I challenge your tone [yes I know you're being humourous] about retired
folk, 'Droo; it's ageist and makes me [can't speak for others] feel negative
about retired folk. I hope we can be positive about folks who we don't feel
are young. Our cultures [yours and mine] have a low opinion of old folks.
It's a damaging stereotype and one of the most persistent, if we buy into
it or accept it. Thanks for considering the issue.
Now to your poem. I like it much much better! It's smooth, still very
visual, and now makes clearer the narrative whole [start, middle, finish],
so that the 'feel' and fact of your theme and point stay sharp.
Natch, tho, I always 'cut' redundancies and distracting excursions, so I've
removed them, below. My opinion only, acourse! Figured you'd like that ;-)
Best,
Judy
2009/4/2 andrew burke <[log in to unmask]>
> What do retired people who write poetry do but fiddle and fart around with
> their own words. Here is the latest and perhaps last version of that lumpy
> text I threw at you earlier this week. Thanks to Judy, Patrick, Doug,
> Frederick and anyone else who addressed the mess for me. Off list, Andrew
> Taylor also helped steer me right.
>
> The Poetical Works (title)
>
> Forty six years on
> and still I warm my hands
> over it. It opens me out like
> a choir singing rounds
> in eighteenth century London.
>
> I take it down from the shelf to
> remember her, sophisticated lady
> in a Sydney harbourside mansion who
> placed Blake's poems in my hands
> patted their flimsy skin, aged veinless patina.
> 'We know you'll enjoy this, boy.'
>
> I went down my own back roads
> through cities and fields,
> an awkward pelican landing
> on this seat this morning
> remembering my bottle-scarred muse alive
with Blake's pulse in the skein of days.
----------------------------------[altered by jp]
>
>
> Thanks all.
>
> --
> Andrew
> http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
>
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