Some thoughts inserted in your text below:


>> Lähettäjä: Colin dewar <[log in to unmask]>
> Päiväys: 2003/09/24 ke PM 08:53:42 GMT+03:00
> Vastaanottaja: [log in to unmask]
> Aihe: Re: New sub: Poem about a tree - Colin/Mike
> 
> Thanks for your explanation in turn, Mike. It has occurred to me that one
> could devise a whole style in poetry dependent on explanations. I'm not in
> favour of this and you're not either (nor anyone else know of) but it's an
> intriguing possibility. Such a book of poems would be like a book of
> crossword puzzles with the "answers" at the back (no less absurd that many
> movements in poetry over the millennia).


Something like Eliot´s `Notes´ to The Waste Land (?)



 This way the poems could get on
> with their activities without having to compromise with intelligibility.
> 'course this forgets the valid point of view (to which you alluded) that
> each reader may find their own response and that there can be no answers,
> but as I'm only joking anyway I won't go on to address that.

But it´s  an intriguing idea - and although each reader can form therir own interpretation, there´s nothing to say that the writer should join in the fun and give his/hers as well.


> 
> I'm intrigued by the use of the trees as an almost incidental coat hanger
> for mood. Or have I got that wrong? Is this something like person X has a
> certain sentiment arising from their own life experience which will be
> expressed  as if were part of the experience of inanimate object Y? 

 That´s a pretty fair summary of what I was trying to say. I don´t know whether it´s a valid approach to writing, or whether it comes off, though.


