Hi Colin,
A real canny poem -- the first line is brill!!!!! (it's time to take the
rock back, it's the rock that's got so much time in it, it's a comment on
relationships summed up in such an unusual object, it's visual and spatial,
and weighty, and physical, and metaphysical, and brill!!) but a couple of
thoughts...
The title's a bit naff, weak, spelling it all out, whatever. At least it is
for me! I mean I KNEW just about before and when the three year old got
mentioned what was going on on a personal level - and I'd prefer a title
that has the confidence NOT to go into the Telly mode but which can trust
the reader a bit more. (So the footnote, too, isn't needed!).
I also think it needn't say as much, use as many words, give as many
details, to make its point. It might be that you end up with two poems - one
for your self and the person involved - and one for the public (that's
shorter and gives fewer details but clues and hints that allow the reader to
fill things in from their own memories). I hestiate to say specifically
where but... I'LL WRITE IN CAPS WHAT I'M GETTING AT.
Make a finer poem even finer IMHO.
Bob
Who, at one time, had a rock from every crag he ever climbed at. And who
could tell long tales to himself remembering while holding the stones in his
hand... I think they're in some garden a few houses back now...


>From: hui dewar <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: newsub/object
>Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2004 20:53:17 +0100
>
>Transitional Object
>
>
>
>It's time.
>This year we will lift it
>from the sill, find
>something else to hold back
>the latest wave of books
>from school.
>
>With two hands you'll carry it,
>take short steps to the car
>and one arm bent around it
>open the door.
>
>Too small for a boulder,
>too big for a pebble
>and too smooth to be a rock
>this loaf of pinkish granite
>
>will go back
>past Beinn Dorain and Glen Coe,
>past Kyle of Lochalsh, past Torridon.
>We'll bear it to the island
>beyond the island,
>
>take turns to carry
>the sagged rucksack
>to the furthest coast.
>You'll feel it,
>as unsure if you ever wanted
>such weight in your life
>
>as when you were three
>and no one thought
>you would hug it up
>red-faced to the sofa
>to claim it your own.
>
>All other toys  (START THINKING: DO I NEED ALL THIS?)
>broke before it.
>When cardboard houses
>were ready for the bin
>It fell through them,
>the same.
>
>It was always there: (KEEP THINKING: DO I NEED THIS?)
>the doorstop
>at your first sleepover,
>the year as a green mountain
>among the Egyptian cichlids.
>
>It was just what was needed (STILL KEEP THINKING!)
>to give the doll's patio
>an avant-garde look.
>
>But you've changed. You're ready to send it home.
>You're so tall now
>and you want to be alone.
>
>Let's take it  (MAYBE TRY AND END UP WITH TWO/THIRDS OF THE WORDS FROM HERE
>ON...)
>to the tussocky edge
>where you and I know
>how the bed of the burn
>cuts through the cliffs
>like a staircase down
>in the driest summers
>and leave it
>in a shrill heaven of gulls,
>
>where all trace of kinship
>will wash from it
>like the chalk
>that brought out the dwarfishness
>inspired by a belt of quartz.
>
>Then in a million pebbles and boulders
>archaeology would find it
>no different,
>no evidence it was loved
>as Ted Ted on the highest shelf
>of your room.
>
>When night falls
>it will lie dark in darkness.
>The next day, whether
>sun blaze from its back
>or rain drive on sea winds
>grass will grow round it,
>wire-worm and Carabus beetle
>press shelter from its belly.
>
>It will stay there
>as unseen and soundless
>as the branch in the forest that no one hears,
>until you think of it
>and imagine one hand
>on a ledge of grass
>as you scan the horizon,
>the other on warm stone.
>
>_______________________
>
>Colin
>
>
>
>
>A transitional object can be anything from the potted plant given to a
>close
>friend on parting to the unecessary prescription that a doctor may give to
>a
>patient from time to time, but typically would consist of a toy or
>comforting blanket given to a young child. It helps both parties to manage
>the process of separation. (Mary Morton)
>
>
>QUESTIONS:
>
>1.Would I be better off with the word "cobble" instead of loaf in S3 of
>this
>poem?
>2.As for the blurb at the bottom, would the poem be better off without it?

_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself with cool new emoticons http://www.msn.co.uk/specials/myemo