A gardener

Every poem will have an i.d. card.
Its fingerprints will be taken.
Its iris will be photographed.
it is impossible that we could mistake it for any other poem.
We will know where every poem has been and its history.
We will know how many parking tickets it has had.
We will catch it before it commits a murder.
We will record its proclivities.

A poem will have to fill in a form to exist in the first place.
It will have to acknowledge its nationality.
It may not indulge in acts of treason.
It may not criticise this wise and powerful government.
It may not cross borders.

A poem may not rhyme.
If it sings it will be under suspicion.
It will be published with advice and assistance.
It may be read in the presence of appproved audiences.
If it is not satisfied with its situation,
it may ask for an appeal hearing
in the presence of ten other poems,
its equivalents.

The last know poem was seen drawing the dole,
though it is whispered that it was secretly working
unofficially ias a gardener.

Sally Evans












 


on 17/8/04 9:56 pm, Bob Cooper at [log in to unmask] wrote:

> Hi Sally,
> 
> You write: “So it's about styles...and again, I'm not trying to defend
> myself or this poem, I'm talking about why (if its the case) a poet who uses
> old fashioned systems is doing something intrinsically odd and why it cannot
> be considered (if it can't) "living language" in Christina's term.”
> 
> I guess I believe that poetry should belong to today – so I’m wary of using
> images, or phrases, that might turn the reader away from how language is
> used today to start thinking, “that sounds 18th Century or 19th Century,” or
> whatever century!
> To give an example: a few years ago, I compared a moon, in an early draft of
> a poem, to a schooner in full sail. But it was pointed out that few people
> had ever seen a schooner in real life – so I altered my line to show the
> moon as an oil rig! (Oil Rigs belonged in local shipyards at the time.). I
> guess I understand Ezra Pound’s dictum “Make It New” to include poems
> belonging to a world where people recognize where they are. I guess I’m also
> thinking that there are no special words that are only found in poems – we
> steal our words from other vocabularies.
> 
> Was Pound offering a rule? I think he was offering good advice! But he also
> evoked things from well back in history! I guess the question is: When we
> read your poem do we find the 21st Century seashore, or an early 19th
> Century seashore? Are the links to the past stronger than the links to the
> present?
> 
> I’m saying this because you wrote: “I defend the right of a poet to enjoy
> language in any way he or she pleases, and I also believe we get nowhere in
> poetry by obeying a set of rules.” I admire your rebellious spirit! But…
> aren’t you just swapping the rules? Just creating a poem that’s following
> 19th century rules?
> 
> So, to get round the issue, what would happen if a poem blended (just) one
> or two of the recognisable features of a previous century and some of the
> features of contemporary conventions or - as you phrase it - writing
> systems, or styles? (I think that’s probably the [only] way to actually
> break the rules!).
> 
> Bob
> 
> 
> 
>> From: Sally Evans <[log in to unmask]>
>> Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: Shore Gooseberries ; Christina's objection
>> Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 04:10:45 +0100
>> 
>> Hi Bob, yes I was trying to widen out this discussion...
>> none of these words is actually obsolete as a word.
>> 
>> So it's about styles...and again, I'm not trying to defend myself or this
>> poem, I'm talking about why (if its the case) a poet who uses old fashioned
>> systems is doing something intrinsically odd and why it cannot be
>> considered
>> (if it can't) "living language" in Christina's term. If we look at the
>> 'lone
>> gooseberry tree' line, I am actually not inverting, but saying the l.g.
>> tree
>> <which  those golden globes adorn> is 'guards the path...'
>> But I agree it does sound like inversion particularly as I dropped the
>> article 'the' in front of l.g.tree.
>> 
>> I think it may be the apparent inversion which got Christina's goat. Anyway
>> I defend the right of a poet to enjoy language in any way he or she
>> pleases,
>> and I also believe we get nowhere in poetry by obeying a set of rules.
>> Rules
>> describe what poets do, just as language dictionaries describe how
>> people speak.
>> 
>> Wordsworth changed poetic language by defying traditions which had
>> fossilised. and by showing that a worthwhile poetry could be achieved
>> without the folderols.
>> 
>> That doesnt mean his style it the "right" one for ever more.
>> 
>> all best
>> SallyE
>> 
>> on 17/8/04 1:36 am, Bob Cooper at [log in to unmask] wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi Sally,
>>> I know I'm butting in, but...
>>> I think the BIG problem with using the specific words and phrasings you
>> have
>>> in the poem is how they're associated with words and phrasings in poems
>> from
>>> previous centuries.
>>> The line you offer:
>>>> lone gooseberry-tree these golden globes adorn?
>>> and the one Christina also quotes:
>>> Along your beach where tide's plash-wavelets drown
>>> evokes, for me, comparisons with the kind of language Wordsworth and his
>>> mates went on a crusade to banish from poetry! Such poetic diction
>> wasn't
>>> banished entirely: but very little adorned or ornate language seemed to
