If thought is crucial to
tone, then emotion is crucial to mood.
However, mood is not simply a crayola construction. There is more to mood than happy and sad,
angry and confused. What about a pious
mood?
A contemplative one? A mood of foreboding? Mood also involves history, religion,
thought, physiology, the planets, you name it.
It isn’t less complex than tone or voice, but it can be less highly
articulated… arising as
it does from one sensibility, rather than from the communication between different characters. A scene may involve several characters and their moods, but the mood of the scene takes everything together as a whole. Mood is the feeling of shared ground… a sense of place (and the emotion inhabiting that place) in a poem.
it does from one sensibility, rather than from the communication between different characters. A scene may involve several characters and their moods, but the mood of the scene takes everything together as a whole. Mood is the feeling of shared ground… a sense of place (and the emotion inhabiting that place) in a poem.
Consider the two
different (but linked) moods of the following poems by the same Japanese woman,
writing between 974-1034:
What is
the use In
this world
of
cherishing life in spring? love
has no color—
Its
flowers yet
how deeply
only
shackle us my
body
to this
world. is
stained by yours.
-Izumi
Shikibu
How does the following
poem create mood? What is that mood?
Circle
Each
scar on each tree
without
light, without water.
The day
is over.
Against
the floor,
a chair
scrapes hard.
Into
bowls,
an
avalanche of cereal.
Someone
slams the door.
Abruptly
into their cabinets,
dishes
are stacked.
No one
must speak.
Hearts
circle like dogs,
afraid
of air, of what it carries
from
greater distances.
No one
must open windows
diligently,
methodically closed.
-Dzvinia
Orlowsky
Mood Assigment
Two choices.
Either:
1.
Write an object poem—a poem, as Bly says, where the poet’s attention “remains near the object all the way
through the poem.” Do not bring yourself or any other character into the poem. Write only about meditation/observation/rendering space of the object.
Write an object poem—a poem, as Bly says, where the poet’s attention “remains near the object all the way
through the poem.” Do not bring yourself or any other character into the poem. Write only about meditation/observation/rendering space of the object.
Or
2.
Write a poem that works almost entirely on the direct presentation of sensory experience.
Avoid abstract language and explanations to concentrate on details that are clearly seen,
smelled, touched, tasted, and felt. Use as many of your senses as possible. Think of your poem
as a painting for all the senses; to make this easier, I am asking you to stop time the way a camera
or a painting does. At least limit yourself to three to four seconds. No similes. No metaphors.
Clear, grammatical English only.
Write a poem that works almost entirely on the direct presentation of sensory experience.
Avoid abstract language and explanations to concentrate on details that are clearly seen,
smelled, touched, tasted, and felt. Use as many of your senses as possible. Think of your poem
as a painting for all the senses; to make this easier, I am asking you to stop time the way a camera
or a painting does. At least limit yourself to three to four seconds. No similes. No metaphors.
Clear, grammatical English only.
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