Lumpy pudding

Judging a poem is like judging a pudding or a machine. One demands that it work. Poetry succeeds because all or most of what is said or implied is relevant; what is irrelevant has been excluded, like lumps from pudding and 'bugs' from machinery. (Wimsatt & Beardsley)

Here we celebrate the excluded, lumpy parts of the pudding!

Nov 15, 2011 2:13pm

$Those Various Scalpels by Marianne Moore Those various sounds, consistently indistinct, like intermingled echoes struck from thin glasses successively at random— the inflection disguised: your hair, the tails of two fighting-cocks head to head in stone— like sculptured scimitars repeating the curve of your ears in reverse order: your eyes, flowers of ice and snow sown by tearing winds on the cordage of disabled ships: your raised hand an ambiguous signature: your cheeks, those rosettes of blood on the stone floors of French châteaux, with regard to which the guides are so affirmative— your other hand a bundle of lances all alike, partly hid by emeralds from Persia and the fractional magnificence of Florentine goldwork—a collection of little objects— sapphires set with emeralds, and pearls with a moonstone, made fine with enamel in gray, yellow, and dragonfly blue; a lemon, a pear and three bunches of grapes, tied with silver: your dress, a magnificent square cathedral tower of uniform and at the same time diverse appearance—a species of vertical vineyard, rustling in the storm of conventional opinion—are they weapons or scalpels? Whetted to brilliance by the hard majesty of that sophistication which is superior to opportunity, these things are rich instruments with which to experiment. But why dissect destiny with instruments more highly specialized than the components of destiny itself? — Photo: Carl Van Vechten, Nov. 1, 1948 (The Beinecke)$

Those Various Scalpels by Marianne Moore

Those
various sounds, consistently indistinct, like intermingled echoes
    struck from thin glasses successively at random—
       the inflection disguised: your hair, the tails of two
fighting-cocks head to head in stone—
    like sculptured scimitars repeating the curve of your
       ears in reverse order:
                                                                    your eyes,
     flowers of ice and snow

sown by tearing winds on the cordage of disabled ships: your
    raised hand
an ambiguous signature: your cheeks, those rosettes
    of blood on the stone floors of French châteaux,
with regard to which the guides are so affirmative—
    your other hand

a bundle of lances all alike, partly hid by emeralds from Persia
    and the fractional magnificence of Florentine
       goldwork—a collection of little objects—
sapphires set with emeralds, and pearls with a moonstone, made fine
    with enamel in gray, yellow, and dragonfly blue;
       a lemon, a pear

and three bunches of grapes, tied with silver: your dress, a magnificent square
cathedral tower of uniform
    and at the same time diverse appearance—a
species of vertical vineyard, rustling in the storm
    of conventional opinion—are they weapons or scalpels?
        Whetted to brilliance

by the hard majesty of that sophistication which is superior to opportunity,
these things are rich instruments with which to experiment.
    But why dissect destiny with instruments
    more highly specialized than the components of destiny
       itself?

—

Photo: Carl Van Vechten, Nov. 1, 1948 (The Beinecke)

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