Posted by Atticus on August 27, 2004, at 8:57:13
In reply to Re: fiction ... Hungry Pavement, Part 1, posted by Jai Narayan on August 26, 2004, at 20:16:03
I have to confess, I have always wanted to do a "to be continued..." teaser in connection with telling a story. Two things really strike me about this piece, now that I'm looking at it with very different eyes than I had when I wrote it. First, the sense of isolation and alienation of the narrator. All of my poems always center on relationships: between lovers, between friends, between relatives, between ex-lovers, between ex-friends. That's my favorite territory to mine, because I think it's the richest and most complex part of the human condition and experience in society. It's much more interesting to me than carnivorous sidewalks. Yet this story is all plot; there is no exploration of relationships at all in it, and I think this is probably reflective of the turning inward that accompanies really severe depressive episodes for me.
The second thing that strikes me is that I can see that poetry, not straight prose, is definitely my metier. You had mentioned rhythm in an earlier post, and I had said how important that was to me. The rhythm in this story feels really flat to me, just a kind of slogging along, tossing down plot points feel. Part of that was again no doubt due to my depression being on the verge of reaching a life-threatening flashpoint, but still, it's kind of lacking the kind of gallop even a genre piece of horror fiction should have, in my mind. In any case, I'm glad you got a kick out it, and part 2 will follow shortly. Ta. :) Atticus
poster:Atticus
thread:382571
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/write/20040729/msgs/382860.html