Hi Christina,
Many thanks for taking the time and trouble to enlarge on your reaction to this piece. And I think I get a picture of how you´re seeing this poem from the way you´ve cut it. Perhaps you are visualising it as a scene and action, and then aiming at a description of that scene without external comment. I of course have added that comment in the form of the reflections of the `I´ in the poem. This is perhaps largely a matter of taste. You are right in your comment about the subject of the poem being the changing nature things - specifically, I would suggest, our perceptions of things from the past, and of our own actions, and of relationships, too, as you said. And yes, it´s sad. And definitely there must be a space for the reader to use their own feelings emotions and experiences. And I feel that we all bring something away from this kind of looking at the things we´ve done and the things that have happened to us, even if it´s only a sense of still being completely in the dark, but at least knowing that we are. And that is why I felt the need for the `I´ in the poem to arrive at that stage. That´s a lot of ´and´s´. Enough. Thanks again for your interest in this one.
Best wishes, Mike
--- Alkuperäinen viesti ---
OK, Mike, the easiest way for me to do this is to chop up your poem, so I
hope you'll forgive me for doing just that and pasting it in below. What's
left is what feels to me to be the heart of the poem. What I get from it is
a sense of the changing nature of things/relationships, pre and
misconceptions and the complexity of truth/illusion. It also gives me a
feeling of resigned sorrow and it's open enough for me to relate what you've
written to my own feelings. This space for the reader seems to me to be a
central issue in contemporary poetry, though I dare say I could easily be
shot down on that since I don't know much. I don't think it's necessary to
'understand' precisely what a poet's trying to say. For me, not knowing has
always been one of the interesting things about poetry - perhaps it's the
musical element in it, perhaps it's the idea that you're left with more to
discover when you read it again. So I think I'd leave the reader to sum up
the meeting rather than doing it for them.
Not sure that this helps much but it's all I can really say.
bw
christina
Revelation of the Smart Chair
after Peter Didsbury
So I returned to our seaside town,
wearing its sad, out-of-season aspect,
the pier shut up, cold rollers crashing on pebbles,
the gulls' desolation, seeing a pale reflection of summer self
and noting that the greyness had been there all along.
We had coffee in the same cafe
where six months earlier we drunk our last coffees.
We avoided the past, stuck to neutral topics.
You spoke of a poem by Didsbury and how a confusingly complex
truth
might be embodied in a sentient, really smart chair.
You spoke of music, beating time with the flat of your hand
as you rehearsed the tune of a composer
I had not known you enjoyed.
And it was not until my train was on its way,
our meeting receding into a past of its own, that the clouds
parted
and what I had taken for a flying cliché
showed itself as a bird of a quite different feather.
(Mike's poem, chopped up by Christina)
>
> Hello Christina,
> Thanks for your comments. Yes, others have mentioned the
> opening. It seems my fascination with getting clichés into poems is not
> shared by everyone. How odd. I take your points also about cutting some of
> the middle. Did I really write `dismal greyness´? Blimey. I´m very
> interested in your final comment - that the poem ends at `different
> feather´ and the last two lines are just telling not showing. If you have
> the time and sufficient interest, could I ask what those lines told you?
> Thanks again for your reading and comments.
>
>
>
> Best wishes,
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