> Hello Gerald,
               Many thanks for your helpful comments on this one. You´re right that `round´ usually indicates a circling movement,´but I think/hope I can get away with it here in the sense of `located at the edge of something´ as in `we sat round the table´. I wouldn´t really like an extra syllable in that line. You´re right, too, about the sense in which I use separate to mean `distinguish´. I must confess that I hadn´t thought it could lead to confusion, but I´ll think it over. `Distinguish´ wouldn´t upset the rhythm of the line too much. You´re right again about those commas, I´ll add them in.
I think you´ve got half of my idea with the row and rank question. My idea was that the `height range of the class´ refers to the old method `tallest on the left, shortest on the right´. The pegs in the cloakroom are then assigned to each child according to his/her position in that ranking list. But it may be awkwardly expressed, I can reconsider it.
Many thanks again for your detailed response.



Best wishes,   Mike



> Lähettäjä: Gerald England <[log in to unmask]>
> Päiväys: 2004/03/16 ti PM 10:31:53 GMT+02:00
> Vastaanottaja: [log in to unmask]
> Aihe: Re: New sub: Soaked
> 
> An interesting poem
> so just a few nits might be worth picking
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mike Horwood" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, March 15, 2004 12:09 PM
> Subject: [THE-WORKS] New sub: Soaked
> 
> 
> Soaked
> 
> It was a wet morning in `61 or `2
> when the rain streamed down in rods
> from a grey sky and shattered round our shoes.
> 
> shouldn't that be
> shattered around
> our shoes?
> 
> 
> There were jumping pockmarks on a ground
> where we could not separate asphalt from puddle
> on a day before we knew the word `torrential´.
> 
> 
> could not separate asphalt from puddle
> [I get a vision of kids on a building-site with shovels moving tar and
> water!
> the lack of separation is a visual one and so separate seems the wrong word
> to me
> whereas what you seem to be saying is
> we could not *distinguish* asphalt from puddle
> or perhaps you could rephrasing it altogether.
> 
> 
> The playground was deserted and hazy,
> the school entrance a frame for heaving backs
> pushing the blockage in front, and wet, grey socks.
> 
> The jostling mass carried me on to the cloakroom,
> the muggy atmosphere full of the jabber of voices
> and smell of wet gabardine heavy in my nose
> 
> 
> I think, for better clarity,
> you need a comma after atmosphere
> and another after gabardine.
> 
> 
> as I squirmed and squeezed along the line
> of uniform navy-blue raincoats to the haven
> of my familiar peg, determined by my rank
> 
> in the height range of my class.
> Then the struggle with belt and sleeves,
> a residual dampness, single file, bang of desk-lids.
> 
> I have a problem with the peg and the rank.
> I've checked my dictionary and "rank" can mean position
> or indeed the whole row
> so your syntax may not be wrong
> but it sounds rather convoluted
> I'm gathering that you trying to say that
> there is a row [rank?] of pegs
> and that the position [rank?] of each peg
> is determined the peg-owner's height.
> It just seems awkwardly expressed
> as though you are trying to throw in some extra information into already
> busy image.
> 
> In the end, though this is an evocative poem and my nitpickings are small.
> 
> yours
> Gerald
> 
> 
> 
> Mike
>