What are your thoughts on this poem?

Some people never stop trying and others give up before they even start.

Dream crasher—Some people would try to achieve something, that seems odd for others, but who are we to interfere? I don’t know why the poet used the Horizon (either to symbolize that it is really Impossible, In real life) It really depends on how you interpret what Horizon means to you. In my interpretation, the Horizon represents anything that is still attainable, but I think the poet used it to show others will say it is not.

@fish4answers Could you please elaborate?

that’s like loving someone, but he/she hates you….

@cyndihugs Could you please elaborate?

@boots that man wants to reach for the horizon…“somebody”...maybe, but the horizon can’t be reached…

Kind of how I feel about this:

I say to youth, “I no longer believe”
You pluck the words from my fingertips
Believing you can laugh at them

Twinkle twinkle giggle and sigh
You are so sure and strong
Well, once upon a time…
so was I

@boots I edited my short answer, ‘Dream crasher’. see previous answer.
.

It reminds me of Don Quixote.

@augustlan How so?

Sorry, I should have elaborated. The man pursuing the horizon is chasing something that can never be caught… an unattainable goal. Kind of like Don Quixote tilting at windmills.

The poem seems to describe common human nature. The man wants to reach the horizon so badly that he’s willing to go to great lengths to do so, and won’t take no for an answer. He has his mind set, and nothing anyone says can change it.
As many other people become, perhaps the man is so blinded by his hopes and dreams that he can’t see the reality. And when someone tells him that he can’t accomplish it, he only becomes more determined to reach his impossible goal.

Analyzing poems is not something I do well, but one thing I know is that it is not enough to look only at the literal meaning. The structure of the poem is fairly loose, but there is one rhyme, “sped” and “said”, two almost rhymes, “lie” and “cried” and “horizon” and “on”, and use of “s”, “n” and “st” sounds to tie the lines together. Now notice that the line, “You lie, he cried,” is totally divorced from the structure of the rest of the poem. I think that the poet is saying that in a single minded pursuit of the impossible, the man has cut himself off from experiencing life. This is further reinforced by the fact that he won’t stop to chat, but cuts the narrator off in mid-sentence and just shouts out a single line without any reasoning behind it, and rushes by.

One more point. That the horizon can’t be reached is succinctly reinforced in the poem by the line “Round and round they sped.” When I first read this I was not sure of who “they” referred to, but of course it refers to the man and the horizon.

@hungryhungryhortence lurve for an awesome answer. The wisdom that comes with age is usually unforeseen by the young until they achieve maturity and experience.

I understand “pursuing the horizon” to be the illusion that what is worthwhile is forever out there, down the road. This man never stands still because he doesn’t see the value, the truth, of “here”. He lives in the fantasy that he’ll find truth once he gets to that horizon.

The first-person perspective in this poem represents, I think, this present reality, the very ground under the running man’s feet. This present world is always calling him to awaken to the folly of seeking truth ever elsewhere. But he’s unable to accept that this is the only truth we have, fully within his grasp if he’ll only stand still and listen. So he continues to trample truth underfoot in his pursuit of his fantasies.

Or, as John Lennon put it, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”

They fact that the man is referred to with “they” and not “he” bugs me.

Back to the posted poem:

The man chases the horizon as it’s a confirmation of another chance, of hope and dreams and the celebration of still being alive in the face of setbacks or bleakness.

@Bri_L I was puzzled by the use of “they,” but they refers to man and horizon. As the man moves, the horizon moves and the use of “round and round” implies that the man keeps returning to the same spot.

@LostInParadise – Your totally right!!! Thanks!

I don’t like it. It’s not a strong poem.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I respectfully disagree.

Why don’t you think it’s a strong poem?

I think both parties in the poem are faulty.

Sure, the man will never catch the horizon and it may be a futile effort but if it makes him happy and gives him a goal then why should it disturb the narrator enough to accost the man and make him cry?

Life for the man is chasing the horizon, life for the narrator is commenting on other people’s goals.

It doesn’t have the ingredients i am accustomed to expect, when i am supposedly presented with a poem. It is merely an observation, expressed in a format.

@boots I’m with @mammal
he put it correctly

@Simone_De_Beauvoir

no, no its not. and most of crane’s wasnt very good. I tend to think of it more like Nietzsche’s aphorisms washed down with a little bit of poetic gentility, but allowed to keep their warring grit and open horizons. (which we should note—the poem’s speaker never abhors).

by the same note. there’s nothing wrong with “unstrong” poetry. were we to only stick with the big guns, our minds would atrophy by trying to keep on old standards.

@Rsam no reason to keep up with old standards…lord knows I’m not a poet like that…but I still think the poem should move a reader

@Simone_De_Beauvoir This poem moved me. Not to go do something or anything like that, but it struck me with awe with it’s message of futility. And the fact that it could also very well be a message about reaching for the stars and never giving up.

@boots oh I understand it can move others, it just didn’t move me. so you like it and I don’t

A good many people, try to echo Nietzche in style and impact, but that is all they are… echo homo behold…the echo :-)

[mod says] Duplicate post removed.

It proves that anyone can write poetry.

Vague with a bit of alliteration=Poetry

@Blondesjon not exactly. no. not at all in fact.

@Rsam. . .

In sunlight’s stark darkness,
breed terrific lies.
Between fever and pitch,
spans a grudging bridge
where insolent doubt
flows tangled and wild.
In sunlight’s stark darkness,
breed terrific lies.
Kept in a shoebox
from time that’s not time
is a clarion resolution
of simmering pride.
In sunlight’s stark darkness,
breed terrific lies.

I wrote the above on my iTouch while taking a shit. It’s not hard.

Sorry, but I’ve rarely been so unmoved by poetry.

@boots
absolutely wonderful, thank you for letting me read.