Welcome to The Tangled Branch!  Join us.

Summer, 1949 with edited version

General Poetry - post, comment, review, critique
indar
Posts: 2908
Joined: Sun Jan 07, 2018 8:00 am

Summer, 1949 with edited version

Post by indar » Mon Jun 03, 2019 3:06 pm

Summer,1949

Northrup King morning glories are heavenly blue.
Dad zig zagged string from the white painted porch rail
to the eaves. Tender vines corkscrewed
all the way up,
sprouted heart-shaped leaves and hundreds
of heavenly blue trumpets yawned wide
in the morning sun.

Mom tied a Chinese piano 
to woodworked gingerbread support
on the porch corner. Glass rectangles hand-painted
with Chinese designs dangled from a tinsel pagoda,
breeze-tinkled. Someone writing a first poem
might compare its sound to fairy laughter.

Mom stood before the flowering screen
laughing in her white eyelet dress with the yellow bodice
and open-toed shoes. The two by two inch photo
is black and white but I remember
the colors and dad teasing us when he took it
before the storm blew everything down.

Mom laid on her bed all day and cried
and she cried days after because 
the Chinese piano broke to pieces
and all the vines and flowers were hauled away
by the garbage man.
Grandma had me stay at her house,
she said my mother and father needed time alone.

Dave
Posts: 1991
Joined: Mon Jan 08, 2018 9:07 am

Re: Summer, 1949

Post by Dave » Tue Jun 04, 2019 2:06 pm

The Poem is vivid  and runs smoothly and finishes with a rueful and sad obseravtion. The only niggle I have is the aside about the Young Poet, which seemed intrusive somehow.
Dave
 

indar
Posts: 2908
Joined: Sun Jan 07, 2018 8:00 am

Re: Summer, 1949

Post by indar » Wed Jun 05, 2019 9:16 am

The only niggle I have is the aside about the Young Poet, which seemed intrusive somehow.

Yeah, I had reservations about it but thought I'd try to sail it and see what happened. My intention was to indicate the age of the N at the time of writing and the sense of magic the scene represented to her before "family reality" set in.

Thanks for the read and comments. Your identification of that questionable line is helpful.

User avatar
Gyppo
Posts: 1338
Joined: Sat Mar 31, 2018 3:28 pm
Location: UK

Re: Summer, 1949

Post by Gyppo » Wed Jun 05, 2019 10:30 am

indar wrote:
Wed Jun 05, 2019 9:16 am
The only niggle I have is the aside about the Young Poet, which seemed intrusive somehow.
Yeah, I had reservations about it but thought I'd try to sail it and see what happened. My intention was to indicate the age of the N at the time of writing and the sense of magic the scene represented to her before "family reality" set in.

Thanks for the read and comments. Your identification of that questionable line is helpful.
 
I really enjoyed this.  I think the only reason that line 'niggles' is because of the way you've slightly sidestepped being there, instead of staying in the moment of recall.  Everything else is direct.  If you rewrote it as something along the lines of 'I remember it as the sound of fairy laughter' or 'to me it was the sound of fairy laughter' then the distancing wouldn't be there.  Or even just 'breeze-tinkled like distant fairy laughter'.

It's too good an aural image to discard.

I also think you want eaves not eves, unless that's the American spelling.

Gyppo
I've been writing ever since I realised I could.  Storytelling since I started talking.  Poetry however comes and goes  ;-)

ajduclos
Posts: 1746
Joined: Mon Apr 01, 2019 1:35 pm

Re: Summer, 1949

Post by ajduclos » Thu Jun 06, 2019 8:24 am

Indar - a beautiful write - such imagery, sensual.

Dave pointed out the issue.  And Gyppo nailed down why, plus offered some very good solutions.  I'd like to offer another approach, just a bit of turning the sentence around - "Sounds of fairy laughter to the youthful poet" of something like it, perhaps "to the budding poet"..........

Aj   

indar
Posts: 2908
Joined: Sun Jan 07, 2018 8:00 am

Re: Summer, 1949

Post by indar » Fri Jun 07, 2019 12:41 pm

I also think you want eaves not eves, unless that's the American spelling.

No it is not the American spelling but it is a spelling spellcheck didn't catch.Thanks for the heads up Gyppo, as the protest sign says: BAD SPELLERS OF THE WORLD UNTIE

I'm invested enough in this one to keep working at it but it needs to marinate for a while. Your suggestion to keep the fairy laughter in the same time frame is helpful but in the little fiddling I've done with it since posting it I find it is hard to keep the laughing mother and fairy laughter separated enough---if that makes sense. Thanks for the read and comments.



 

indar
Posts: 2908
Joined: Sun Jan 07, 2018 8:00 am

Re: Summer, 1949

Post by indar » Fri Jun 07, 2019 12:46 pm

Thanks as well to you Aj

I think you are on the right track but I might have to drop the idea of the young poet comparing the sound with fairy laughter and mix the sound and comparison with the magical moment of fairy laughter and the mother's laughter as a last moment of happiness before disaster hits. Thinking thinking-----

Tim J Brennan

Re: Summer, 1949

Post by Tim J Brennan » Sat Jun 08, 2019 7:03 am

indar wrote:
Fri Jun 07, 2019 12:46 pm
Thanks as well to you Aj

I think you are on the right track but I might have to drop the idea of the young poet comparing the sound with fairy laughter and mix the sound and comparison with the magical moment of fairy laughter and the mother's laughter as a last moment of happiness before disaster hits. Thinking thinking-----

I'm not seeing your first version (young poet) so you must have edited. What I'm seeing now is an attempt to keep it in some form. It's not needed. This is a poem, and it's beautifully autobiographical, and we know it's a poem so the thought in any form is, as stated, intrusive and interrupted.

What a nice poem.

indar
Posts: 2908
Joined: Sun Jan 07, 2018 8:00 am

Re: Summer, 1949

Post by indar » Sat Jun 08, 2019 12:42 pm

Thank you Tim,

I haven't edited it at all but those who have read it inferred correctly that the first-time poet would have been the N who was of an age to mix that sound with her mother's laughter in a magic moment of (fleeting) family happiness. I am trying to think of a way to keep that magic in the poem without giving the reader whiplash. I appreciate your read and reinforcement of a need to either get it right or get rid of it entirely. 

indar
Posts: 2908
Joined: Sun Jan 07, 2018 8:00 am

Re: Summer, 1949

Post by indar » Sun Jun 09, 2019 4:41 pm

a couple of edits:

Mom tied a Chinese piano 
to woodworked gingerbread support
on the porch corner. Glass rectangles hand-painted
with Chinese designs dangled from a tinsel pagoda
tinkled as delicately as a fairy tea party
hidden in greenery.

and:

The two by two inch photo
is black and white but I remember
the colors and dad teasing her from behind his camera.
That was before the storm blew everything down.



I once got a comment from a TTB member who said he hated lines that start with "that". Is it a problem?

 

Post Reply