Hello you two,
              Thanks for your detailed comments, Bob, and christina for your continued interest in this one. I´ll try some of these cuttings and choppings over the weekend and see what comes out. I always feel a bit hestitant about offering some kind of `authorial explanation´ of a poem for various reasons that you´re probably both familiar with yourselves, but.....should I just mention that I was trying for a very oblique treatment of a major disaster in my protagonist´s life here? I wanted a tone of loss and resignation to pervade the poem and I wanted `letters´ to signify both the letters that make up words, and thus language, and also the letters that come in the post, and thus communication. This is why I used the word `familiar´, Bob, which you wondered about, letters and words, speech, feel familiar on the tongue. But words are unpredictable things - they `rush against the flow´ sometimes - and their meaning is not always welcome news - `overnight the world can change´. It also changes overnight if there´s a heavy fall of snow. I wanted the snow in the poem to act as a metaphor and although it´s clearly `there´ I don´t think the poem is trying to describe a snowy scene. Does any of this make sense?....Does it make a little bit of sense? If it does, does it change your reading of the poem? Or maybe you had been reading it as metaphorical all along and it´s just too wordy.
I´ll think over your suggestions.




Best wishes,   Mike


> 
> Lähettäjä: Bob Cooper <[log in to unmask]>
> Päiväys: 2003/10/02 to PM 04:25:45 GMT+03:00
> Vastaanottaja: [log in to unmask]
> Aihe: Re: New sub: Letters
> 
> Hi Mike,
> I'm butting in more than piggy-backing onto someone else's post here! Hope 
> you both don't mind!!
> I guess I agree with a lot of the clipping, hacking, pruning, so I'm just 
> trying not to repeat comments! It's a poem that doesn't seem to need all the 
> words it has.
> Anyway, here goes!
> Bob
> 
> > > > (Letters)  Ouch!
> > > >
> > > > Flakes (OUCH!!!)
> > >
> > > as numerous as letters,>
> > > > (as if) every letter that ever was
> > > > (were) falling (from the sky).
> > > > (Each movement of ) the air takes them,
> > > > (they twist and turn and turn and turn). I'D CONSIDER LEAVING THIS 
> >LINE IN (IT'S AS IF YOU'RE HINTING AT INCESSANTNESS, AT HOW MANY THERE ARE, 
> >AT THE FACT THAT IT'S THE STRONG IMAGE IN THE POEM...)
> > > > A few rush against the flow. (THIS IS THE LINE i'M NOT SURE ABOUT - 
> >HOW MUCH  DOES IT MATTER THAT A FEW MOVE IN DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS?)
> > > > I open my mouth (in an) O,  ***  smashing multipurpose 'O' here - the 
> >shape
> > > > of the mouth, the death O, wonder, longing              etc.
> > > > (feel) their familiar feel on my tongue (.) ("familiar" IS AN 
> >INTRUIGING WORD TO USE - I'VE BEEN LOOKING THROUGH THE REST OF THE POEM TO 
> >SEE IF THERE'S ANYTHING ELSE TO HINT AT WHY IT'S BEEN CHOSEN...)
> > > >
> > > > (Flakes stick and hold together,)
> > > > on branches, (on twigs) in drifts, on roofs,
> > > > (with a tenacity,) as if they knew what they did  (know what they do 
> >and
> > > > mean something?)
> > > > and meant something (by it),
> > > > like people (clinging together,
> > > > like refugees) who cling to a sinking ship,  ( how about a raft 
> >instead?)
> > > > swarm(ing) over every projection and surface.
> > > > Overnight the world can change.
> > > >
> > > > Flakes (, as numerous as letters,)
> > > > lie on the ground (and) a phrase -
> > > > (the sky fell) - drifts in my head.
> > > > Someone will have to clear all this up.
> > >
> AND I AGREE THAT THE LAST STANZAS MUST GO!!! But keep on reading after 
> them!)
> 
> > > > (And later there will be a spring
> > > > when I will join trunk to roots,
> > > > sew blooms on every branch and stem
> > > > so the stitches don´t show, it looks real.
> > > >
> > > > But for now the sky is empty
> > > > and the land has fallen silent,
> > > > the line between them, every feature, unclear
> > > > and slipping gently from the memory.)
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Mike
> 
> If the poem were cut down like this I find the emphasis on two lines in 
> particular change (and get a lot stronger):
> "Overnight the world can change"
> and
> "Someone will have to clear all this up."
> I find, now, I'm focusing really hard on these lines: trying different words 
> that say similar things, wondering how, and if, these lines compliment each 
> other/set each other up. They're each lines that come more from the poet 
> than from the things that are described in the poem - I mean if each of the 
> lines were changed nothing else in the poem need be changed - I guess I'm 
> wondering which line should carry more weight (cos the weightiest line 
> needn't always be the last line!)
> I'd also think a lot harder for a title. Get a title that intruiges a bit 
> more; gets, or invites, the reader to read further!
> Bob
> 
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