Hi James,
Now this makes me chuckle...
I wonder if it's a difference between rural poetry and urban poetry that
makes for reservations about using words like "brick shithouse"? To me it
seems an OK kind of phrase, because it's the kind of street-wise phrase that
belongs to how people talk. And you're playing with the words, stretching
things like elastic, making us smile. I also like the way your walking in
this poem - maybe it's when poets appear to be sat down, or standing still,
that their language appears quieter...
I'm sure the peson who first coined the phrase, and spent the penny he
coined, must have been a poet at heart!
And a question: have you thought of joining lines together, making the poem
twice its width and half its length?
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: Material Evidence
>Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2003 10:25:32 +0000
>
>I was a little hestant to post this one, though I now have. It was to do
>with the subject matter though I'm sure you'd all accept that we can write
>poems about anything. I'd really like to know what people think on this one
>as it came very unexpected. I can't spell sibilance by the way.
>
>MATERIAL EVIDENCE
>
>Walk along the crowded road
>through the heaving market
>on my way to the river
>behind this guy who is built
>like a brick shithouse
>
>There is plenty of time
>to think why I should even
>consider how this phrase
>comes to mind while looking
>at his vast bulk
>and what an actual
>brick shithouse would look like
>
>I mean - why brick
>why not tin or pre-stressed concrete -
>and decide it must be
>the assonance and slight sybilance of
>brick shithouse
>who, by the way
>wears a t-shirt
>displaying a WWF wrestler in action
>and I start to wonder -
>as panic takes over
>when I decide to turn an unnecessary corner
>to at least see daylight again -
>if such constructions
>can read minds
>
>
>
>
>bw
>James
>
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