Thanks Bob,
I was with my brother when I thought of it, and he'd take it with a pinch of
salt, saying something like "...as far above us the giant space weasel moves
swiftly into the mating box.." to cut me short before I get too seismic. The
place existed but the track was from my childhood, with
all kinds of treasures from lead to amethyst, among the gravel and got
edited in.
If I said that it was the walk
towards a certain place it is just possible (though unlikely) that s.o might
go there and be disappointed by the track).
Could say more but must dash,
Thanks for the crit and keep it coming
Colin
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Cooper" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2003 1:47 PM
Subject: Re: newsub/walk
> Hi Colin,
> I both really like this poem (what it's about and where it's set, and what
> it's doing...) and, at the same time, I'm not so happy with this poem.
> Maybe it's because I know the person is possible on their own, or with one
> other person, and I'm therefore wondering "who on earth's he talking to
like
> this?" Is it me, am I there too? (If I were walking along with a guy who
> talked in this tone of voice I'd be worried... more than Sammy Coleridge
was
> with Willie Wordsworth when they went wandering up the fells!) So, I hope,
> if I were there, the poet wasn't talking to me like that! (or to anyone
else
> who may be there!).
> OK, I know he's talking to (ahem) the reader who's got to assume they're
> there too (crouching along just out of shot like the man with the
microphone
> when they're shooting the scene for the TV). But, if I'm supposed to be
> there, I'd like to be talked to in a more friendly fashion (more chatty?)
> and not told things that almost sound like cliches: the sound of the
curlew,
> the beckoning loch, the lapping water - make the phrases sound interesting
> to someone you're talking to as if they're there! (I can get along with
the
> ghostliness of a stationary heron, but do reeds haunt too? Amazing notion!
> Or is haunt being used in a less specific, more birdwatchery-phrasery,
> sense).
> I'm also wondering if the piece could be more specific about place? (But I
> do know of people who've wandered landscapes with [more classically
> famous]poems and then criticsised, afterwards, the geographical
> innaccuracies (aah, anoraks every one em!). But where are we? A name of a
> place, somewhere, may help...
> Oh, and sometimes phrases like "spoil of mines" "crystals of quartz"
"grass
> of last year" sound OK with the "of" in the middle but sometimes last
year's
> grass, quartz crystals, sounds far easier to accept.
> Lot of criticsisms here, but given to a poem that's worth them. It's
canny!
> Bob
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >From: Colin dewar <[log in to unmask]>
> >Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
> >To: [log in to unmask]
> >Subject: newsub/walk
> >Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 20:03:53 +0100
> >
> >The track
> >
> >
> >Have we gone far enough on our walk?
> >Shall we sit on a bank of grass
> >and gaze to the beckoning loch?
> >Beware of the storm that blows from the North,
> >how gathers the blindness of night,
> >for lost on the moors is many a life.
> >
> >The track has done well so far.
> >It is made from the spoil of mines,
> >and meanders through hills
> >with crystals of quartz, of iron pyrites
> >and pale copper blue
> >that shine from its back.
> >In our coats we gather such lesser jewels.
> >
> >Do you think we can make it to the lapping water,
> >the haunt of heron and reeds
> >to dip our hands in ambered shallows,
> >to listen to the curlew's lonesome cry?
> >Or shall we rest for a while with the grass of last year,
> >go home with our pockets of quartz and fool's gold?
> >
> >___________________________________________
> >
> >
> >Colin
> >
> >
> >
> >iron pyrites = fool's gold
>
>
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