Dear Christina,
I'm going to comment on Arthur's poem after I've had another read o' it (I
did find the cave part very difficult going) but I'm just going to comment
on heft, if you don't mind.
I have no difficulty with the word, because I often use it myself-eg hefting
heavy furniture around. Am I a closet 'Merican, or a product of an archaic
age ?- LOL.
Kind regards,
grasshopper
----- Original Message -----
From: Christina Fletcher
Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2002 8:10 PM
Subject: Re: New sub: The Aire Gap


Arthur, I was enjoying this until (ii).  It was 'heft' that really put me
off: it reminded me of 'cleft', which reminded me of Rock of Ages and that
felt like such an awful connection that I concluded that it must be
subconscious and unintentional.  Anyhow, I looked up 'heft' in my little
dictionary and found 'Lift, esp. to judge weight.'.  So then I started to
wonder what you're actually (physically) doing in the poem and why a twenty
first century Yorkshireman is using a word that, according to my Oxford
dictionary, is US dialect (and/or sounds pretty archaic to my ear).  Anyhow,
couple these thoughts with the old Rock of Ages and I'm afraid you lost me
completely (as a reader).  I came back to the poem this evening after I read
Bob's comments because I didn't think I'd given it a fair reading and I
thought it might just be me so I wasn't going to say anything.  But I do so
much agree that it's your clear 'voice' I want to read in your poems (and
anyone else's) and I feel it's being drowned by other poets.  You have
terrific skill with words and it's almost inevitable that they'll go OTT
sometimes (or at least, what some of us find OTT).  If it were mine I'd be
sharpening the secateurs and I'd weigh quite a few of those hefty words very
carefully.  Course, I might end up with nothing more than an epitaph
(LOL!)...
bw
christina