Thanks Bob,
Just what this poem needs at present. Hope you like the CD. I'm stil dipping
into your book. I do this with poetry collections.
bw
James
>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 sub: Taw
>Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2003 13:21:31 +0000
>
>Hi James,
>First: thanks for the CD. In the times of the day when I want to get at
>poems and poetry I find this machine, and this site, is gobbling up all my
>watch wants to give me right now. So many poems! But I'll sit and listen to
>it tonight!
>
>And I like this poem a lot! I get a real feel for a river I don't think
>I've
>ever been near (and I'd be mightily dissapointed if it didn't live up to
>the
>images you give of it!).
>I'm not sure about the words you use in these two lines:
>>arranged by hands eager to control
>>the habits of nature. (I don't know if habits is the right word... I feel
>>"hands" is too shorthand for a lot of work, planning as well as labour, by
>>a lot of people...).
>I'm also a little worried by the phrasing of "time of ice" and "time of
>forests" (and "human traffic" as well, perhaps) because they sound sort of
>very distant to me. The phrase "Ice Age" sounds dramatic, "Time of ice"
>sounds, well, weaker!
>I also find I can't make sense of the sentence the last stanza's made out
>of. The second "flowing" seems wrong! I keep rereading it, and reading it
>aloud and adding commas and all sorts to try and get what you're getting at
>but...
>And if it were my poem (which it isn't!) I'd be desperate for an ending
>that
>felt stronger... It may be that the "ing" ending words are weakening it.
>Or,
>as a poem it could be pushing you into saying something else about the
>river, about people, about what's going on today...
>Bob
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>>From: James Bell <[log in to unmask]>
>>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>Subject: New sub: Taw
>>Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2003 12:36:58 +0000
>>
>>Another river poem.
>>
>>TAW
>>
>>It's been a long time
>>and only now I choose to call
>>this river Taw by name
>>and in the word find the depths
>>of its ancient origins before hunmanity
>>as it took a way
>>through old forest and hills
>>uncontaminated by silage from fields
>>flood barriers and quays
>>arranged by hands eager to control
>>the habits of nature.
>>
>>Taw is silently flowing
>>or strong and dark though means nothing
>>to the birds whose ancestors
>>bred and fed here before human traffic
>>chose a name after the last time of ice
>>and in the time of forest -
>>even now there is change
>>as I watch dry sand blown
>>across the sandbar following some design
>>of nature that refines its flatness
>>refrms its bank
>>the only final control
>>over this silently flowing that may flow
>>beyond the woods
>>and those anxious
>>those striving
>>those warring.
>>
>>
>>
>>bw
>>James
>>
>>
>>
>>
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