Thanks Colin, that's helpful. I was in Ncle last weekend with Bob and some
other poets and I really felt like that. I'll think about it some more.
bw
SallyE

on 29/1/04 1:59 pm, Colin dewar at [log in to unmask] wrote:

> Sally,
>
> A mellow poem, easy on the ear IMO and not taxing despite the beefiness of
> the stanzas. It'll be of most interest to people who know Newcastle, but
> you planned it that way and it's not a criticism. Besides I've been to NC
> once or twice and have happy memories from my time there. For the general
> reader
> it's similar enough to trigger memories of other cities with their roads,
> shoppers and bins of waste (I guess). For me the most interesting part is
> where you
> hint at the city's impact on the narrator.  If this mattered, you might want
> to look more
> at the bit where you describe what the city has or hasn't done, as I'm not
> sure that it
> conveys enough. I refer to parts like: "Newcastle's never failed to absorb
> me." It's
> a  difficult way of going about things it and I wondered why you used it so
> much
> (to stretch yourself?) and whether other methods might serve better to bring
> out the psychic qualities of your return visit. More imagery perhaps that
> could
> be representative of certain states of mind (???) Or more of a mix of
> statements
> and images(???).
>
>
> BW
>
>
> Colin
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Sally Evans" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2004 5:53 AM
> Subject: Re: Newcastle upon a time
>
>
>> For Bob, in particular.
>> Probably a first draft.
>>
>>
>> Coming out of the Metro which still further
>> muddled me as to which city I was in,
>> I rediscovered Grainger Street and Monument,
>> the gleaming of fine Georgian streets, so long
>> preserved in grime and hugged to Tyneside's
>> persistently unhealthy chest, when trolleybuses
>> whirred slowly in from Jesmond, shoppers
>> bustled blackly from Fenwicks to Binns.
>> Could I be so cruel as to harp on Eldon Square,
>> so sentimental as to dream of flower market,
>> the flower sellers using shillings still
>> against the threats of law; and pubs like pits,
>> territories without skirts till teenagers
>> staked out their own streets of converted pubs,
>> no more sawdust but still the crack, extended
>> to parties on the homeward late night bus.
>>
>> I walked into the Grainger Market
>> as it was closing one Thursday afternoon,
>> its priests busily trundling bins of waste,
>> among immortal queues to buy tomatoes,
>> the unchanged name of Robinson on the bookstall,
>> the flower lady ageless as a mermaid
>> among her pails of buds and leafstalks.
>> I trundled round the university
>> and rattled past the Byker Wall,
>> reassured that still the swing bridge slunk
>> between its higher, newer neighbours.
>>
>> It's new, it's old, and it's Newcastle. Since
>> my brother and I aged ten and twelve
>> were allowed out to see a film, and chose
>> to ride to Byker, which year was it,
>> Newcastle's never failed to absorb me, nor
>> ever seemed to resent my unfaithfulness,
>> always presenting eyefuls, mindfuls.
>> Whether I arrive for a day or a decade
>> it seems to recognise me somehow,
>> and though I'm half ashamed of having left
>> a perfectly good place to live, and leaving
>> was like divorcing it for my own good,
>> and I creep in now from another home,
>> it works and churns up memories just the same
>> as it pans out from the station and the train.
>>
>> Sally Evans
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> on 28/1/04 4:47 am, Sally Evans at [log in to unmask] wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>> And "upon" - eurgh, so precise, so unused by people!
>>>> A fine piece. (And if others think the first stanza works with no
> bother for
>>>> them I'll only stick out to say "upon" has almost lost its place in
> usage to
>>>> "on." So, come on, let it slip away un-noticed.
>>>> Bob
>>>>
>>>>
>>> yea - except in Once upon a time, Newcastle upon a time etc
>>> bw
>>> SallyE!
>>