Hey, Colin, I can hardly keep up with you! I found this one hidden near the
bottom of a pile!
I feel, particularly as the poem gets into its second half, that there's too
many words!
As an example:
"The face I bear to the slanting light
>
>is a different face
>from the seal's face that stares back with calm black eyes
>
>from its weight-bearing home." seems to take so long to read! And as the
>poem's going on I feel myself getting impatient. I guess the common advice
>of deleting adjectives and adverbs (and only replacing them when they're
>essential) might help - because, at times, I was thinking, "do I really
>need to know this?"
I think, therefore, it's a question of pace. It's recognising that
adjectival words and phrases can be used to slow things down and nouns and
verbs (with no added words) quicken things up. Where do you want me to
linger? I can see how you're trying to stitch in patterns but it almost gets
to "never mind the quality, feel the width" standards IMHO.
Know worra mean?
Bob







>From: "Dewar Colin [FVPC]" <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: newsub(Islands)
>Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 12:10:07 -0000
>
>From This Island
>
>
>From this island the shale-grey sea
>is the same sea that appears
>
>from that island over there:
>whale-black by shade of cloud
>
>or by evening light a bar of gold
>level on windless water.
>
>It is the same sea I gaze upon here
>with my knees in a swamp of sphagnum
>
>where the bog slumps down.
>Sulphuric bubbles make space for my feet
>
>till they bump stone like the bones of a rotten beast.
>On this island arctic air
>
>cramps my hands as they rest
>rheumatic on sodden wood.
>
>Clegs strike and assail my bare shoulder.
>Rooted like a wind-bent tree I stare
>
>at reflections on the altering water:
>the volcanic vent of the sun
>
>under ice-cap moon in salty blue.
>On this island bracken scratches my thighs as I move on.
>
>I come through forest where spruce prickles
>and drips dampen cloth.
>
>The rain falls like freezing glass.
>I walk till I come to the cliff and can go no further,
>
>marooned on this island.
>The face I bear to the slanting light
>
>is a different face
>from the seal's face that stares back with calm black eyes
>
>from its weight-bearing home.
>This island is not the same as that island over there
>
>where the slim pharos flares and gulls
>line the through-draft on their island,
>
>nor the same where stags roar over the sound
>from their shore of sand,
>
>who by night dine on globe flowers and the leaves of tangy sorrel.
>This island is not the same
>
>as that island
>where I would dwell if I could
>
>to gaze on the sea
>as it shifts from shale to jade green;
>
>the same sea
>that finds its way thus far inland
>
>and surrounds with its inlets,
>fingering their way into awareness
>
>and invading my darkest dreams with silver light,
>taunting with warmth drained from the sun
>
>that I cannot meet with my skin nor teeth bite.
>This island has its own history and cannot be other than it is.
>
>Its berries are bitter
>even as I encounter
>
>on looking out
>an intractable delight.
>
>______________________________________


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