This poem expresses the concept of Sonder, which is defined as "the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness". The word Sonder was popularized in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, a website and YouTube channel, created by John Koenig.
The website coins and defines neologisms for emotions that do not have a descriptive term. Please do check out the YouTube reading of my poem below as the atmosphere and otherworldiness of the state of Sonder comes across so much better in the reading.
Engulfed in Sonder
I wander, city streets paved with echoing weight,
striations of realities whittled in mind-states.
I wonder if sunbeams seem the same for the child
embraced by their mother,
in the blinking wide eyed confusion of pigeons
we all look like each other,
specs of….
gusts of….
dust on grey paved desert.
I meander Park Lane,
welts of rain flay my skin,
be-suited spectacled businessmen
cluck like hens on their phones,
make deals in hollows
between paving stones.
My somnolent eye
drinks the patter and splatter
of shoes through puddles,
drowning in hopes and struggle.
I dance down the high street,
ponderous buses pass
like journeying elephants,
lined with faces that express
the eloquence of the passage of time,
chipped from a quarry of thought,
dug from a field of sublime memories,
each suspended in a prism of reflection.
And all the while,
I realise the self is a prison we craft.
All the while, I feel the backdraft
of a thousand thinkers,
all drinking from hope’s chalice,
all drowning in struggles,
all winding the cogs,
all setting alarms,
all building ideas like charms,
repeated in the silence behind the eyes
I realise they’re all me and I’m them and we are we.
I wander on
changed, engulfed in sonder.
Attributions - All sources are creative commons.
Music: the track is called Ashes, by Radical Face from noisetrade.com
The picture used to create the art in this post is from pixabay.com, creative commons. Please follow link to credit. I used deep dream generator to modify the image and Adobe Pro to create the animated transitions. If you have enjoyed this poem you can check out my other work on my homepage @raj808.
I'd like to tag @agmoore here as she has told me she always enjoys my spoken word poetry.
Thanks for reading.
Click banner to visit the community page
Find us on twitter by clicking the banner above.
Interested in trading, buying or selling crypto?
Sign up to Bittrex here.
Sign up to Coinbase here.
Sign up to Swissborg app to instantly buy crypto here.
Use my referral link to sign up for Crypto.com and we both get $25 USD.
If You Have Found Value From this Post and Want to tip extra, Crypto Donations Are Welcomed:
►Donate Ether and ERC20 Tokens: 0x32321615174AF3Da6074Cf79DED8269cA7a8eB24
►Donate Bitcoin: bc1q8wutj8u6ush7s8mucphfxf7gzrexeywmuqm8g3
►Donate Bitcoin Cash: qzt7c0czw0q988h93jvcz2rq5gy0s3h9pg2pk700ev
►Donate Litecoin: Lfsnz3pbT5V9N6WWGRaBsgKs9EvFeqzcPm
►Donate BNB: bnb1xeu94exteel9w3g8g44e6g595kvrqlgzm0crq4
►Donate Monero: 49PovXGcM9Y7JYeRJ35W9xZGrdivvLaMbVtGc3WDv6amCm5wqA854SvJNWxaEqjTz18K5YVPj5D6619C3bvNHsrG7oD1whb
►Donate Tezos: tz1SJUkpeznKE6bEhbX81YFdUQS5BprA4ot8
►Donate XRP: r35quYTThThN7yNvkJxyhLFAPyju3tsT35
Hi @raj808,
Thank you for participating in the #teamuk curated tag. We have upvoted your quality content.
For more information visit our discord https://discord.gg/8CVx2Am
Very crucial lines!! Your recitation was truly good! This one came out too well. Best wishes for the next one.
Thank you tahminasyed 🙂
Yes, you hit the nail on the head. Those lines underpinned the rest of the poem for sur.
I could talk about the cadence of your voice, and I could talk about the metaphors and mellifluous blending of sounds. But all of that is worth little to me without the thought that generated the poem.
I'm afraid that decor, appearance matters little to me. I'm kind of a distracted person, always looking for substance, usually disappointed by what passes for thought.
I am not disappointed today. Thank you for tagging me. Thank you for the intention you share which leaves all of us...thinking.
