Yes, Mike - I thought the same about your post which I received soon after
posting mine

Consensus, eh? On a poetry list that's nothing short of a miracle.

Terri )O(

-----Original Message-----
From: The Pennine Poetry Works [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
Behalf Of Mike Horwood
Sent: 23 January 2003 09:15
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Lost from view - Terri


Hi Terri,
         I think you make the same point here, in different words, as I was
trying to make.


Best wishes,   Mike


--- Alkuperäinen viesti ---

Christina
I didn't mean 'don't write when distressed' or about being distressed - one
of my 'best' (as in 'I still like it and it got published') poems was
written days after my dad died. It's the 'head-on' quality that I'm trying
to persuade dc out of. The use of abstract pseudo-objective emotion-words
(eg. frustrated) rather than getting under that for a concrete expression of
the feeling.

Your poem came at the topic (grief) through a vehicle (painting) that was,
on the surface, quite unrelated to the subject, yet it was utterly true to
the emotion (IMHO as critic).

That's what I'm trying to get across, I think. The sidewaysness of really
powerful emotion-poetry.

Terri )O(
  -----Original Message-----
  From: The Pennine Poetry Works [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf
Of Christina Fletcher
  Sent: 22 January 2003 23:38
  To: [log in to unmask]
  Subject: Re: Lost from view


  Terri, it's certainly not my experience at all.  The poem you published
not so long ago was written in a few minutes of grief shortly after my mum
died.  I fiddled with it afterwards but it got worse so I reverted to the
original draft which was the result of immediate feeling, not an
intellectualisation of feeling.  I'd go much further than that and say that
most of the poems I've written that others have told me touched them, or
have been published because of the 'emotional content', were written in a
spontaneous way, usually followed by a great fit of sobbing.  That's, of
course, not how I write when I'm trying to do something that isn't directly
emotional.  But I think it's probably different for all of us and I doubt
very much that there's anything we can say other than 'this is what happens
to me'.
  bw
  christina



    I have to agree with grassy here. I rarely manage to write anything
worth
    reading if I try to hit how I feel head on. Taking a sideways look,
though,
    translating the emotion-words into actions, things and so on can end up
    saying it better.

    I often find it's good exercise as well; mental physiotherapy - a bit
like
    scales for musicians. If this feeling were a fruit/piece of clothing/
item
    of domestic furniture - what would it be/look like what might happen to
it?
    You've got some of that in the poem. If it were mine, I'd scrape away
the
    overlay of abstraction (pain, hope, mind etc) and focus down on the
    cave/bone image and see how that could get the reader to feel what it
feels
    like.

    Hope that helps

    Terri )O(