Hi Sue,
Paintings evoke poems, don't they just!
I like this a lot. It also doesn't seem to depend on knowing the painting -
in real life or in a smaller reproduction - to work... the poem evokes an
image by itself.
I discover a lot of tension, a lot of it restrained, in the poem and the
macro to micro move from the wideness of the background to the smallness and
tightness of the patterned pitchfork at the end helps focus the
tension/anger for me.
Circumscribed's a well chosen word, too! I've been wandering around
repeating the word to myself and realising it's working reallly well where
it is (lines from songs do that as well, don't they just).
Yeh, it's canny! (They ppoem, not just the word!)
Bob


>From: Sue Scalf <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: new: Pitchfork in Hand
>Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 16:15:46 EDT
>
>Pitchfork in Hand*
>
>All of wide Iowa
>spreads round them
>out of view.
>But they are circumscribed
>by their mores
>or a battle between them.
>Behind them the farm house,
>white with gabled trim,
>and that spired window,
>empty as their lives.
>He stares ahead,
>not threatening but determined.
>She looks away, cameo at her throat,
>virginity intact, and she scowls.
>She will always be the farmer's daughter;
>he will always be protective.
>A pitchfork is patterned
>in the bib of overalls.
>
>Sue Scalf
>
>
>*American Gothic by Grant Wood

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