Hi Matt,
A neat poem this, a neat piece to open your account! I like it - "nobody
expects plain sailing"'s a fine, think-about-it, thing to write...
With the "cabin... room" & "porthole... window" - it might be that the poem
doesn't need them over-much...
... Or it might be that a / might work (cabin/room) might work, or it might
be that one of the words could be put in brackets: "into his cabin (room)".
I guess those little marks we call punctuation are there to help the reader
make sense of it more than they're there for any other reason and it's
"possible" (but rare) to have brackets in poems...
Also, as a possibility, I'm wondering how you'd feel about about starting
the poem in the first person singular, using "I", and not "we" (because,
near the end of the poem, you're using the "I" voice?). So it would start:
"I shoulder my way..." etc.
Whaddya think?
Bob
>From: "Merritt, Matt - Leic. Mercury"
><[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: New sub: Man Overboard
>Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 17:49:19 +0100
>
>I've been reading the submissions for a couple of months now and have been
>both impressed and a little daunted by their high quality, but always
>entertained.
>
>Anyway, I thought it was high time I posted something myself, however
>scrappy, so here goes....
>
>Please be gentle with me!
>
>
>
>MAN OVERBOARD
>
>Shoulder our way into his cabin...room.
>There's Robinson Crusoe by the bed,
>unread, and the shipping forecast drifting
>through the porthole...window. We steal a look
>in the log, fishing for clues. There are storm
>clouds, true, but worse things happen at sea, and
>nobody expects plain sailing. Not me,
>anyway. All day, we chart courses he
>might have taken, and someone remembers
>waking, night after night, seeing the flares
>go up. Not enough. I stick my oar in,
>but it's too late. No one can fathom what's
>happened. We're fog-bound, becalmed, run aground.
>Anyone know how to turn this boat around?
>
>
>
>- Matt Merritt
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