Bob,

*As you pointed out, anoraks and all.

Colin


----- Original Message -----
From: "Colin dewar" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2003 12:28 PM
Subject: Re: newsub/walk


> 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
> >
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________
> > Get Hotmail on your mobile phone http://www.msn.co.uk/mobile
> >
> >
>
>