Flicker Poem
A poetic form invented by Adriano Bulla.1
Flickers are short spiritual landscapes which make extensive use of synaesthesia and the objective correlative as well as poetic echo rather than rhyme they are therefore written in free verse. They describe a fleeting feeling or emotion and usually have short lines. They usually have no title but are numbered, like sonnets.
The main mood of each flicker poem is usually set by a sound (echo), while very vivid imagery recreates the feeling through a Metaphysical juxtaposition of far-fetched images.
The origin of the word flicker comes from Professor Christopher Ricks's 1963 seminal essay on John Milton 'Tincture or Reflection' 2:
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- ' '...other instances of Milton's seeing a scent, and the general fluidity of his syntax, persuade me that we are meant for a moment to believe that half spied follows the fragrance, just as it follows 'he spies'. Of course it in fact anticipates the roses, but the deliberate 'flicker of hesitation' [bold mine...] Milton says something wich would be impermissibly far fetched, and then has it struck from the record. But his skill has lodged it in our mind or feelings.' (Christopher Ricks, Tincure or Reflection, 1963).3
Following is Adriano Bulla's Flicker nr 5 from Ybo' and Other Lies, where the 'echo' is given by 'Twigs' and 'Twitch' and the synaesthetic Metaphysical juxtaposition of imagery links the Sun to a swollen blood-shot eye being lulled by the sea. 4
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- Twigs'
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- Bony fingers
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- Twitch
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- Against the bloody sun
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- Adrift
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- On tolling waves
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- Forgetting enamelled
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- Abyssal skulls
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- On white SandS
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- Lulling
- The swollen eye
- Of a flayed sky
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- That lightly ripens
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- On marble ripples.
Sources
http://www.greatworks.org.uk/poems/thab.html
http://www.ukpoetrylive.page.tl/Nuances-of-Feelings%2C-Adriano-Bulla-h-s--h-Flickers-h-.htm