Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Reciprocal

I tried to play around with the poem that I wrote "Reciprocal" tried to see how I can work with the two words.

This is the original:
Always and Never
Never and Always
Two words Always said
Two words that Never should be said

This is the other one:
Always and Never
or Ways and Ever
All the ways that you have ever--
well let's not go there.
Alas! You're clever
Every law is never always followed.
We should always remember never to say never.
We should remember never to say always.
I never say never but I always say always
When I say always I mean always
But when I say never I never really mean never.
What do you think?
Do you usually mean always rather than never?
Or do you usually mean never rather than always?

3 comments:

nadia said...

I like the way you extended the original poem. I have to say that the second poem really does make sense with the pay on words. I liked how you added the question in the end. It actually makes the reader think of their actions. When i thought about it, i came to the conclusion that i mean never more often than always. I think this revision is very clever!

Maria said...

Your poem reminds me of the Lydia Davis poem, "A lawn mower". Two simple words that are said in everyday life, and are most of the time said without having purpose. We tend to say "always" and "never" without actaully realizing under what context it's being used in. Choosing these words is so smart because we don't realize their connotation at times, and I think you do a great job at expressing the words in a different light.

Jody-Ann said...

The original version of the piece although short in my opinion is better than the extended version, and forces the reader to think to a certain extend. It is less complex and i didn't get lost or confused as i did with the extended format (2nd format). If you decided to use the extended format you should work on the clarity of the sentences they are rather confusing and there isn't much organization.