Christina,
I guess it comes to taste again and for every cement-head like me there will
be ten others who like poetry that is playful and cryptic. What's wrong with
being light-hearted? But was it meant to be playful and cryptic? There is a
sadness in the Santa, like a Pierro doll, that comes out eventually. And
the more I think about it the more I can feel it in the poem. There is a
person in that outfit, under the double constraints of costume and
commercialism. There's something horrible about bringing Santa to the shops
in the first place ( the seedy underbelly of the season). Even the place
becomes seedy once a few foods have been crushed and spilt. That's what I
would take from the poem but I don't find that the first half of the poem
(in either version) leads me into that way of thinking. Maybe there are too
many clever distractions which take the place of contextual cues. But at
least I know where the potatoes fit in to the scheme of things now. Hope
that doesn't leave Santa feeling Edzell.
Colin
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Christina Fletcher [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 4:41 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Some Black Santas (new draft of Some Santas)
>
>
>
> Some Black Santas
>
>
> wear fake fur and felt hats.
> Others refuse to play to the audience of shoppers.
>
> Amita's pom-pom swings to the beep
> as she scans plastic bags of Maris Pipers.
>
> But who cares about Santas? Who gives a tinker's damn
> if there's a smile/no smile in a tinselled aisle
>
> or of a child slips on a cranberry in the cathedral of crackers
>
> (unless it screams and scrapes the nerves)?
>
> If a star should fall and splinter, or baubles burst,
> Santa will sweep and bin them with crushed satsumas
>
> rancid brandy butter - the debris of the day.
> Go late for reductions. Watch Santa's nails
>
> as she scratches labels from wrappers -
> they stick to her skin.
>
>
> (Sainsbury, Vauxhall, 2002)
>
>
>
>
> christina fletcher
>
>
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