The Carcass Caucus

A little to the left sir, yes

that’s right. And you ma-d-am, can you

hear me, dear, please

step aside.

Good; perfect, now I want something

a bit more un-con-ventional. There!

well done, Walter, but maybe

Miss K would like a bit more…

Space! Alas, nice

and symmetrical-like, kid,

please pick up that ol’ poppy,

She seems to be wilting:

Ok, nice and perky now – hold

tight everyone this will be –

There we go, and we’re done

and dusted. Everyone back to their holes.

Miss K, hurry, please, we don’t want your children 

asking too many questions again. And remember,

everyone, tomorrow we’re getting a few more members –

pandemic, I heard.

No, not the plague, Walter, have you been doing your …

Oh, never mind; also please, committee members,

don’t forget the meeting on Friday – Stalin’s birthday

is around the corner! Yes, Miss K,

there’ll be trifle pudding. 

The Review; Or, Two Half-Poets, Conversing.

GRAB:

So, honest thoughts. Yesterday I read it sideways, in the dark, and I wasn't in love with the shape of it. It seemed cranky, industrial, metallic, even if good. I've had another look today, and I like very much that (is this deliberate?) in the lines that are not clearly physical or posing instruction to cadaverous models there are pleas for help, for personal release, by whoever's narrating this shindig. I’ve convinced myself that the narrator is in fact himself begging not to die (begging someone! Anyone!). I can see pleas hiding in there, amidst all the (what appears to be) photographic instruction?

Whether or not you even meant to do this, plea/instruction/plea, it’s brilliant. The pandemic, 2020, as Carcass Caucus. What escapes me is why you adjust the meter, or the shape of the delivery anyway, in your last two verses…

BAZZI:

Well, (GRAB), the driving theme behind this poem is dealing with the very specific idea that a photograph represents the death of someone. By photographing someone, you immediately immortalise them, record their presence (or essence) for the future to behold. Whereas before, living memory or written texts would be the ultimate arbiters in how this or that person is seen, we now have an added dimension. Thus, much of the poem attempts to explore the irony of photographing the dead, which turns into clear mockery at some stages. What do the dead become? Does photographing the dead bring them back to life? 

The change of meter that you correctly point out is meant to be an indulgence, or release, from the instruction of life and death. It is indulging the event, indulging the clanky and metallic instruction of life, and its motions. The clankiness is meant to recreate that feeling. 

Wherein lies the plea for help? Does it matter that these pleas are unknown to the author (me)? Speaking of which, a whole literature is dedicated to understanding the punctum within photography, that which grabs the viewer unwittingly, pulling him to this image. Is this the bridge between photograph and poetry? 

GRAB:

Ah, fantastic :). When a poem can mean so much more to a reader than you perhaps intended it to, or even something else entirely, there’s gold in your hills, surely.

I wonder if I would have made these observations myself, had I been sleeping better than I have these past few nights - but I read the thing, then held it away from me, and couldn’t help but notice the number of times the photographer says ‘please’; almost, to me, as if he’s stressing the point of barrier between himself and the dead. Trying not to get pulled in?

When I held the phone away, again, trying to find a single defining line, it was this one: “Hear me dear please.” Isolated and desperate, like someone who is himself about to die. I think it happens very early, not too early, but early enough to shape my perception of the transaction in progress. (I think it also struck a chord with the fact that I am trying to sleep myself to death, lol; it hovered there, in my head, and it shone).

Your logic is perfect, however, even if the poem doesn’t actually need explanation. The narrative is lightly vivid, I see now, with words like holes, dusted, wilting. A nifty dichotomy of worlds, overall.

So on that line again, “Hear me dear please,” ... It’s such an opportunistic way to write poetry :), but do you isolate the lines to see how many are knockout lyrical or emotional punches in and of themselves? It’s not necessarily in how you wrote these ones - more how you cascade the phrases you already have. Do you cascade, to ensure each line is screaming for attention of its own? Or at least yelling?

BAZZI: 

I think that the natural distance between the photographer and the photographed - both physical and metaphysical - means that he is always standing outside the situation, always an observer of it. When you pointed that out, I couldn't help but think of the distance - both physical and metaphysical - between you and your phone screen. You could bring the phone as close to your face as you want but you will always remain outside of it. Even I remain outside of my own piece of work, even though it may contain traces of my self/selves. Isn't that such an odd thing about writing and photography? Once you create it, it no longer becomes yours alone. It becomes something everyone shares in, or steals from. 

As for the structure of my poetry, I usually attempt for each line to make sense of itself (and thus, each one remains an isolated emotional entity); but also does each line have the ability to narrativise, and is it thus connected in terms of flow and theme to those surrounding it? I often rewrite lines, and then realise I have rewritten stanzas, and then sometimes rewritten the entire poem altogether.  Does that make any sense?