Hi Arthur,
Yeh, thanks for the messages... I see where you’re coming from now... (I'd
merely browsed back through all the posts when I was replying and so didn't
read your revision and explanation again!)
But I still see the present poem as a rough draft, a draft where the poem is
still belonging to the poet rather than to the reader. (And, paradoxically,
it could still be that it enters the readers mind when it finds a language
that makes it more personal to you, – where it uses the “I” word and, so,
has a chance of softening the tone).
Roses, as you admit, have been much written about. You’ve set yourself a
huge challenge! If you want to write about them, and you’re aware that so
much else has been written, then there’s the massive problem of not saying
the same as anyone else. But (I’m not sure that omitting the word “Rose”
from the poem works to solve the problems!) even though the hardest choices
are not what to put into a poem, but what to leave out!
And I sense your three images – the play of light on a table in Lanarca, the
hubble-esque image of masses of distant billowing light, and your
grandchild’s lips, are unique enough. I guess the problem is, however, still
finding a way of presenting these images so they work satisfactorily in a
poem. Having the three images occupy their own numbered section of the poem
is a good solution (then you’re trusting that the reader can find, at a
level deeper than merely the words you’re using, links between the
sections).
I think, however, what I’m saying about the personal voice is still valid. I
mean roses mean a lot to you (you wrote in reply “some of my best friends
are roses”!) so I’d still encourage you to respond by showing even more how
much you’re committed to, involved with, the images you present.
Indeed it “might” be that reading some of the Imagist Poetry (there’s a
Penguin anthology with that title) and the introductionary essay might help
as well. Perhaps I’m thinking particularly of what Robert Duncan wrote (on
page 28) where he says that, as a group of writers, they moved away from the
conventions of poetic diction and used more ordinary speech patterns. I
guess in suggesting you use more sentences where you’re involved (using the
“I” word) that’s what I’m alluding too as well. They had a skill of both
presenting images and doing so with a style that seems to involve the
reader. It’s a good browse through a local library’s copy sort of book. I
like what HD was able to do, but they all have some excellent pieces. The
stuff’s almost a century old now, but it’s still got things we can work
with.
And over the last year or so I’ve been re-reading Wordsworth (in particular
his Duddon Sonnets) and I recall some that have the strong rhythmical
patterns of words you use – where the poems sound powerful and loud (almost
stentorian) – but then he writes a poem that’s soft and quiet, meditative
and reflective, yet he’s still using the same iambic pentametetric line. I’m
suggesting, I guess, that it’s therefore possible to get quieter with the
shorter lines the Imagists use, or the longer lines Wordsworth uses.
H’m, poems from 1915, and from 1820... what’s going on? Maybe just trying to
get to when less poems about roses had been written? (Perhaps) Or maybe
seeing that, when facing the same sorts of issues, long dead poets can help
living poets as well!
And, finally, reading through the second draft, I wonder if the first stanza
is needed? In fact, if it were dumped, the “I” of the poem then appears more
clearly in the foreground... That might solve many of the concerns I still
feel. But playing with the rhythms, playing to try and soften the tone, may
still be useful.
But, then, you still need a title (that belongs to the poem as it’s become –
not just to how it was written).
Bob
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