Chris Martin

Although it originally threw me for a loop, after a few poems I grew to appreciate Chris Martin's style. It's sort and simple and not narrative, which is something I'm definitely not used to, but I found that his poems are best read aloud. I feel the main purpose in his poems is the sound of the words and the meaning within every little section. The whole poem itself doesn't seem to have any meaning, but if you break it down into little sections, each section has it's own meaning. Occasionally that meaning will be tied together with the meaning of the next section with words or phrases. For example in The True Meaning of Pictures, he writes "...it's abominable the way we let/ Our feelings instruct us and yet it's the only thing/ To be done, right? Right?" Although he's saying that it's abominable that we let our feelings dictate what we do, the break in the line separates it so it seems more like just a statement, that our feelings instruct us and that's just how it is. I also noticed that at the end of every poem there was a very intense ker-chunk moment. Some of my favorites were:

"Have you offered your seat on a crowded downtown subway car/ To a man in perfect physical health because he had tears in his eyes? Neither have I, not yet, but at least/ I considered it in writing." (Jokes for Strangers)

"Every person in every passenger/ Seat in every car in every town in every country is selling some goddamn/ Thought to themselves, but you see Grandpa was a salesman, both of them, that's why I have my foot in this/ Door and my knuckles are red and I'm smiling." (Grandpa Was a Salesman)

The final lines all really resonated with me and I feel that they were some of the most important parts of the poem. Overall, I liked Martin's style and it gave me a new perspective on how to write poems in varying different styles. It made me focus on the sound of the words rather than the meaning which is definitely something I'll take into account when playing around with different styles in future poems.