From
> your explanation, it does not appear to be the creation of an abstract world
> with novel sentiment.
> 
> Colin
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mike Horwood" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2003 8:39 AM
> Subject: Re: New sub: Poem about a tree - Colin
> 
> 
> > Hello Colin,
>                Thanks for your feedback on this one. When I posted it I had
> a little chockle to myself, thinking you would compare it with your own
> obscure postings recently. Everything you say about this one is absolutely
> reasonable and each reader I think can find their own way through any poem.
> I mean that reading is subjective. Naturally some poems allow of more
> flexibility in reader reception than others. For myself, I don´t read this
> poem as being `about´ trees at all. In fact, I think it is interesting to
> compare the different ways in which we have been obscure in our poems (my
> one, and your two). As you have explained, you took a subject and
> represented it quite realistically but with the focus of the poem turned
> away from the central subject. This, at least is clearly the casse with
> `Common Ground´, which really is `about´ the situation of the houses and the
> difficulty of selling them. It´s also partly the case with `Buried´, I
> think. Although you use the metaphor of buried treasure for the hidden part
> of people´s  lives, yet, once I´d read your `expplanation´ I could link the
> words in the poem directly to this subject. I think I have been `obscure´ in
> a different way. I have tried to create a mood and feeling that is derived
> from an experience but the experience itself is unguessable from the final
> poem. The mood is the thing I´m after. I put this clumsily. I posted a
> message to Bob on this poem where I tried to hint at what I was after.But of
> course, my idea is not the only way to read the poem. The trees are there
> and readers can interpret them in various ways, as you suggest.
> 
> 
> Best wishes,  Mike
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > Lähettäjä: Colin dewar <[log in to unmask]>
> > Päiväys: 2003/09/21 su PM 12:56:13 GMT+03:00
> > Vastaanottaja: [log in to unmask]
> > Aihe: Re: New sub: Poem about a tree/mike
> >
> > Mike,
> >
> > I'll just piggy back on as I didn't get the original.
> >
> > An interesting poem, competently put together on the whole with a good bit
> > of enjambment to smooth the way. Not sure that I agree with Bob about the
> > repetition of "stand" which may be defensible as deliberate  emphasis.
> > Nevertheless when I have seen it done before it's usually been on the aa
> > rhyme rather than on the bb rhyme on an abab stanza.
> >
> > To come to the poem I feel that I'm getting a taste of my own medicine and
> > that I'm looking at a complex metaphor that I can't quite work out. On the
> > other hand it is susceptible to the same criticism too (well dished out by
> > you, Bob and Sue not so long ago and gratefully received by me). Trees are
> > inert and its hard to think of them looking like they have been deceived.
> So
> > are they fully mythical like Hughes's Crow (tho' even this a debatable
> > assumption due to inconsistencies in Crow)? Or are they real trees
> > (plausibly and consistently so) which the human observer finds a suitable
> > vehicle for conveying something else? One option is to go for the belt and
> > braces approach, have them as trees in a solid poem in its own right with
> > the metaphorical sufficiently present for the whole poem to be turned over
> > and re interpreted. As this stands I can't begin to take it literally.
> > Straight away it's an exercise to try to decode all the lines.
> Nevertheless
> > there are poems like this, one by Mgt Atwood, among her early work, about
> a
> > forest fire which has burnt itself out, as metaphor for first love (I
> think)
> > which gains sufficient detachment  to make the transposition worthwhile. I
> > suppose there has to be a unifying sentiment between the two systems, but
> > that's just my opinion. A unifying sentiment is what makes the metaphor
> (or
> > symbol?) work at a tactile level. It's emotional reasoning I suppose,
> > illogical perhaps but potentially more forceful than logic because it
> allows
> > the argument to be "felt".
> >
> > However I'm not sure that there are two systems intended in this poem
> > (rather than a shared system of feeling). It may be that the narrator is
> > feeling certain things on behalf of the trees.
> >
> > One thing that does come across well in the poem is that the trees are
> under
> > threat (and therefore that all that they represent is threatened). Natural
> > senescence, fire or getting made into furniture are all possibilities for
> > the vulnerable trees.
> >
> > So far I have not criticised the poem, so much as talking round it (if
> those
> > are different things), but if I had one thing you could change it would be
> > the word possible.  Everything's possible isn't it? And why should this be
> a
> > contrast to being deceived?
> >
> > I agree with Bob that the switch between singular and plural doesn't
> really
> > help the poem and could be avoided.
> >
> > An intriguing poem and one that I'm likely to come back to.
> >
> > Keep up the good work,
> >
> > Colin
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Bob Cooper" <[log in to unmask]>
> > To: <[log in to unmask]>
> > Sent: Saturday, September 20, 2003 12:15 PM
> > Subject: Re: New sub: Poem about a tree
> >
> >
> > Hi Mike,
> > This is interesting! Subtle. Unexpected. Wry. Fun.
> > The first stanza is amazing! You've got me hooked! So, what follows are
> > minorish quibbles...
> > I'm a tad concerned that the words "evening" and "air" are split, put on
> > different lines...
> > And I notice "stand" is an end line word that's used twice in the same
> > stanza... (but I love what the lines are saying!). Could one "stand"
> become
> > "take"?
> > And "bare" is a repeated adjective in the last stanza...
> > Then I'm wondering if "tree" (singular) and "trees" (plural) has much
> > significance... the title is singular, the poem then moves from plural to
> > singular once or twice. Does the poem have to make that shift a tad
> clearer
> > - or eliminate it?
> > And, at first, I thought "Naw, naff title!" -- but then I got to thinking,
> > "H'm a poem is something that, by definiition, is Made... And the frame,
> the
> > table and chair are made..." And I find myself chuckling! But I might be
> > just making a big mistake - might be reading "my" poem much more than
> what's
> > in front of me on the screen! If it were called "Tree Poem" or Tree-Poem
> > then I'd be chuckling louder!
> > It all raises delightfully stated issues about the relationship between
> > people and the natural world.
> > Bob
> >
> >
> >
> > >From: [log in to unmask]
> > >Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
> > >To: [log in to unmask]
> > >Subject: New sub: Poem about a tree
> > >Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2003 14:17:05 +0300
> > >
> > >Poem About A Tree
> > >
> > >
> > >These trees are possible, but
> > >they have the look of trees
> > >that have been deceived.
> > >Someone must have been telling lies.
> > >
> > >Autumn is the hardest season;
> > >the smell of smoke in the evening
> > >air disturbs them. They cling
> > >together, lock their limbs together.
> > >
> > >Other worlds were possible, too,
> > >worlds that might have contained
> > >tables and chairs, or frames
> > >that contained paintings and glass.
> > >
> > >There was a time when I tried to hide
> > >all this. How much truth can a tree stand?
> > >On a September morning when sun is sure
> > >to give way to rain, how much can it stand?
> > >
> > >That was the time when these trees
> > >believed themselves possible, before
> > >they found their own route to knowledge
> > >and the enjoyment of sun and rain.
> > >
> > >For a tree full of knowledge
> > >each leaf it drops in autumn
> > >hints at what might have been.
> > >A naked tree is undeceived.
> > >
> > >Bare branches etch the whole tale
> > >on the sky. Through bare branches it´s easy
> > >to read the weather signs, like looking
> > >through a frame, at a table or chair.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >Mike
> >
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