Hi Arthur,
Yeh, I understood Christina to mean a sort of poetry cliche (there's a lot
of winds that do a lot of keening in a lot of poems... and here's another
one!).
The ambiguity you mention (with the word "keen") is clear but also a
digression from what the rest of the poem is doing, don't you think?
The way the word "melt" works is so much more subtle (ie - do you mean the
rubble from an old school that's been pulled down is being poured into big
lorries) or are you being more playful still, and letting the visual shapes
of a building and the visual shapes of lorries somehow merge/inter-react.).
"Keening" isn't as subtle as what you've done before in the poem... and the
poem's ending is (as Coleridge may have said) so subtle it's (in many senses
of the word) sublime!
And I was thinking of how the line about the sweets makes me go sort of into
the detail (I'm listening for the noise of the packet! - and I can hear
that!) and then I'm allowed to get reflective when I come across the lorries
and the school... BUT THEN my head's jerked up to the horizon, then (after
being pummelled by what's up there) I'm brought back to the delicate and the
tender mention of fingers (that seems as if it fits in with melts, and
sweets...). I sort of feel "this poem's not taking what it's doing seriously
anymore!"
I agree that we can play the micro/macro game with readers (sometimes) but
is this the time and the place? I just don't think it is...
Bob
>From: arthur seeley <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: New sub: constitutional ( Bob)
>Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 10:38:52 -0000
>
>Bob Thanks, keens seems a good word potentially carrying two meanings in
>this context. Christina suggests it might be cliché but I cant say I have
>noticed it that much myself but I may be wrong. Don't you think there is
>mileage in zooming out from the microcosmic to the macrocosmic sometimes?
>Gives us a sense of perspective to shift focus now and again. Don't you
>think?
>Arthur
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Bob Cooper" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 10:15 PM
>Subject: Re: New sub: constitutional
>
>
> > Hi arthur,
> > Brrrr! You've caught the total chill of a Pennine midwinter's day here!
> > I'm not sure why but I'm not too keen on the line:
> > "the wind keens from the clouded scarps"
> > I think it may be I'm jolted to look up and look differently at the
>things
> > you mention. Everything else seems so small, so particular, and - in the
> > last line - so hidden. But this line comes at me with too much force.
> > Otherwise I love how its playing with images and words. (And, again,
>there's
> > a magic in the last line!)
> > 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: constitutional
> > >Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 08:51:37 -0000
> > >
> > >magpies hack the corpse of Christmas
> > >
> > >strip the racked cage a few flakes swirl
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >by the post office a child tears open sweets
> > >
> > >the old school melts into lorries
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >the wind keens from the clouded scarps
> > >
> > >patient thin fingers prise the earth open
> >
> >
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