Hi Philip,
It's fascinating, nay it's intriguing, to see another draft!
Perhaps with Glaucous... if the word Gull had a cap too?
Brackets????? I've been checking my own reading carefully over the past few
months and have only read 3 poems with brackets this year - and I guess that
maes it all less than 1 percent... (Ooooh, lies & statistics time.)
And the baked leaves... I guess I'm still thinking they've actualy been
baked and not that they (merely) look like they've been baked (I'm getting
confused I guess between the literal and the metaphorical - and once
confused I'm not finding it easy to unconfuse myself!)
But I'm now having trouble with the first three lines! Each had a really
strong, unusual, adjective (captionless, varnished, inelastic) and I know I
belong to a tradition that believes that adjectives have to work really hard
to stay in a poem - but each one of these seems to be working so hard none
of the other words seem to stand a chance! The first two in particular are
only there to describe the sea - which is the background of the painting,
not the main focus of the painting, I mean the poem about the painting! (I'm
giving a really strong hint at cutting... I mean we can sense the sea must
be in the painting somewhere, can't we?).
I also enjoy the movement you infer in the last couplet. The boats (plural)
is subtle! But I think I'm too unread to get the literary reference!
Bob
>From: Philip Burton <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: new submission: to carry that whale...(Bob)
>Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2003 19:31:00 +0000
>
>Thanks for your penetrating thoughts Bob. The next draft:
>
>
>to carry that whale…… philip burton 10/03/03
>
> “Boat Trio”
> Oil on board
> - Dorothy Stirling
>
>
>the sea is a captionless awning
>beyond unvarnished sands
>
>an inelastic band of brothers
>(all sea boots and fisher wool
>on child-proportioned limbs)
>support an overturned skiff
>
>heads inboard, necks braced
>elbows heightened by the weight
>they float on the sea of paint
>dry as baked leaves on a pond
>
>a Glaucous gull grips the folded keel
>staring at the way they came
>enjoying the sway
>
>the boat is origami, tight seams
>of creased pale Prussian paper
>rising to a signature
>
>boats utter where they’ve been,
>where we are going.
>
>
>
>Addressing your excellent points -
>
>"glaucous" is of course blue-grey, but Glaucous is the name of the gull -
>identified by its blue-grey wing, white plumage, and distinguished from the
>Herring gull by the Glaucous' wing and tail feathers neater alignment.
>
>The brackets are a fad in my creative writing group that are "in" at the
>mo..
>
>"baked leaves on a pond" is an image of minimum contact. How they curl and
>stand proud and seem hardly to wet. Just so, the three child figures in
>relation to the "ground" of the painting.
>
>The "Oil on board" etc was copied directly from the label on the
>reproduction of the painting and so counts as a quote?
>
>Hoping that you approve the new draft. Do you identify the literary
>allusion in the final couplet, Bob?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>>From: Bob Cooper <[log in to unmask]>
>>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>Subject: Re: new submission: to carry that whale...
>>Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2003 19:21:53 +0000
>>
>>Hi Philip,
>>Great title, canny poem following it too!
>>The line about the baked leaves... I can go with the "dry" word, and the
>>"pond" word, but I'm not sure about the "baked" word. (And the whole
>>images of leaves on a pond is a tad distracting - not attracting - for
>>me... which may be because I don't know the picture, but it may be because
>>the poem's getting ready to resolve itself and this image/similie isn't
>>helping any resolution... it just seems to intrude to remind me it's a
>>fairly old painting)
>>And although I initially didn't mind the lack of lots of punctuation I'm
>>now wondering why everything's lower case except Glaucous (and some of the
>>title - the word Board isn't capped) and I'm wondering why brackets - and
>>not the more normally used in contemporary poems, dashes - and only one
>>comma?
>>Ah, questions, questions!
>>Bob
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>From: Philip Burton <[log in to unmask]>
>>>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>>Subject: new submission: to carry that whale...
>>>Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 18:39:44 +0000
>>>
>>>to carry that whale……
>>>
>>> “Boat Trio”
>>> Oil on board
>>> - Dorothy Stirling
>>>
>>>
>>>the sea is a captionless awning
>>>beyond lively khaki sands
>>>
>>>an inelastic band of brothers
>>>(all sea boots and fisher wool
>>>on child-proportioned limbs)
>>>support an overturned skiff
>>>
>>>heads inboard, necks braced
>>>elbows heightened by the weight
>>>they float on the sea of paint
>>>dry as baked leaves on a pond
>>>
>>>the boat is origami, tight seams
>>>of creased pale Prussian paper
>>>rising to a signature
>>>
>>>a Glaucous gull grips the folded keel
>>>enjoying the sway
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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