University of Technology, Sydney Writing Laboratory Final Work
21st Century Musings of Metaphysical Poetry & Poets
By Ruby Lily Jones
Exegesis For my area of research, I chose to study the reoccurring themes within the genre of metaphysical poetry in 17th century Europe. I was most inspired by the works of Andrew Marvell, John Donne and George Herbert. Through disassembling their poems and utilizing a blog as a topical moodboard, I identified the below poetic characteristics: • • • • •
Extravagant comparisons Inventiveness Unexpected metaphors Complex rhythms Metaphysical conceit
Additionally, I observed the below common themes and shifting contexts within the poems. Some of which could also be considered general ‘popculture’ topics of the era, such as Neo-Platonism. • • • • • • •
The soul Ideas of love and true love Horticulture Religion Power structures Neo-Platonism Cosmology
This undoing of the text enabled me to confidentially recreate modernday interpretations and re-appropriations of the genre. While simultaneously interweaving historical and cultural references, current ‘pop-culture’ trends and nods to other literature covered within the Writing and Cultural Studies Major, such as Truman Capote and Helen Garner into the texts. When reading, it is also vital to note that the complex and multilayered references and comparisons in metaphysical poetry requires the reader to have a level of cultural understanding.
This knowledge distinguishes the reader and has been critized as a selective approach adopted by metaphysical poets. However, I urge you to research the reference or annotation if it is not clear, as they add a second layer meaning to the text. Additionally, I made a conscious effort to place myself firmly within the texts through using short and sudden stanzas, addressing in first person and questioning the reader and myself. I chose the online publishing platform Issuu to display my works, for its new approach to publishing texts and exposing them to a cultural niche. Essentially, this sharing of texts is also not dissimilar from the 17th century approach, where poems where not formally published and solely distributed within a selective group of fellow poets and literates. Artist Lisa Jones and myself composed the artwork used on the front cover and final page. The work incorporates doubled layered works on paper; a woodcut brain and lungs from Mundinus Anatomica, Marburg, 1541 and medical current-day scans of blood vessels. I chose this artwork as it corresponds with various biological references within the texts, while simultaneously bridging the gap between art and poetry within this revolutionary era. Thanks, Ruby Lily Jones
Contents
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A Dialogue Between The Body And Soul
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Little Love
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Nowhere
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Marvell’s Garden
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South East, Eighteen
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The Law of One
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Our Natural Satellite
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(New) Middle English
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Celestial Change
A Dialogue Between The Body And Soul In a fixt correspondence, chains of nerves, arteries, vessels and veins. She is the biomarker, head of state in our biochemistry, while other limbs and organs labor. The body is the book, with an author, prologue and tales. God?
She is the enlightened spirit whom sees, as souls, whom no change can invade. Bound in a prison of nerves, arteries vessels and veins. She
Is the soul distressed in the body? Rip apart these prologues and pages, speak through these fleshy walls to the divine God-Cell. Squeeze the pain from my belly and set my soul free.
Little love At first thou gavest me milk and sweetness, my days were strewed with flowers and weakness. Just say when and I’ll take you to my Tardis. I, Dolores Haze and he, Humbert Humbert. the light of his life, fire of his loins. Love
But alas, Cupid is blind, we have made our beds, now we hate where these beds be. Should I buy the Camaro and drive to find Sal Paradise? then join the beat, to be their Andie Fitzgerald. Zelda
But then Love took my hand and smiling did reply, you must sit down and taste my meat. So I did sit and I did eat.
Eucharist
Nowhere Lets talk about a new world order, bring Weishaupt to the table. Enlighten us with the Bavarian Illuminati, any changes to be made on The Republic?
380 BC
Why live in Moore’s nowhere Utopia, when we can watch this American Horror Story? Because this world swallows souls, so drown the whole world, we did.
Marvell’s Garden The only month is May, full of sweat leaves and blossomed greens. Sweet spring, full of sweet days and rose, the garden is simply tamed nature. The Dutch create coloured tulips, Ottoman’s tulip empire. But, alas, his efforts were all in vein, as there is no purer beauty, other than nature. Puffy from hay fever, Eden in the first ever garden. Adam’s paradise before Eve, a man that walked without a mate. Nature courts with apples, fruits and flowers, you do not find Love in the temple, but in the garden. God
So am’rous this lovely green, to a green thought in a green shade. Red apples drop about my head, Such was that happy Garden-state. I read and sigh, and wish I were a tree.
South East, eighteen We are the Romans, all roads lead to us, red and white t-shirts, do they know This Is England? Show bravery in the face of defeat, rewind, repeat. 1666
As London Bridge is burning down, brixton is burning up. Riot
Is it time to call Jimmy Savile? lets see the world through his rose-tinted glasses. Honestly, mate, you look sterling. Now sit back to witness the fitness, The cruffiton liveth. One hope, one quest.
The Law of One One world love, one world soul, Love, before love. The Law of One, one hope, one quest. The Love before knowing, Plato and Aristotle’s cosmic nous. Triumph over hearts that strive, be as bright as glow-worms shine. Resist not evil, expose it yes, because there is a god. Some say
He sits far from other worlds and other seas, in paradise alone. This is all simulated, Philosophical Quarterly I was once told there is a 98% chance. Little AI avatars on a blueprint planet, pixelated atoms performing on a screen.
Our Natural Satellite There is no honey on the moon, no treacle, nor tar. There is no man on the moon, and no celestial power, moving it. I see the bad moon arising and it sees me, that is where my heart is longing to be. Cut me a slice, like it is a barrel of brie, Gromit and put in on a cracker. Monroe’s
At night, I think of the blue moon in Kentucky, and Kerouac’s sounds of the pacific at Big Sur. It is only a paper moon, sailing over a flat cardboard sea.
(New) Middle English I wish I had met Henry VIII, gout is painful, isn’t killing your wives? 1473
He watched over me as I ate in St Catharine’s dinner hall, as I wonder if I would end up like Anne Boleyn. Let me not love Thee, if I love Thee not. I will visit Windsor Castle, and yell Monks! Monks! Monks! When the Wife of Bath whispers in my ear, ‘marriage is a misery and a woe; for let me say, if I may make so bold.’ Did Betty Lou Beets know her 16th century predecessor? And if times had changed, would Boleyn be his successor?
Celestial change The intelligences, they the spheres, angels posed on planets. Games of push-and-pull, come to rest as gravity takes hold. Climate
On The Revolution of Heavenly Spheres
Change in is the air, each of you is within the body of a living universe, A new era of Thespia waste, are the Aonian springs dri’d up once more? Jesus
Everyone’s own personal Milky Way, drink a cup of fossil fuel and stomach its defeat. Birds off the Pacific know what it taste like, so why don’t you?
Univeristy of Technology, Sydney Ruby Lily Jones ruby.jones07@hotmail.com