While there were several poems from Saeed Jones book, Prelude to Bruise, that caught my attention, the poem, Daedalus, After Icarus, was probably the first. Some of that might have to do with the fact that I felt like I understood the meaning behind this poem almost instantly, while for some other poems in the collection, comprehension did not appear until after a couple of extra reads. The poem is quite short, being only two stanzas long, and reference the Greek myth of Daedalus, the great but cursed inventor, and his son, Icarus. The original myth is one that warns of hubris, as Daedalus constructs wax wings for his son and himself to escape Crete. However, Icarus’ hubris gets the better of him as he flies too close to the sun and crashes due to the wax on his wings melting. Saeed Jone’s poem seems to reference Daedalus finally reaching land after his long journey and looking back into the sea, where his son is now lost in. In the scene, there are children, many of whom seem envious of the wings, but one boy in particular mentions how they don’t wants wings. Instead they wants to be fish. The poem almost seems to mock Daedalus, whose only real hope in the past of saving is son was if he invented something that allowed him to be fish. The poem itself seems to be quite dark, with no real interaction between Daedalus with the other characters, with Daedalus more focused on looking out at sea than listening to the requests of children. It was an interesting poem to include in the collection, seemingly because the piece seems to be somewhat out of place. Perhaps the only connection between the poem and the rest of the collection is that the poem references Greek mythology and the collection as a all is supposed to be inspired by Greek epics like the Iliad or the Odyssey. All in all, I enjoyed the poem.

I’m also going to include two of my poems here. The first one was the poem I wrote during the poetry workshop, while the second poem is a found poem that is based on “Previous Condition” by James Baldwin.

Is A Dark Morning

Her shot glass is blue bubbles is tongue is dripping lipstick

is tingling hair on an unwanted mustache

is a red, sweaty face is ripped sheets and no company

is an empty room is heels all over the place

is a painful swollen nose ring is a dark morning

 

Back In New York

I had been dreaming

woke up in the morning, trembling

Back in New York and hating it

Heavy ceilinged, perfectly square

the color of chipped dry blood

was so hideous

 

Everyone had gone to bed

Everyone was asleep

Banging on the door

I sat up and lit a cigarette

Don’t let them scare you to death

“Took his crap”

Nothing but a bum

 

Same rents for same old shacks

Dirty as sin

Had not been painted

We had a stormy relationship

But we stuck

 

Took a couple of beatings

Worse things have happened

Robbery or murder in my neighborhood

Acted like I didn’t know a thing

Back in New York and hating it

Beaten as a person