Christina,

Thanks for your helpful comments. Believe it or not some of my poetry is a
reaction to poems I read years ago in libraries, which I found too timid,
merely descriptive or cryptic and which I thought were modern. Don't take
that as an oblique comment on the poetry I've read here, which is too
interesting and diverse to be categorised.

Maybe I was too greedy then.  I felt I had come into a house with a whole
larder full of food and had been given a bag of nuts - nice nuts though they
were-  leaving me to imagine the meal, guess even what the meal was or might
have been. I wanted the cakes and pies on the table too.

I wanted to saturate my poems with images and ideas. The questions I asked
myself were, "What are the most complex ideas and emotional states that can
be put into poetry? and What are the limits of the symbol?" I know too well
how far I have fallen short of my own aspirations. I wish I were more of a
poet.  It's been a great adventure at least. Your comment and others have
come at a good time as I do not think I can go much further in that
direction.

Maybe it proves the old adage that if you lean over too far to prevent
yourself falling backwards you end up falling forwards.

You are right that I do sometimes use words for their sounds, rather than
their phenomenological associations. But not always. Take "kaleidoscope
clouds". When I think of a kaleidoscope I think of a tube held up against
the sky like a telescope. As a child mine was like that. When you turn it
the illuminated patterns change unpredictably, as the clouds (beyond them)
also turn and change unpredictably, as the whole world changes unpredictably
(and often dangerously). But if this image is not a success, I'm glad at
least that the sound comes through. Each image is meant to symbolise the
meaning of the poem, or at least to contribute to a collective picture. The
images approach the same subject over and over again from different angles.
Do we ever know something by seeing it or hearing it once?

I hope I have not sent in too many poems at once. After January I will be
too busy to take part in the list as much as I would like. So you can think
of me as being greedy for criticism in the time available.


Colin

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Christina Fletcher [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 18, 2002 9:01 AM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Re: newsub(building)
>
> Hello Colin,
> I've been reading your poems and haven't commented so far because I'm a
> terribly impatient and not a well-informed reader so I often feel that my
> comments may be unfair.  But I do think (so far) that what you write would
> be far more accessible to some readers if it were less rich.  It's not the
> individual ingredients but the whole cake that's the problem for me.  When
> I read, I'm more conscious of the fact that I'm reading 'a poem' than the
> point of what you've written.  I overdose on words and metaphors and,
> instead of enhancing, they obscure.  Sometimes, the imagery breaks down.
> For example, your kaleidoscopic clouds and bland marzipan.  I feel as if
> you've used words for the sound but the imagery doesn't really work for me
> when I think about it. I keep thinking 'less is more' and wondering what
> would happen if you clipped back dramatically in the interests of the
> whole rather than the individual parts.  I think you have to take! the
> risk that the reader will understand what you're trying to say without
> needing to be so explicit.  For example, do you need to tell us that we
> can't feel the wind when we know we're indoors? I've put brackets around
> all the lines up to that seem (to me) to be superfluous (up to the ants
> because I've no more time at the moment) because it's the easiest way to
> show you what I mean.  It isn't an attempt to rewrite your poem.  I'm sure
> lots of people will disagree completely.  I read somewhere that it's a
> good idea to take out any lines you feel are really good and then look at
> the poem without them.  Is that a form of maschochism?  Probably, but only
> when we're precious about what we write.
> This all sounds very negative but I think you have a really fine way with
> sound and music and tackle huge subjects.
> bw
> christina
>
>
>
>
>       At work in this building
>
>
>       (This building is) awash   ***  or change the title
>       in an autumn wind
>       where branches curl like waves
>
>       (about to fall and surge up,
>       where kaleidoscope clouds
>       pummel the air with their turning)
>
>       where the moon thunders by in its bowling alley, *** this stanza is
> enough to put me into this space
>       where meteors like missiles
>       zip invisibly in near misses
>
>       (while the dark centre of the galaxy,
>       the ghost hole that crushes and sucks in all that approaches
>       goes on sucking and crushing like a cosmic gullet.
>
>       Soon this craft will be sunk by time in a stone ocean.
>       Bricks slip from its side, slates loosen.)
>       Rain trickles in from a window pane
>
>       or drips through the ceiling to a plastic pan.
>       (It is being worn by the same forces
>       that wedge rocks apart and level mountains
>
>       but in its sheltering hollow)
>       we (know none of this,)  *** but we do know that we know none of
> this because you've implied it by telling us that the missiles are
> invisible
>       walk (obliviously) in corridors,
>
>       (labyrinthine as a rabbit's warren,)
>       past illuminated pastel walls
>       (as bland and featureless as marzipan.
>
>       They offer us no record of time.)
>       The floor of slotted nylon tiles
>       is firm on its boards,
>
>       (shows no sign of lifting in a sailor's wake
>       nor what abyssal currents bear us on.
>       We may not love but we live here.
>
>       Our roles are given and we need them to know each other,
>       would be lost if we met elsewhere
>       but here) we (play our part in a process,)
>
>       (co-operate) like ants,  ***  we know that ants co-operate: it's a
> major feature of anthood.
>       enact titanic ritual to the end.
>       Even as this vessel slowly sinks
>
>       its warmth is steady in winter,
>       as homeostatic as the human form,
>       a second skin to insulate from all that would terrify and subdue.
>
>       The waters of the world have not broached its boilers yet.
>       The fluorescent tubes give constant light.
>       We cannot even see the moon
>
>       until we enter an unlit room
>       and that moon is kind,
>       when watched outside its freezing flight.
>
>       We cannot feel the wind.
>       So why should we know that this refuge is fleeting
>       as a cave of branches in a battered wood?
>
>       Cups and plumbing pipe tamed water to our lips,
>       assist customs that we spin out
>       as if endowed with all the time in the world.
>
>       Cupboards hoard cassettes faithfully in our voice
>       until we come back.
>       E-mail lassos connections in absence,
>
>       distorts dead matter to electronic presence
>       as though the world's elements
>       were there for our whim,
>
>       the universe made slave
>       and not a bulldozer leaning on an ant's raft.
>       Right to the end of the day
>
>       it maintains us in this limbo
>       that is and is not life,
>       familiar as the human face,
>
>       where we stare at each other bewildered,
>       comforted by substance only,
>       yet knowing exactly what to say.
>
>
>
>