Arthur,

Bone headed tho' I may be I saw the significance of the two churches and
felt they were an asset to the poem,


Colin


----- Original Message -----
From: "arthur seeley" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2003 7:40 AM
Subject: Re: Heptonstall: Swift rewrite. (Bob, colin


> Thanks for the read and comments, Bob and Colin).
> This is very much work in progress, not really fully gestated.
>  I do not like to explain poems, after all they should speak for
themselves,
> but clearly but this is a workshop so I might as well discuss my thinking.
> I had intended to start the poem without the references to the churches
but
> wondered why Heptonstall is visited at all. The village is itself sealed
in
> time, as Haworth Main Street or Beamish, and worth a visit for that but it
> has two other things, the two churches and Sylvia Plath's grave.
> The old church was destroyed by fire in a violent storm. Rather than pull
it
> down and start again, they simply moved sideways and built a new church.
> Outside the new church is a piece already struck from the building by
> another storm. ( Ted used to call himself an Easter Island carving)
> Now this place of storms, Tempests, and Plath's book of poems, Ariel,
seemed
> a trifle more than coincidence, my fancy only, nothing scientific.
> There seemed some kind of metaphor in the storm attacked churches and the
> relationship between Ted and Sylvia ( she bit him on the cheek the day
they
> met). The first three strophes imposed themselves, I altered 'shade' to
> 'shades', to bring in the idea of spirits/ghosts, let 'curiously coupled
> 'point two ways and moved out of the churchyard into the neighbouring
field.
> I did wonder whether the neighbouring burial field was an overspill or
> whether Sylvia's suicide had anything to do with her relegation there. I
am
> not sure of the Church's attitude to suicide now.
> The tombstone has in the past been attacked and attempts to chisel out the
> 'Hughes' have been made by militant feminists. After 'Birthday Letters'
> things seem to have cooled . I did not see any evidence of attack but the
> stone may have been changed.
> The attempts to ' dress' her grave site, I found, personally, pathetic,
> hence the references to ragged mosaic and limp flowers.
> I am rewriting this poem and will try to 'focus' it a little. As to the
> metaphor of the two churches ( Ted/Sylvia) it either works or it doesn't,
I
> try to leave room for the reader and dashing in with signposts saying'
this
> is a metaphor' just wouldn't do. The title might help and I am under a
> working title at the moment.
> Excuse this long response but it has helped my thinking to discuss it in
> depth. Regards Arthur
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Bob Cooper" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2003 5:09 PM
> Subject: Re: Heptonstall: Swift rewrite.
>
>
> Hi Arthur,
> I've read this through a fair few times! But I don't think it's focused
> yet...
> I mean I keep asking, when I've read it, "Now, what's it about?"
> and I want to answer "Sylvia Plath's Grave."
> So then I ask myself, "So why mention the thunderstorm stricken Church?
What
> about the newer Church? How do they fit into what's going on?"
> And I can't find clear enough answers...  ... if there is a link - and
there
> might well be - it might be that the lines about Plath may need to echo
more
> clearly what's said about the buildings (like I feel there's something
being
> said about her in describing the flowers and all else on and around the
> grave).
> And "not let to heal" - "not left to heal" is, I guess, standard speech.
But
> "let" can also work, can it?
> And have you played with the shape of the poem? (Impishly I'm wondering
what
> it would look like, how it would work, if it looked the same shape as her
> gravestone).
> Bob
>
>
> >From: arthur seeley <[log in to unmask]>
> >Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
> >To: [log in to unmask]
> >Subject: Heptonstall: Swift rewrite.
> >Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2003 14:11:53 +0100
> >
> >Heptonstall: 2003
> >
> >
> >
> >This is a place
> >
> >where storms gather
> >
> >and destroy.
> >
> >
> >
> >The old church
> >
> >brought down
> >
> >by the mindless violence of lightning,
> >
> >
> >
> >a carved coping
> >
> >of the new, bludgeoned loose
> >
> >by another blow.
> >
> >
> >
> >Beyond the shades
> >
> >of the curiously coupled churches,
> >
> >ash and phoenix,
> >
> >
> >
> >across a small dirt road
> >
> >into a neighbouring field,
> >
> >I find her.
> >
> >
> >
> >Someone has picked
> >
> >at the scab of earth,
> >
> >caressed her while cursing him,
> >
> >
> >
> >planted flowers,
> >
> >limp in the heat,
> >
> >and a ragged mosaic of flat stones,
> >
> >
> >
> >artless
> >
> >as a child's fancy
> >
> >on a summer beach,
> >
> >
> >
> >the headstone
> >
> >heavily erect over her,
> >
> >'Sylvia Plath Hughes',
> >
> >
> >
> >Lady Lazurus unrisen.
> >
> >
> >
> >All poets, it seems, must die,
> >
> >mouths plugged with soil,
> >
> >lips edited by worms,
> >
> >
> >
> >chemistry stopped,
> >
> >direction altered unalterably,
> >
> >broken, left to change,
> >
> >
> >
> >under the blue benign,
> >
> >into the mute pathos
> >
> >of limp flowers
> >
> >
> >
> >the wound
> >
> >not let to heal
> >
> >under the obliterations of grass.
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Hotmail messages direct to your mobile phone
http://www.msn.co.uk/msnmobile
>