Hi Gill,
Nice to see something from you and thanks for your comments on my Zen poem
recently. You are clearly a careful writer and I feel this has already been
worked on before posting. Can I suggest a little more risk taking, for while
the tone is pleasant and matches a fairly safe subject the whole effect is a
little flat. Maybe a little zest in those pickles.Other comments are embeded
in the text simply by making a slightly different version. Hope allthis
helps.
bw
James
>From: Gill McEvoy <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: new post: peaches for pickling
>Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2006 20:51:25 +0100
>
>Dear Poets,
>In the southern USA they pickle peaches for serving with pork/chicken etc,
>as we pickle onions or make chutney.
>
>Here's my poem and would be glad of feedback, thanks.
>
>Peaches for Pickling.
>
>Wedged in the bushel basket,
>fat dumplings piled high,
>packed like a crowd in a stadium.
>They cheer the sun's ball on its arc (lovely line this)
>from rise to fall, ripe scent
>surges; a chant of summer.
>
>She pours them on a tabletop:
>crowds that exit by the wrong gate
>scatter, scurry, hesitate
>shiver to a stop as if they were
>cold inside their fur skins.
>
>How will they feel tonight
>when her knives and pickling pans are done
>and each astonished fruit regards itself,
>bald and naked, in the mirror
>of the jars?
I wonder if you could radically change this last stanza. Peaches having
feelings doesn't gel very well with the meditative previous stanzas and
comes as something of a bizarre shock.
>
>
>It's Spring here at last, a wonderfully warm day and all the neighbourhood
>out gardening (except me!) I hope it's Spring there where you all are.
>Sincerely,
>Gill McEvoy
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