Bob, thanks for the read and thoughtful comments. The last line is NOT about
the weather! and that's the only clue you are getting.<smile> Regards
Arthur.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Cooper" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, October 19, 2002 11:05 AM
Subject: Re: New sub: Mart Stuart crosses the Solway
Hi Arthur,
I like this poem a lot and I'm not sure why... I mean I recognise that a
poem is drama or it is nothing but this is Drama (with a big capital D!)
But I like the control you've exercised in using words that sort of allude
to the kind of Romantic-Historic-Balladic kind of poetry (that could
degenerate into a "The Lady Should-Be-Shot/The Lady Of Shallot" kind of
pastiche) but you keep well clear of making this sound mock-Tennyson. It
sounds like Arthur! But I'd do an adjective trawl on the thing myself (and
demand that each one utterly justify its presence by saying that the noun
would have a very different meaning without it) (and I'd check out
verbs/adverbs in the same way...) and I'd tighten up the last line... we
know the weather's bad so the first half of the line's saying it all isn't
it?
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: Mart Stuart crosses the Solway
>Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2002 08:37:34 +0100
>
>Mary Stuart crosses the Solway.
>
>Draughts of spiced wine warmed the failing night,
>the thin mist chill off the waters;
>shouts, she thought, and hooves behind
>in the hills, that far prison in the silent loch,
>her battle lost, she stirred and her heart
>opened to hands upon her in the dark.
>
>Day broke, birds in the spring woods, sweet and loud.
>Shipped oars glittered as the sea lifted the skiff
>pressed it up onto the shore;
>scrape and gnash of shingle;
>hurried deference and whispers in the growing light;
>long lick of tide under the keel.
>
>Frail bird of her hand in his,
>a thick shawl over the cropped glory of her hair,
>gleam of a golden cross, caught in her cold hand.
>Her fare dismissed, he bent his head,
>she accepted the bristled kiss upon her fingers.
>A falcon stooped and fell like a black star.
>
>Hands, gnarled with bitter weather
>and the bite of wet lines, shook out the fluttering sails,
>the cutter found the wind, drove out across the firth,
>left the lightening bonny banks behind.
>An hour or more, she stepped upon her cousin's realm,
>shivered and tightened her shawl against the cold winds rising.
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