Hi Max,
It's the holy grail not to change words!!!
:)
I would not change any author's work. That said, I love teaching "Skunk Hour," A few well-placed "hints" about what lines mean, background information and preliminary prep should take away any surprise or giggles or fixation over the term "fairy" There is a great recording of Lowell reading it--which I use, I believe it is available at
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15279
Perhaps your wife could do a little preliminary history of the poem and lines, read it herself and then have them listen to the poet read it? I am always amazed by the nuances that appear when a writer reads his own work. I think it would be an amazing poem for a psychotherapy class. So much to analyze.
Millicent
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-----Original Message-----
From: Max Richards <[log in to unmask]>
To: POETRYETC <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wed, Mar 30, 2011 5:44 pm
Subject: Re: snap: seasons / question about 'Skunk Hour'
Thanks, Vincent. Chris may be right there are lines better snipped.
While I'm here - a question -
My wife has in mind reading out Robt Lowell's Skunk Hour in a psychotherapy
lass. My mind's not right etc.
BUT can she get her listeners not to worry about the earlier phrase
bout 'our fairy decorator'?
suggest she quietly changes fairy to gay, but I know it's a tampering not
rdinarily to be countenanced.
Max
On 31/03/11 8:10 AM, "Stephen Vincent" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Max - a generous, loving Large piece. thank you!
Stephen Vincent
--- On Tue, 3/29/11, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: Max Richards <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: snap: seasons
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Tuesday, March 29, 2011, 4:45 PM
Seasons - a toast
Autumn so soon!
Summer shot through -
just one beach,
coolish; one
mountain drive.
Scarcely a single
old-style heat-wave
when you just lie low.
And Winter soon, more
funerals of folk my age -
perhaps my own.
Spring? nothing
I could say that's fresh,
let alone sing.
Should I be here
to greet it silently
that would be enough.
You in your other
hemisphere, you
topsy turvy
temperate-zone
northern antipodeans,
in places where Easter
is a spring festival,
here's health and long
life to all of us
south and north,
old and young,
pious or pagans,
observing the seasons.
Birds are at the apple trees
competing with us humans.
Max Richards
Melbourne
late March 2011
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