This is an interesting point, as my poetry tutor in university used to say to me all the time that it was best to stay away from trying to express modes of thought unless you could do it through actions, or descriptions of the actions of other people/things etc.
But she also used to say, "learn the rules, follow them until you're sure of your craft... and only then break them."
I kinda feel like this poem breaks some of the rules, but is successful in how it breaks them, if that even makes sense. It describes exactly how I view the world when one of my strange episodes overcomes me 😂
I'm glad the poem made you think 🙂
Yes, yes, yes! Whitman would be proud of your work here (and perhaps T.S. Eliot too). From the opening stanza of "Leaves of Grass":
There is something, very slight, that hearkens back to "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Maybe just the journey along the city street.
And like Whitman, you found the law of your own poem, in terms of the form. I like the way you used the two-line stanza to make the moment of realization stand out, and at the same time create that sense of realization for the reader, the pause when something comes with clarity to our consciousness.
Thanks for introducing me to the word "Sonder".
You got it 100% Cliff, and although it often jars on my introverts soul to give myself props 😂 I did feel like I'd hit on the nail on the head with this poem. I think it is hard to describe internal thought processes, feelings and those strange moments when existence is brought into sharp focus (the feeling of Sonder) without reverting to cliché words like 'love' 'fear' etc.
This is high praise indeed and honestly makes me realize this is one of my better poems. I just re-read 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' for the first time in many years and I can see what you're saying, that poem does describe a kind of journey, like he's walking down a street unseen observing the sublime and absurd in equanimity.
As I was saying to agmoore in the comment above, this poem describes exactly how I view the world when one of my strange episodes overcomes me. It has a trippy feel, maybe it's all just a case of one too many dalliances with Shrooms of the magical variety as a youngster 😂
Thanks for your comment @cliffagreen, and for inspiring me to read a poem I haven't read in over 20 years.
Manual selection by @cliffagreen.
Thank you Creative coin and cliffagreen.
I apprecate the support and curation 🙂
What an amazing piece of work. Everything came together so well, and I loved the theme. Your voice worked perfectly with the rhythm. My favorite part was the subtly quickening tempo at the end, along with these lines themselves:
Such great metaphors, the idea of ideas as charms constantly being crafted within the collective "us". Beautiful.
Thank you @blockchainbeth
I love your username btw 🙂
You touch on something here that I definitely was trying to convey - that realization of the collective unconscious, I think that is the essence of the concept of Sonder. And it is something I've experienced fleetingly.
This poem was written while I was travelling through London (not my favourite city as I live in a smaller city) to go to Gatwick on my way to Egypt. I remember walking from different tube and train stations to make the connections to arrive at Gatwich airport in time for my flight and this feeling just came over me and I wrote that poem, all be it in a rougher draft.
A few years later I edited it and was very pleased with the results.
Thank you for your interesting and insightful comment 🙂
I loved the end of your poem my friend:
I always learn new things with you and your poems every time I read you I always have a new memory, hugs =)
Thanks Joseito
I know I say it often, but it does make me so happy to know that my poems inspire people, and maybe sometimes share some new knowledge, or words, or concepts.
Thanks again. And hugs right back at you my friend 🙂
This is a fine poem indeed!
Thanks @deeanndmathews
It is linger of my favourites, as i felt it really does put you perfectly in that odd state of mind that the word sonder describes.
🙂👍
It really does... I often think about the infinite complexity of life owing to the complexity of every life living around me, and I thank you for both the word and the poetic description of it!
😎🙂
"And all the while,
I realise the self is a prison we craft.
All the while, I feel the backdraft
of a thousand thinkers,
all drinking from hope’s chalice,
all drowning in struggles,
all winding the cogs,
all setting alarms,
all building ideas like charms,
repeated in the silence behind the eyes
I realise they’re all me and I’m them and we are we."
Unquote: You managed to capture so much reality here. It's like we're all just drifting around in someone else's reality, yet, it's our own. Great job with this poem all round. It was absolutely captivating from the get go!
Your reading is absolutely spell-binding. Thanks for sharing on ListNerds.
I'm glad you enjoyed it @rcaine.
I was really happy with it when i recorded it as i felt both the music, and my choice of words in the poem, really did describe that odd state of mind that the word sonder encapsulates 🙂