"Find Your Howl": An Auditory Response...

The following is a response to Jonathan Flaum's "Find Your Howl", which can be found by going to Change This, a web site determined to deliver all things non-sequitor.

Response to what Flaum had to say...

The first story that Flaum tells details the quest of a wolf named Mumon. Because Mumon was a red wolf born into captivity, he did not know how to howl properly when he was released back into the wild. Thus, Mumon sets out on a journey to find his "howl".

Along his journey, Mumon meets several animals who give him cryptic advice about finding himself. One of these animals is a deer, who he eventually eats, another is a raven, who tells him he should not feel guilty about killing the deer.

Eventually, Mumon reaches the center of the world. It is there that he finds his howl, which he has now also become. The howl is such a part of who he is, that Mumon and his howl are one.

Flaum seems to see finding one's own howl as a sort of rebirth. He says that one might need to undergo a sort of loss of self in order to grow past who they once were.

One of the main points that Flaum makes that really spoke to me was that we must push through the bad things in life rather than attempting to circumnavigate, or go around them. Flaum believes that jumping over these hardships is losing much-needed adversive experience.

My Own Howl...

(An auditory howl of this poem can be heard by going to Goldenflux Media Inc.)

"Jubilee"

by Goldenflux

Rejoicing, you're voicing your soul to the sea,

No choice in emoting the elation you breathe

And when you are done, the sun he concedes,

That before you came basking he did not believe.

But King Sol himself, with his arm'ry of deeds,

Can't avoid the allure of your mis-guarantees.

Near blind in the gleam of the feats you've achieved,

He still sees you will triumph, and humbly takes leave...

Explanation of Jubilee...

I like this poem because I find it extremely empowering. It doesn't dawdle on the line between confidence and arrogance, the speaker almost seeming to refer to themselves throughout, despite the fact that the entire poem is in the second person.

I would like to see what this poem could be if I expanded it to longer than eight lines, but at the same time it seems to get right to its point within the eight lines that are presented, so I'm not sure that any addition to it would strengthen it in the long run.

JAC...