Thanks Bob.  I've always found it very difficult to read anything I write
aloud, even in private, but I know you're right.  A few months ago I did my
first (and last to date) floor spot with the aid of enough snifters to give
me courage.  What a terrifying experience - and how different they sound in
sound.
What disappoints me most about this sonnet is the ending - I haven't been
able to find a sharp pun for the final couplet yet and I'm not sure that I
will.
I'll take you advice and see what happens.  Thanks for being so generous and
helpful in your comments.
bw
c


> Hi Christina,
>
> The 9th line of RIP...
>
> Considering this is a first draft it’s got so few wrinkles to iron out!
> I’m tempted to not let too much reality interfere with any poem that knows
> what it’s doing and how it’s trying to do it. We’re out to tell the truth
> (not the whole truth, and nothing but the truth...). I believe it was Jean
> Cocteau (but others say it was Malarme, and others say some other French
> poet) who said, “Poets are liars who speak the truth,” so I’d let the rest
> of the poem tell me what to do (and if it wants me to tell a little white
> lie, I’d tell one).
>
> In a relaxed kind of way I’d keep reading the line out loud to see where
the
> emphases (and rhythmically highlighted syllables in the words) come. Such
an
> approach, however, means (as I believe it did for Wordsworth with his
accent
> and emphases when he was writing sonnets) your mouth music might be so
very
> different to people with differing accents! (I was once in a pub-chat when
> someone said that when Robbie & Lizzie Browning read each other’s sonnets
> out loud to each other in bed, they probably winced!). My mouth has no
> problem with the line when substituting the word LAST for the word FIRST.
> But I guess the first word “mingle” has such a different sound to the way
> the rest of your lines begin...
>
> But that doesn’t matter much to me either... I mean it isn’t a purist’s
> sonnet anways – with a sentence ending on the 5th line! (There’d be
apoplexy
> squirming up through the starched collars – not a pretty sound or sight.)
> Why should it be written following rules that were initially made, and
> deliberately broken soon after, before even toss-pots and mangles were
> invented?
>
> I’m also the kinda reader who tries to scour away adjectives (as Mark
Twain
> once said “they bleed nouns!”) and often think adverbs are even worse! –
but
> here I like the two multi-syllable ones – “agonising” and “callous” – and
> the possible tautology, or sameness, of “shine” and ”brighten” seems as
> though it doesn’t glare, it seems OK too! But if, when I was sat on a bus,
a
> line came into my mind from nowhere - and the word stood (while the rest
> remained seated) as if waiting to get off - I’d play for a while with
> possible alterations.
>
> Bob
>
> (And isn’t it odd that the word “tautology” which, in poetry, often
implies
> loose writing starts with the visible word “taut...”) (Well, I think it’s
> odd!)
>
>
>
>
> >RIP
> >
> >Your pump failed yesterday and now I'm left
> >completely helpless, scooping out the suds.
> >The kitchen floor's awash and I'm bereft.
> >I wish I hadn't kicked you - silly sods
> >like me do not deserve old friends like you.
> >You ecowashed so well for sixteen years
> >and never turned the whites to grey or blue.
> >I should have loved you better - now my tears
> >mingle with your first rinse -  your final spin
> >that turned into an agonising hump
> >you'd only hinted at before - and then
> >the silence - followed by my callous thump.
> >Soon I will wash you for your final trip -
> >you'll shine and brighten any council skip.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >christina fletcher
> >
> >
> >
>
>
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