Sunday, February 6, 2011

Song of the Powers by David Mason

At first I thought this was a creative little poem about the power which is assumed in the game of rock-paper-scissors, or at least the rock-paper-scissors concept. Each of the first three stanzas is dedicated to each element's claim of its own power, and what it could do with that power. The rock crushes the scissors, the words and images of the paper smother the rock, and the scissors' "knives [gash] through paper's ethereal lives." Mason also refers to wishes twice, in the first and third stanza, which I associated with the lucky chance basis of the game.

But then I read the last stanza and I was a little taken aback. "As stone crushes scissors,as paper snuffs stone and scissors cut paper,all end alone." This quirky personification of power in a simple conflict resolution game suddenly turned into this depressing prediction of loneliness. The powers which each of the choices contain all, apparently, lead to being alone. What Mason means exactly by "alone" I am still a little unsure of, but he seems to be fairly certain that it is everyones fate: "They all end alone. As you will, you will." This is the first time he directly addresses the reader, which I thought was a way of jolting the reader into realizing that the poem was actually referring to a characteristic of human nature, or something to that affect. He also repeats "you will" to reinforce his tragic conclusion, ending his poem on a rather pessimistic note. But of course there always has to be something bleak and unpleasant in pretty much all of our poems, so I don't know how I could have thought that. I suppose it was still a very imaginative poem in its own right, though.

3 comments:

  1. I think this poem starts out deceptively simple and then ends up quite profound. I like your thoughts on it!

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  2. "This quirky personification of power in a simple conflict resolution game suddenly turned into this depressing prediction of loneliness." I love this! Your blogs flow so nicely!

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  3. "This is the first time he directly addresses the reader, which I thought was a way of jolting the reader into realizing that the poem was actually referring to a characteristic of human nature..." I thought that statement was brilliant. I don't think it could be said better than that! Great job.

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