Hi Sue,
The idea of a poem to an unkown dead poet is intruiging!
I'm feeling in two minds here, Sue. I like both drafts - but seem to favour
the "shape" of this one more... somehow I'm more impressed by the shorter
lines, the pauses they create - though I guess some of the shortest lines
here may seem too short to really give enough substance to justify standing
on their own... phrases like:
"Words die
as does flesh, and yet
beyond the days
chiseled here
there remains
something . . ."
feels kind of too thin, to narrow... (maybe that's one of the reasons for
the redraft?) So... How about:
"Words and flesh die
and yet beyond the days
there remains something..."
(so they become sort of just-longer-than the first draft but not as bulky as
the revised draft.)
I also can't quite work out why I'm being told the limbs sway... (I guess
it's the people's arms or legs... but it could be the limbs/branches of a
tree...) cos I seem to get the most significant movement of the poem with
their hands.
I guess there may be literary allusions with trees, grass (all flesh is...
etc, or Whitman, or whatever) going on just off-stage as the poem's ending
but I'm wondering how strong they have to be for an unknown poet... the
ending, for me, points to something I feel is worth recording.
I like it,
Bob
>From: Sue Scalf <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: An Unknown Poet (wip)
>Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 12:00:52 EDT
>
>An Unknown Poet
>
>Under this stone
>there is no evidence
>of chaos chained.
>Centuries will take
>the bones.
>And of those words
>that saw clearer than eyes
>and tried to keep
>a fingerprint of life
>there may be no memory
>even of these to testify
>of what life seemed
>and what it meant.
>Words die
>as does flesh, and yet
>beyond the days
>chiseled here
>there remains
>something . . .
>breath of wind,
>swaying limbs
>trees in wind,
>grass, the touch
>of hands as lovers stand
>looking down.
>
>
>Sue Scalf
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