Yes I'm not sure 'declamatory' is a p[articularly good tone. If we can make
it matra-esque and relaxed at the same time, it might work
bw
SallyE
on 12/6/04 11:13 am, James Bell at [log in to unmask] wrote:
> Hi Sally,
>
> I like the grand tone in this poem as if calling to the people you mention
> beyond the grave so to speak. The word I need to describe it is
> declacmatory.
>
>
>
> bw
> James
>
>
>
>
>
>> From: Sally Evans <[log in to unmask]>
>> Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: New Poem: DId I ever go to Heptonstall?
>> Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2004 20:32:07 +0100
>>
>> Did I ever go to Heptonstall?
>>
>> note: this poem has been a long time coming. I am grateful to Sally J for
>> catalysiing it with her new poem Heptonstall Church Yard, which I enjoyed
>> very much.
>>
>> SallyE
>>
>>
>> Did I ever go to Heptonstall?
>>
>> Did I ever go to Heptonstall
>> to look for the twentieth century girl
>> whose battled words meant love of death
>> or was I there in search of those
>> harder to find, perhaps no less
>> plunged in truth-destroying myth?
>>
>> What is there about these moors
>> turns up three fateful sisters, whose
>> brother holds the villain's card
>> one century, then another one and a half
>> hundred years on, a woman writer and a man,
>> he local, she incomer, the worse tangled?
>>
>> Yet another religion based on
>> goddesses and gods of literature,
>> uncontrollable emotion, rage turned
>> into words, love turned into rage, passion
>> turned into something else that lingers
>> in charged, walled burial plots?
>>
>> What is it and what are they
>> that both console and stop us short,
>> us their readers, women and men
>> of pen, church, vocation, keyboard,
>> desires untamed because untameable,
>> or fears unnamed because unnameable?
>>
>> What darkness yet in the names,
>> Plath, Charlotte, Emily, Syvlia,
>> Ted, Brontë, Branwell, Hughes,
>> Howarth and Heptonstall?
>> Is it ghosts, relief, hysteria,
>> handed-on passion, or nothing at all?
>>
>> Sally Evans
>>
>>
>>
>> on 4/6/04 6:30 pm, Sally James at [log in to unmask] wrote:
>>
>>> Heptonstall churchyard
>>>
>>> Some bizarre twist of fate brought me here
>>> to this place, this grave of woman’s weeping
>>> The day was sunny, the blossom swayed
>>> lent its perfume to the moor land wind
>>> but by the church,
>>> great gusts carried my breath away
>>> tangled my hair, blew my skirt above my knees
>>> I don’t know why I came at all
>>> I was out for pleasure, to see the countryside
>>> look for somewhere new to hang my hat
>>> The church tower looked fierce
>>> frowned, as I trod the cobbles
>>> the narrow streets
>>> searched the tipsy grave stones
>>> that leaned port side in the
>>> early summer’s howl
>>> I had to ask of course
>>> “Many visitors come,” he said
>>> then pointed, told me
>>> where the woman lay
>>> But today, there was only me
>>> pacing up and down the ranks
>>> inspecting, looking for the poet
>>> whose petals bloomed in fiercest flames
>>> I found the plot at last
>>> and tears erupted, spilled
>>> upon her flowered bed
>>> and as I cried, the church bell tolled
>>> Three times.
>>>
>>> sally james
>>>
>>> _________________________________________________________________
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