Analysis of A Poem From the Collective Unconscious
Karl Constantine FOLKES 1935 (Portland)
Notices from the underworld
“Strident active imagination”
A psychoanalyst may call them
Visitations that come my way
As psychic forces with their energies.
They come at various moments
Meme-like images in many forms
Shapeshifters dangling in my memory
Saying: “Listen, take notice, pay attention.
We have some things to share with you.”
Though they are plural in number
They appear to me as singular
As a united entity
United in the cause to serve me
Without ever being themselves subservient.
They are everywhere.
And yet nowhere in particular.
If you search for them, you may never find them.
It is they who must seek you out.
It is they who must court you.
Though I did not know it,
They made their first appearance at my birth
Emerging at my first breath of life
Ephemeral beings wanting to protect me
To share with me the bounty of their wisdom.
I do not know their names
Although they surely know mine
Not by the names you know me or call me
They know me in a different way
As a loyal member of their celestial kingdom.
Like twirling wisps of dancing energies
They dance with my imagination
Electrical charges firing in my mind
Indeed I’m privy to that secret world
That poets often speak of, yet fail to understand.
Philosophers have written of this world
Their eloquence though keen is dumb
They cannot comprehend the incomprehensible
They write in syntax without meaning
The underworld has no need of syntax.
They come to me without my invitation
But I must pay attention, I must care
So must anyone care who’d dare to listen
Do not feign to understand; just obey
These visitors are our advocates, not our foes.
Scheme | ABCDE XXFBG HHFFX IHCXG XXXFJ XXFDJ EBXAX AJXXX BIBDX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1001010 10100010 00100111 0101111 1101011100 11110010 111000101 110001100 10101101010 11111111 11110010 101111100 10010100 010001111 011010010100 1110 01100100 11111111011 11111111 1111111 111111 1111010111 010111111 010010101011 11110101110 111111 111011 1101111111 111001001 1010101101010 1101110100 11110010 01001010011 0111011101 110101111101 0100110111 11001111 11001000100 11010110 01011111 1111011010 1111010111 1110111110 111101101 11001101001101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,648 |
Words | 315 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 |
Lines Amount | 45 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 145 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 32 |
About this poem
This poem came to me in the manner of free-form writing; as a message from the collective unconscious, with minimum participation from the personal conscious that seemed reticent to participate, choosing instead to take a pause and let the poet’s writing hand be inner directed by some hidden unknown agency. And so it is that this composition has come to be. Brought back now to the world of full consciousness, I am required to label this poem, which I call simply “A Poem From the Collective Unconscious. ” more »
Written on August 25, 2022
Submitted by karlcfolkes on August 25, 2022
Modified on April 18, 2023
- 1:34 min read
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"A Poem From the Collective Unconscious" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 5 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/134824/a-poem-from-the-collective-unconscious>.
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