>>> survive after Ezra Pound and his mates also got hold of poetry a century
>> or
>>> so later. And I felt it more like Keats, who often has a lusher, juicier
>>> flow of words than Wordsworth and Coleridge wanted.
>>> I agree with you that formalism never died - but it hasn't yet
>> re-emerged
>>> with anything like the following it once had, and it might not do! (And
>> I'm
>>> not sure, now, if I can make a musical comparison between Classical and
>> Jazz
>>> and Formal and Free...)
>>> I guess I'd say we can echo what's gone before - but there's a
>> difference
>>> between an echo and an imitation... I'd add that I feel the way you use
>>> adjectives in the lines - tufting, maurauding, prickled, sweet - is as
>> near
>>> imitation as it is echo.
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> From: Sally Evans <[log in to unmask]>
>>>> Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>>> Subject: Re: Shore Gooseberries ; Christina's objection
>>>> Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2004 20:36:51 +0100
>>>> 
>>>> Dear Christina,
>>>> your comment about why a 21st century poet should choose to write in
>> this
>>>> way asks for a general reply and I shall begin to give it.
>>>> First, to make a comparison with music, I love  these old classical
>> systems
>>>> and the noise they make. Would you forbid me to read Keats or
>> Shakespeare?
>>>> Then may I not write like them so far as I am able and willing, may I
>> not
>>>> use some of their systems? May I not enjoy, and attempt to share with
>> you,
>>>> lone gooseberry-tree these golden globes adorn?
>>>> 
>>>> May I not attempt to pass on to you the romantic, tapestry-like
>> feelings
>>>> the
>>>> walk on the beach provoked? Apparently not,  for you are not prepared
>> to
>>>> believe, ie you are not convinced,  that jane is real - and she is. If
>> I
>>>> had
>>>> wanted to rhyme this line in any other of many ways I would have had no
>>>> problem doing so. It is important to >me< to learn that you are not
>>>> convinced, but I am not convinced you are "right" or indeed typical in
>> not
>>>> being convinced.
>>>> 
>>>> I have actually been working on a second sonnet stanza to this, which
>> goes
>>>> in a very different direction, and your comment about "Jane" relates to
>> a
>>>> different problem I was dealing with. ie how to get Jane (and Colin)
>> back
>>>> into the poem near the end. Perhaps the answer is to leave them out
>>>> altogether - but perhaps it isnt.
>>>> 
>>>> I am sure you will see from painting that the painter with the skills
>> to
>>>> depict in the old way is the one who can confidently handle the
>> apparent
>>>> lawlessness of the new methods.
>>>> Finally I have a right to write like this. You have the option not to
>> read
>>>> it. But time is on the side of formalists, I think. Large chunks of the
>>>> poluation want formalist work and increasing numbers of editors etc are
>>>> glad
>>>> to see it among the chaos of present fashions.
>>>> 
>>>> You will also notice that I have developed the system, as
>> neo-formalists
>>>> usually do. My rhyme scheme ie entirely made up of words ending in n,
>> and
>>>> this also carries through the rest of the longer poem. There is such a
>> lot
>>>> of choice in language, you can write a novel without e's in it if you
>> so
>>>> desire, and you can write poems in set rhythms that are romantically
>>>> descriptive too.
>>>> That doesnt mean everyone has to like them! either in total or any
>>>> particular examples of them.
>>>> all best
>>>> SallyE
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> on 9/8/04 9:38 am, Christina Fletcher at [log in to unmask] wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> I wouldn't, for a moment, underestimate the skill behind this, SallyE
>> but,
>>>> as Roger writes, it's so very 19th century and it begs the question of
>> why
>>>> a
>>>> 21st century poet choses to write in this way?  I'm wondering whether
>> the
>>>> form's drowning the poem here?  Would you really say or think 'Along
>> your
>>>> beach where tide's plash-wavelets drown' or 'lone gooseberry-tree these
>>>> golden globes adorn'?  If I, as the reader, suspect that the poem's a
>>>> series
>>>> of clever constructions I also wonder whether Jane's a real person or a
>>>> name
>>>> that rhymes and somehow, that seems extremely important.
>>>> There are so many lush images in this.  The love of the place, the
>> happy
>>>> memories are a delight. So much worth keeping and reshaping into living
>>>> language.
>>>> bw
>>>> christina
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Shore Gooseberries
>>>> 
>>>> Along your beach where tide's plash-wavelets drown,
>>>> cliff fresh above, a grass-bank scissor-torn
>>>> abandons salt sand-pebbles, fossiled stone,
>>>> where the heath-track runs through the burnlet's dene.
>>>> 
>>>> By tufted grass and ragged rose-hip, thorn,
>>>> lone gooseberry-tree these golden globes adorn,
>>>> unseen before they ripened out of green,
>>>> guards the old path, but now its wealth is known.
>>>> 
>>>> Attack is imminent, the fruit falls down
>>>> as we marauding children backward grown
>>>> make good our gain from branches' prickled crown,
>>>> appropriate the berries not the scene,
>>>> 
>>>> retreat with sweet ingredients for cuisine,
>>>> to share, like memories, with you and Jane.
>>>> 
>>>> Sally Evans
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
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