Hi Helen,
I'm troubled, too, feeling things ain't yet quite right in the first 2
lines.
Perhaps it's because you've got a lot of poetry in there: "gravelly sulk"
and "as a cows" are both "poem" and not "usual way of speaking" phrases. The
rest of the poem, however, uses language more plainly: and, IMO, makes a
stronger point...
I like the way the word "So" begins the poem, implying that things had been
happening before the poem begins! But do the images of the opening of the
poem either get close enough to the fear of the mum, or the innocence of the
child that's developed as the poem progresses?
I think now I'm perhaps repeating what Mike's already said... so I'll say no
more...
except the title and the final five lines all have that northern plain
bluntness in them! They seem so strong - and perhaps, therefore, they're
highlighting what I'm thinking about at the start of the poem.
Bob
who thinks these short one-image-is-enough poems are the toughest to get
right, can be the pits!


>From: Helen Clare <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: New Sub: Whitewash
>Date: Sun, 4 Apr 2004 18:02:52 +0100
>
>Whitewash
>
>So she dragged me home in a gravelly sulk,
>her face set quiet and steady as a cow's
>against my hating her -
>because she wouldn't let me stay
>with the man who loved children so much,
>there were hundreds of names
>pencilled on the whitewashed walls
>of his cottage on the moor.

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