Thanks Mike,
"dig" was used to add a certain poetic dignity to the work of this labourer,
"jointer" is the technical word for the guys who splice the electric cables.
One of them died the year before I was there when a cable was left live by
accident and the man's nose ran........
You are absolutely spot on with your interpretation of "bull", but I will
give the text further thought to make things less of as struggle for reader.
Thanks again for your sensitive reading.
Philip
>From: Mike Horwood <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: new submission: The Bull
>Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2003 11:45:52 +0200
>
>Hello Philip,
> This poem reads very nicely, it´s fluent and there´s an
>interesting use of language. All of which is to say that I enjoyed it, of
>course. Enjoyed it, in fact, despite not fully understanding what I was
>reading. Poems are sometimes ambiguous or deliberately obscure and that can
>be half the fun, but I rather fancy that in this case the poem is
>straight-forward and it´s just me that doesn´t understand. Or is there some
>Scottish dialect usage here that I´m not familiar with? For instance, the
>word `dig´ at the end of line 6 suggests an archaeological dig to me
>whereas I had thought that our hero was in a ditch. Is this a local term?
>Or am I up the wrong tree as well as down the ditch? Apart from that I had
>understood I was reading about a labourer working for the electricity
>board, digging ditches for new power lines, and apart from the word `dig´ I
>feel fairly confident until line 10. But then, what are `jointers´? Should
>they be `joiners´ and what are they doing in the ditch? I want the end of
>the poem to be describing the way that the workman´s pride in his digging
>is in conflict with the time and motion, targets and timetables of the
>overseers and how they try to wheedle and handle him, like a bull with a
>ring through its nose, but I have some difficulty making the text fit that
>interpretation.
>So, am I barking where I shouldn´t be (up that wrong tree again). Help me
>out here.
>
>
>Best wishes, Mike
>
>
>
>--- Alkuperäinen viesti ---
>The Bull
>
>South of Scotland Electricity Board, 1964
>
>
>Hands that inhabit no pocket, wrists
>bare as cow-hide flecked with Scottish ale,
>deft on the polished pick or spade. Blisters
>long healed and calloused, archetypal male,
>he sings little, speaks less, and satisfies
>his own eye in that section of the dig.
>He winkles out the proud stones, mortified
>till sides are plaster-smooth, gives no fig
>for the ragged requirements of overseers,
>the vowels of time, dry studies of work.
>And jointers, who praise him over the years
>as they solder blind and stagger the dark,
>know about targets and rings around
>and the bull that strays, and won’t give ground.
>
>
>
>
>
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