Hi Arthur,
I’m still trying to work out what’s going on in this poem, why, for me, it
isn’t clicking into gear and flowing along. Somehow I could almost cope with
the way you’re attempting to use the cliché language of roses - but roses
are so passé (I would feel more at ease if you’d worked with a more unusual,
less expected, image). Ha! - That would have nullified quite a few of the
comments.
But there’s something else I feel uneasy about.
Perhaps it’s that the language isn’t soft enough. The rhythm, right from the
onset, is pretty loud; “sear skin for the drum of an August sun” sounds so
declamatory. Indeed the whole of part (i) sounds very loud. Part (ii) sounds
just a bit quieter – but not much! And then Part (iii) sounds hushed! I
can’t put them all together – and I want the tone of Part (iii) to be the
lingering tone, the tone that the poem’s set me up to accept.
So, I’m wondering how to soften the tone of the language you’ve used before
this last stanza. That might include mega revisions, drastic changes in
sentence structure. What I feel is missing from the way the poem starts is
the poet! So I would consider using the “I” word far more in the poem – make
it work in a more reflective way (so I can see that you’re seeing these
things, hearing these things, feeling these things). If sentences (and,
perhaps, stanzas) began with the “I” word it may help...
But, when I’m following what I’m thinking, I’m also wondering how part (i)
fits, for the reader: all I can really find is a hint that the coloured red
hues of the wine on the table are reminiscent of what you pictured as a
child and (may, but only may) allude to the intricate colours of a rose, a
rose that somehow links in with the grandchild and her lips.
And, if that’s the link, then what’s the link, in the first stanza, with
Lanarca and the rest of the poem? (If the child’s in Lanarca as well as you
- then, as a reader, I want to be told!).
Sometimes the most difficult thing in poetry is to say significant things,
and essential things, simply.
Bob
>From: arthur seeley <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: New sub: Forgetting Roses.
>Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 20:28:43 +0100
>
>Forgetting Roses
>
>
>
>‘There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter
>than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he has first
>to forget all the roses that were ever painted.’ Matisse
>
>
>
> (i)
>
>
>
>Lanarcan salt pan, sear skin for the drum of an August sun,
>
>at the crux of trodden paths, dark bared ribs,
>
>Lowrian bent shapes scrape the seas’ scabbed and bitter harvest,
>
>weary donkeys crunch bright crystals under scalding hooves
>
>in the entrance lobby to a nightmare.
>
>
>
>In the verandah’s cool, I wait departure,
>
>my glass of red gathers, dances and streams
>
>translucent patterns of Cypriot sunlight
>
>on the table, to bleed and dye,
>
>sketch flames and nebulae.
>
>
>
>
>
> (ii)
>
>
>
>Hubblvision those of earlier aeons,
>
>shapes in glowing cinders
>
>I dreamed upon as a child,
>
>caught in a moment of eternity
>
>now and once upon a galaxy
>
>
>
>gaseous masses convolute, infold,
>
>billow through deep space, fade before
>
>tomorrow when tomorrow is anachronistic,
>
>a word from before, for now no sun rises
>
>and no more morrows dawn
>
>
>
>in flakes and flecks and fumes of gold and wine,
>
>neither day nor night exist
>
>and never came and went, nor shall,
>
>only the long slow exhalation of forever
>
>as the universe breathes.
>
>
>
>
>
> (iii)
>
>
>
>This child is not any child is not just a child
>
>this child is my grandchild, my forever,
>
>whose cheek rounds like sweet fruit
>
>her mouth is shade and shadow sleeping,
>
>when she smiles, softer mysteries bloom in the confluence of her lips.
>
>
>
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