” yet somehow words and ideas always come. Maybe you’re trying too hard. Faced with a spork, androgyny might not be the operative image at all for me. I wouldn’t want to try and determine that in advance. The first priority is to empty the mind of preconceptions as much as possible, and try to relate to object of attention in a wholly aesthetic/emotive manner.

G.M. Palmer – Thanks for stopping by! Yes, it is more of a midwife role, isn’t it? But I wanted to go as far as possible in challenging the easy equation of nailing to f***ing. So there was a bit of a feminist agenda at work there.

By: G.M. Palmer

G.M. Palmer — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 18:09:25 +0000

Wow — I’m glad to be finding so many great poets (found you from Velveteen Rabbi). I love the idea of giving birth to nails (though the hammer may seem more like the dr. with foreceps at times).

Peace,
Michael

By: joan

joan — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 05:38:14 +0000

These are wonderful images, Dave. I was inspired greatly by your creative personification of the inanimate, but somehow it just didn’t work out as well for me. (grin)

Your claw hammer androgyny
Lit a creative spark.
I searched for something similar
But really came up short.
Metaphorically I’m ‘challenged’
And I feel like such a dork
Cause the closest I could come here
Was a flimsy plastic spork.
The spoonish part is feminine
The tines should be the male
But no matter how I looked at it
That image seemed to fail.
I could stare at that utensil
Strain my brain beyond belief
Could not force a prongish metaphor
All looked to me like teeth.

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 00:44:36 +0000

Thanks, Jo.

leslee – Anvils remind me more than anything of failed weapons. Like if a tank had an abortion, for example.

Glad you liked, but I think we’ll need a couple more before we can call it a series. And at the moment, I don’t know if I have any more in me. Then again, I’m usually the last to know.

By: leslee

leslee — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 21:47:21 +0000

This is the third time in less than a week that the word “anvil” has come up (or been plunked down, as the case may be) in conversation. Very heavy. ;-)

Nice poem. Definitely worth a series!

By: Jo

Jo — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 19:41:31 +0000

Well done.

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:23:08 +0000

sarah b – You’re right — those are cool names. Hmmm.

David – Thanks for the links! And yeah, anvils are very charismatic objects. We have a big one that resides in the old shed. I think it was here when we moved in, and may predate the farm itself, given that the first settler was a forgeman.

Lucy – Oh, I’m glad these resonate with you!

eped – Thanks for stopping by. Yeah, Neruda’s odes are among my favorite things of his. But the immediate impulse actually came from Charles Simic: he has a matchless “Ode” in Charon’s Cosmology.

beth – Thanks. Actually, I would love to find someone to do woodcuts for a “Morning Porch” compilation, too.

By: beth

beth — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:24:39 +0000

This begs for a woodcut illustration…quite a tour-de-force, Dave. I especially like the legs giving birth to nails.

By: eped

eped — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:05:27 +0000

real nice, this & the wrenches both. taking me back to Neruda’s Odas Elementales, which I appreciate. I also like this coupling of verse & the rude utility of simple machines.

By: Lucy

Lucy — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 13:49:22 +0000

I am enjoying these tool poems! I find arrangements of tools, like your socket wrenches, aesthetically very satisfying, and I’ve always thought hammers seemed like creatures with an identity…