Jogging the Mind

A place for poetry and pondering.

Prose Poem 1

Hello all,

Below you will find a prose poem that I wrote a few months ago. It’s a little dense but I hope that the rhyme and word play keeps it enjoyable. I am a very pessimistic person, as I am sure you will soon conclude. Let me know what you think, if you decide to read it.

All the best,

JCO

Identity in the Information Age

I am empathetic and this malapropping neologism propping up our zeitgeist is the destruction of the word: empathic. It is this perverted altruism of social media that is fresh selfishness and the eggcorn of our truth. Let me explain:

Our absurdist obsession with identity is idolatry of the exemplary—holy highlight reels, innumerable influencers, and venerated vloggers are lord to our peasant present. The profligate propaganda of comparison breeds commiserate misery and mystery unto the self. Quiet contemplation is the contempt of the nation, bringing the defenestration of our individuation. In other words, the contagion culling confidence also swallows my self, satiated instead by an indulgence in others, an obsession with the inferior ulterior as if I’m motivating myself. That’s another eggcorn, as precedence is given always to perusing people’s postings rather than pulling myself together. Outsourced introspection is obtuse, an amorphous amalgamation of others’ desperation and their insinuation of decency when they are deceitfully lying to me.  Personality blurs by the monitor, its black reflection obscures, and manifests a destiny deadened and desperate for introspection, yet I never learn my lesson; I am empathetic and understand nothing, least of all myself. 

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jpwritingbiz

Responses

  1. Pytho Black Avatar
    Pytho Black

    The challenge of course, is to encourage while at the same time being helpfully honest.

    The work is difficult to read, difficult to want to continue reading.

    This is actually kind of a good thing, if you plan on making more of this kind of art in the future. It is different, kind of unique. It is jarring, forcing the reader to stop and try to remember definitions, even to look up words they thought they knew what they meant.

    That is different, an unusual approach. A good thing, if improved upon.

    Reading the work gives no reward, no laugh or enlightenment. I ask myself “why did I read this?” I answer myself “because I am bored and subscribed to the blog and wonder what in the world this author is trying to do.”

    It turns out empathic and empathetic mean the same thing, in some definitions. Difficult and tedious to have to read multiple definitions from different sources to pick out the subtle nuanced semantic differences. Words can be funny on their own, how they are pronounced, their stresses and implications. That is the essence of poetry. I look for meanings, and that is hard to find. What’s in your head? Why did you do this? How did you expect the reader to respond?

    Something like “contagion culling conscience also swallows my self” seems to be just throwing words from a dictionary into a frying pan and adding eggcorns, hoping you get an omelette out of it somehow.

    Sometimes it seems that the way I understand a word is different from how you understand it. That is annoying, jarring distracting. A good thing, actually, to make me think, and stop, and read, and stop, and read. It doesn’t flow smoothly at all. Again, different, a good thing, but uncomfortable and distressing.

    The “poetic” elements, rhyme, alliteration, whatever (I don’t understand poetry, I do not even care for most poetry) seem to be random and idiosyncratic, placed within the work deliberately without any thought for meaning, style, feeling…..or for how the reader will interpret them.

    It’s different, maybe a new kind of art form. Try to make it more readable, elegant, mysterious, rewarding.

    I can imagine you transforming the whole work into a story. I like stories, you should read some of mine!

    You set the scene, the reason for the story, why it has come to be. You use all the prose you have already written, in the same order, but it all has context in some kind of situation being described for some reason. Different characters perhaps, with statements being made, maybe it’s a dialogue between two demons, or some alien students trying to figure out the language.

    I encourage you to keep trying, without concern for what anybody else may think. It will be a thing some day for certain. Also, who do I think I am anyway, criticizing your masterpiece? I think you asked for it. If not, I am sorry if you take it wrong.

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    1. jpwritingbiz Avatar
      jpwritingbiz

      Thank you,

      I do not take you wrongly, I do not think. I appreciate the feedback.

      A quick summary: it is my pessimistic perspective on social media in that it makes people empathetic rather than empathic, meaning that people care about and feel others so much that it’s unhealthy and actually sort of breaks them, socially and emotionally. In other words, people become obsessed with other peoples’ lives which are just lies anyway and it’s unhealthy–I use myself as the subject in the poem because I do this too.

      “Empathic” and “empathetic” have little difference in meaning, that is true. I just liked the simple word play that it was more common before to say “empathic” and now, I feel, people, myself included, are more pathetic, and the word “empathetic” is now more popular in usage. Just thought that was funny.

      As for what I am trying to achieve, nothing profound. I just thought it was fun wordplay and rhyme. I don’t really understand rhythm myself, I just like the way it sounds when I read it.

      It is a common criticism of my work that it is difficult and sometimes unapproachable–I am nothing if not consistent!

      I am sure you are an excellent writer. I will try to find time to read some of your work. Again, I appreciate you taking the time.

      All the best,

      JCO

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