Hi Bob,
Many thanks for your comments on this piece. I´ll have another look at the last stanza in the light of your comments and see if I can improve it. The only obvious phrase that I can see that might jar is `happy band´ which is more than a little twee. I used it because I thought it suited my narrator´s totally unrealistic view of this northern climate. Perhaps some of the familiar adjectives could be justified on the same grounds. Or perhaps not. I´ll think about it. This is a real problem in writing in general - a subject for later debate(?)
I take your point about the line `no life is possible here´ when in fact there is plenty of it. I had not thought about, or even noticed, this contradiction and I think this highlights one of the great benefits of this kind of list - a new pair of eyes sees so much more. I think I would try to justify my use of `possible´ here though in these terms; the speaker in the poem is an unreliable witness, repeatedly misinterpreting what he sees and making inaccurate judgements and comments about it. That, indeed, is one of the themes of the poem and in that sense, his use of `possible´ though contradictory is in keeping with his other rash and unfounded judgements. The same might be said about the line in the next stanza `where no feet can have run´. Although I hadn´t noticed the contradiction in `possible´, I was aware that my speaker´s words were unreliable and I deliberately placed `lies´ at the end of its line to draw attention to the other meaning of that word in this context. Does any of this make sense?
Your query about the title has me a bit puzzled. The narrative is about life and death in the north - the life and death of the little furry animals. Could you give me a hint of what alternative you had in mind?
You also asked about any Finnish connection with the phrase `dead end of the year´. So far as I know this phrase is not used in Finnish.
Many thanks, Bob, for your detailed response.
Best wishes, Mike
--- Alkuperäinen viesti ---
Hi Mike,
I really, really like this poem! Maybe it's the way the first 3 lines end in
full stops and I feel their power (I seem to feel the silence at the end of
each line of a landscape that's under heavy snow...). Then the poem lets me
move slowly through each image that follows. It's easy to read and
skillfully done.
And you write "If anyone's wondering what it's like in Finland just now..."
Well, I've a friend who's gone back home for the holiday. I'll see her again
in a fortnight! So I've been wondering!!! I find a sense of place.
I've also just been wondering about your last stanza. It gives a feel of
using other peoples well worn adjectives (endless, unforgiven) and the tone
seems to slip into thinking "I'm a poem" which is a shame because all that
had gone before it was so fresh and far more unselfconsciously a poem.
I guess it may be because you're not just doing the reflecting, but
directing it as well, in the concluding stanza (whereas in the previous
stanzas I was doing that through the descriptions I was being given!). Know
what I mean?
And any chance of a title that really fits the specifics of the poem?
(Oh, and just a question...) And is the phrase you repeat "the dead end of
the year," is that a translation of something Finnish - like "back end" is
used for autumn in parts of the UK?
Bob
PS I've also suggested a specific change - challenged a word - (in brackets)
below!
>From: Mike Horwood <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: New sub: Life and Death in the North
>Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 10:44:15 +0200
>
>If any of you have been wondering what it´s like in Finland just now, it´s
>quite a lot like this:
>
>
>
>Life and Death in the North
>
>This is the dead end of the year.
>Nothing lives under this lowering sky.
>The frozen air weighs like stone.
>Booted and scarved and wool-wrapped to the ears
>I step out on the empty land
>where a line of distant pines divides
>converging planes of white and grey.
>
>This is the dead end of the world.
>No life is "possible" here. (I think you mean "visible" because, you
>continue:)
>Everything warm has left, "or lies
>hidden and sleeping." (ie it's there but invisible!)
>A graveyard of summer´s rushes
>stand in frozen stasis at the ice-lake´s rim
>looking on the cold Medusa face,
>impervious to the wind´s persuasion.
>
>Shadows over the untouched white
>resolve to footprints of finger´s-end size
>where no feet can have run.
>Is this the ice-light playing tricks?
>Stepping closer I marvel to see them
>sweep in lines between the stems,
>twist, arc and double back,
>colliding with companion trails.
>
>In all these endless miles of cold,
>under this unforgiving sky,
>confounding all my previous prejudice,
>a family of some tiny creatures had sported here.
>And in the centre of their circling runs
>a patch was wildly scuffed and trodden,
>as if the happy band had held a midnight dance.
>
>Or something larger had surprised them at their play.
>
>
>
>
>Mike
>
>
>
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