Hi Arthur, (Sue & York & Sally & others...),
Sorry I’ve not been able to respond to my comments sooner... (work is, as
always, the curse of the poetry classes!)
Yeh, adjectives & this poem... (maybe I wasn't being specific, when I should
have been... if so, sorry!) I'll try this way...
Adjectives are part of the language tool-box. OK. But, like six inch nails,
just cos they're there doesn't mean they've always got to be used.
I guess I wrote what I wrote because I recognise that y use nouns and verbs
so powerfully. (The way you use “mutes” (for instance) is so potent. I guess
I also see that some adjectives are unusual and unexpected (the fingers
being blown to “ringing” life) and yet they sound so accurate to experience.
I want to say that about “whetted” wind as well – but, because of all the
descriptiveness that’s already happened with the rain in the first couple of
lines I feel as if my imagination’s already overloaded!
A poem, for me (but I sense not just for me) isn’t just made up of
independent sentences – it also has to flow (and all the poem’s words should
be placed and pointed to go with the flow). Some of the words (in my way of
reading them) interrupt the flow by pointing me elsewhere. “Wolfish” seems
like that to me... (Because “wolfish” sounds intrusive – there aren’t any
wolves, unless you’re abroad – and I get no hint of y being elsewhere than
the UK!). I struggle to follow the flow of words like “Buffets,” “bullies,”
rattles,” and “bites” in the same sentence because I don’t find it easy to
associate such words-describing-a- child’s-squabble language with the
plumed-helmet language of later on in the poem. But, because this is a
sonnet, and a sonnet has (at least) two different perspectives, the poem’s
form means I can accept it!
However “ragged” steeps (which comes inbetween) is almost a mountaineering
cliché (and VERY Victorian, almost like their Sunday school hymnody).
And “A blessed relief” is a phrase that sounds not as old as Victorian (but
it doesn’t sound over contemporary either) – and it could be that the
adjective “blessed” could sound as if it’s replacing a swearword... (Or, if
it isn’t, it sounds rather twee!)...
And another point I didn’t make is that the (wonderful) way you describe “my
breath helmets my head with plumes of mist” is where you use words
powerfully (but they’re not as crowded together!) and that image of a
person-in-armour links well with the following image of conquest! But, in
our environmentally friendly age such imagery of conquering natural forces
and places are rarely used (in fact, in most mountaineering literature since
the late 1970s it’s sensitively avoided).
And yes - like mountaineering stories, novels, and poems - that the hills
(and the efforts to climb them) also allude to other, often personal things,
is almost taken as read. In Chinese poetry (Li Po onwards), in many ancient
myths (in many cultures), and in contemporary writing, that’s what’s
happening (almost, it seems, by default).
I've never managed, myself, to feel satisfied with my own writing about
being in the hills in such bad weather in such a head-on kind of way. So I
like what's you're attempting. And am offering advice to get you further
than I could manage! Go for it!!
And isn’t it amazing that the Tower of Babel story (about an attempt to
create a “mountain” as well as climb it) is a very early story and is also
about understanding-and-misunderstanding words and language!
Bob



> > Climbing on a Bad Day.
> >
> > We turn from the cairn to face the flurries
> > of a sleet-thick, bladed rain as it sheets
> > down whetted wind. It buffets and bullies,
> > rattles my hood and bites my chin and cheeks.
> > Now only the wolfish weather and we
> > dare the slopes and ragged steeps of the cwm
> > where we stumble and find, under the lee,
> > out of the wind-song, behind a rock, calm.
> >
> > Now the swuthering mutes, a blessed relief,
> > my breath helmets my head with plumes of mist
> > as I blow my fingers to ringing life.
> > Hill of winds, cold, fatigue, selves, all overcome,
> > we grin, no words, jubilant in conquest.
> > Tomorrow's horizons already loom.


>Thanks everyone for their generous and positive response to this shorter
>poem.
>  Interesting, Arthur. I agree with you about adjectives. I like the lost
>gloves illustration! I didn't realise you meant us to get beyond the
>fellwalking interpretation. I wonder how you could have madethis clearer.
>sally ee
>
>Climbing on a Bad Day did not begin as a sonnet but some of the natural
>rhymes that were offering themselves tempted me down that road and then I
>was left with 14 ten -syllable lines to complete and the original did lose
>some of its terseness.
>I am not going to contest the " too many adjectives " charge. Adjectives
>are
>part of the tools we have available to us.
>I fancy it is a response mainly to " sleet-thick" " bladed" and " whetted"
>in the early part of the poem. In the context I think " sleet-thick" is
>more
>impactful than " thick with sleet" . In the same way "bladed" and "
>whetted"
>are better used, IMO, as they are and supercede" like a whetted blade" in
>music and impact. Without the adjectives " wind " and " rain " become just
>"
>wind and rain" and again ,IMO, less of the painful hazard they were. I am
>not sure that " adjectives bleed nouns" is always appropriate or accurate.
>If I went to seek a pair of lost gloves at the LOST PROPERTY office a few
>adjectives from me would aid the search.
>I had hoped that the poem would also be read beyond the immediate response
>to the poetry and the event. Climbing and exploration
>of self through climbing, the achievement,yes, the conquest,  give access
>to
>valuable resources useful in the daily struggle of living sometimes. The
>last line refers, hopefully, to those other daily struggles under demanding
>conditions.
>Still thank you everyone for your time and patience and generally positive
>,
>and always civilised, reponses.
>
>
>








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