lauantaina, elokuuta 06, 2005

Little Boy















~









posted by Karri Kokko at 00:01

11 Comments:

Blogger mark young said...

I thought they swam upstream. Or is it that like all 'boys' they chicken out & run away, leaving the stronger sex to complete the journey alone?

7:25 ap.  
Blogger Rauno Rasanen said...

Kohta en uskalla enää katsella näitä.
Jos iskee - kuten pelkään - annihilaatio-experience, niin silloin se on menoa eikä nokitusta...

9:49 ap.  
Anonymous Anonyymi said...

Missä poika? missä Matti?
Juoksen pirttiin, rantaan,navettaan,
saunalle.
Huudan Olaville näkyykö poikaa?
Auringon kirku vana.....
Onko joessa?

Syvän ojan yllä lentävää perhosta oli kurkottanut, mutta isä ehti.
Kotiin toi! Nauru, nauru, nauru...

Käteeni laskeutui voikukan höytyvä.

10:20 ap.  
Blogger ~e~ said...

Hieno!

11:32 ap.  
Blogger Karri Kokko said...

Good question, Mark. I wonder if the mother (Enola Gay) knows anything about this?

Rauno, I sure hope we won't experience annihilation -- outside of poetry, that is.

Aino, tuo voikukka oli hieno kuva. Ainakin siinä on nopeus sama.

E, kiitos.

1:00 ip.  
Blogger Geofhuth said...

Karri,

What a beautiful poem. At first, I couldn't figure it out, yet it remained lovely. But upon the tilde's disappearance above the ground (and given the title and the significance of the day), it all became clear.

Too bad it's a difficult poem to translate to the page (think about that), since I'm planning an anthology of punctuation poetry in the near future.

Geof

4:29 ip.  
Blogger Karri Kokko said...

Thank you, Geof. I’ll definitely think about your suggestion, although I suspect the outcome. Maybe it’ll end up as a footnote in your anthology, as did my marquee hay(na)ku in the forthcoming book by Eileen & the gang.

Anyway, there’s a story worth telling behind it. As you have noticed, I’ve been doodling around with viz poems the last few days. Last night, I got the urge to make a marquee piece. Any kind. I had no particular idea in mind. I was thinking slow speed, very slow speed. I was thinking horizontal movement. I was thinking aiming at something. I was looking at my keyboard, searching for a letter or a sign to use. I found the tilde and I liked the bird-like shape of it. I was thinking flying. Then, out of left field, it changed to falling. Falling out of the sky. Soon enough, I remembered what day it was. (Actually, it was still August 5, in Finnish time, but I’d already seen Mark’s Hiroshima piece that he had posted a few hours before, on August 6, Australian time.) I named it Little Boy, for obvious reasons. This led me to keep the very small size I’d already decided on before. I’m no expert on marquee tags, but I tried to find a way to make the fall as long as possible. Luckily, I couldn’t. All I could do was to lengthen the empty space below. The result: first the long fall, then nothing. That’s it, I thought. Eerie, but I dare say, beautiful. A rare example of matter over mind: the machine did something for me, for the poem, something I couldn’t. I still flinch every time I see the tilde disappear. And finally, when I thought the piece was ready, I hit the publish-post button. And, alas, meanwhile the date had changed to August 6, and the time below the post said 00:01. Now, how strange is that?

7:28 ip.  
Blogger mark young said...

& embarrassingly, I missed the significance of the piece first time around. Blame the time zones.

Revisited, with the knowledge of the day, it becomes remarkably frightening, such a small thing, such an awful outcome.
f
l
o
a
t
i
n
g

down.

2:34 ap.  
Blogger Karri Kokko said...

You got it down right, Mark, on both poems. Come to think of it, maybe I should do another version of Little Boy -- this time inspired by Kurt Vonnegut!

9:34 ap.  
Anonymous Anonyymi said...

Hytisyttävää, sanatonna, story behind vielä skarppaa. Minimalismissaan tolkuttoman jännittävä ja karmea samalla tapaa kuin Tohtori Outolemmen (eli kuinka lakkasin olemaan huolissani ja rakastamaan pommia)loppubiisin satiirinen pehmeys: we'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when...
Voiskos' Vonnegut'iin saada myös taustatarinan jonkin ajan päästä. Mielenkiintoista on miten tulkinta laajenee ennen taustatarinaasi.
Poesia synnyttää uutta kuten tuo Ainon.
Mr Bones ja Dee

2:06 ip.  
Blogger Karri Kokko said...

Kuvittelin että nimi Littel Boy ja päivämäärä riittäisivät, mutta hyvä näin. Viittaus Vonnegutiin on viittaus Teurastamo 5:een, jossa kuvitellaan atomipommin matka takaperoisesti räjähdyksestä maahan haudattavaan uraaniin asti. Minun versiossani on ensin räjähdyksen tuottama valonvälähdys, jonka jälkeen poika alkaa nousta takaisin äitinsä Enola Gayn kohtuun.

5:02 ip.  

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