I'm as busy as you Bob and so I haven't done any reworking yet. Just by 
signing on and typing a little I'm completely used up (actually more than 
fully committed). I can't do anything else at the same time (beyond regular 
commitments). It's but  a broom cupboard of opportunity. However, I print 
out the c&c and read it in detail in between. In this poem it's likely that 
I'll delete the Wow stanza altogether, or else follow Sally E's low profile 
option. If it served purposes, these were humour (seems to have failed) and 
back ground knowledge of the attitudes of the narrator (arguably 
non-essential). It is of course a caricature of politically correct ways of 
thinking (not that I'm anti-PC ).

Thanks for taking an interest.


Colin
(wishing you a mansion of opportunity for your own poetry)

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bob Cooper" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2006 12:36 PM
Subject: Re: newsub/bonsai


> Hi Colin,
> I agree with Sally The whole Wow stanza is in such a different tone and 
> runs at a different pace to the rest of the poem. The word "wow" doesn't 
> help too much for me either. Perhaps, because you tell of these things - 
> and the rest of the poem is showing things that also adds to the problems.
> I'm also not sure you need to have, " It's funny..." because it doesn't 
> seem funny...
> Have you worked more on the piece? I'd be interested to know how it's 
> developed.
> 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: newsub/bonsai
>>Date: Sun, 5 Feb 2006 11:22:51 +0000
>>
>>I like most of this poem, Colin. I'm not sure you pull off the Wow! 
>>stanza,
>>though I can see it is crucial to the poem to get this information in.
>>Perhaps it could be done more quietly, broken among the other stanzas or 
>>at
>>least tacked onto one.
>>
>>cheers
>>SallyE
>>
>>on 5/2/06 10:21 am, Colin Dewar at [log in to unmask] wrote:
>>
>> > Bonsai
>> >
>> >
>> > Now she's gone to higher places
>> > and left the chair where she once sat,
>> > the fireman calendar that someone gave her
>> > and the bonsai plum in its pot for someone else to water.
>> >
>> > It's evening, I'm late, I'm left behind,
>> > all the more to sense her absence and all she did,
>> > the justice of promotion,
>> > for which she may thank me.
>> >
>> > Wow! The prejudice she faced,
>> > because she was a foreigner,
>> > a lesbian,
>> > an amputee - as if that mattered.
>> >
>> > She was capable, the best we had -
>> > her paper clips and envelopes in place,
>> > her hours over a hot photocopier,
>> > the watered plants.
>> >
>> > The bonsai. They are so hard to keep alive,
>> > but astounding that their DNA seems to know
>> > the available space, how cells divide
>> > the right amount, no more
>> > and still keep leaf and stem just perfect.
>> >
>> > It's funny when you plant them out
>> > how some are stunted,
>> > too late, too tired, too old for proper fruit,
>> > and others grow - in weeks you see the difference -
>> > leaves like sheets, in decent soil at last, outside,
>> >
>> > the plum tree for instance that stands
>> > beyond my kitchen window
>> > blocking my light,
>> > the flower bed from my neighbour's gaze.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > __________________________________________
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>