Poetry / Daruma

“when customs holds” = when custom holds

You don’t find what others leave behind?

A little too abstract for me. I don’t find a connection between the reed and the Daruma.

I like this poem, as it offers a good concept of life. It also offers a good insight into wishes of people.

Suggestions:
- Punctuation is perhaps my biggest question through this poem. Where are the pauses supposed to be? I have concepts in my head, but I am sure they don’t match your intentions. The first stanza could probably use a period at the end of the second line, the second stanza, a period at the end of each line, as examples.

- when customs holds
Is this custom holds or customs hold? As it is written doesn’t feel right.

As these are minor suggestions, I think this is a solid poem.

Keep Writing!

i loved the form and the words used, and the repeated line “I am Daruma”  i have been studying Buddhism and found this very interesting.  Good luck with the mortgage

Beautiful metaphysical conceptualization.  Thanks for the review tips, by the way.  I doubt if I would have felt as strongly about this poem without it.  There is a lot to be said for Eastern Philosophies.  They seem to stress a person working for their accomplishments instead of the Western tendency to “pray” for their accomplishments, and I think the Daruma sums up this quite nicely.

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December 08, 2006

by hinahina

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No. of Reviews	Overall Quality	Comment Followup
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Age	Gender	Location	Last Login
57	F	Honolulu, HI	November 16

I appreciate your reading the review tips. I didn’t realize when I began posting my work here that my “territory” is relatively unfamiliar in the West.

Two ideas are woven into this poem. One of course is the idea of Daruma sitting so patiently and concentrating so intently that his physical body crumbles and he is rendered immobile.  In this state, I become the “hollow reed” , inert and a non-participant.  I withdraw to become an observer.  The hope of accomplishing a goal, which is at the core of the Darama ritual, is obviously not happening for me.  At then end, I refer to the Buddhist belief in reincarnation and state that   “I  shall not return”.  It is possibly the bleakest of my poetry.

A Postscript.  I was intrigued a few days ago to learn that the  artist Frida Kahlo’s dying statement was so similar.  She wrote …’ I hope the exit is joyful and I hope never to return.”

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There is some sort of primal drum-beat underneath the lines of these poems -- perhaps a heart-beat? -- that drives the rhythm forward. I think it is achieved through the carefully placed repetition of “I” and “my”—it seems as if the subject is asserting itself repeatedly, only to repeatedly surrender itself, to other eyes, to other voices, to other hands and ears and bodies. This is the detachment that you alluded to in your notes.  The poem provokes thought on the possibility of what happens in the space when the “Self” is detached or disconnected from the bodily experience. Also, it creates emotional urgency from the collapse of time and space that occurs in the aural repetition, which is held in tension with the propulsion towards achievement and accomplishment. I loved this poem. thank u