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I woke up this morning with a word for word recall of something I wrote about forty years ago, scrolling across a mental screen.  Which is quite odd really, because as far as I recall it was only ever written down the once, by hand, on a scrap of paper torn from a flour sack at work.  It's been with me all day.

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Adrenaline

The text book say it's adrenaline.
A sudden surge of which
causes the heart to stop, momentarily.
Then, upon resuming,
beat a little faster.

The books make it perfectly clear
in words even a layman can understand.

What they can't explain is why...
Why this happens every time 
you walk into the room.

Gyppo

Ahhhh... memory, mental processing, unfinished business............. it seems to be all right there, ready to jump forward when the moment is right...........

I like this write... I like how things are often out of our control... I so get the honesty of it.  Thanks.........

Aj

This is simple, almost classical in style and lovely. Apart from removing the s from books I can 't think of anything to change. Funny how things disappear only to reappear much later from the depths.
Dave
 

Dave wrote: ↑

Sun Jun 16, 2019 7:19 am

This is simple, almost classical in style and lovely. Apart from removing the s from books I can 't think of anything to change. Funny how things disappear only to reappear much later from the depths.
Dave
 

Thanks, Dave, and AJ.

I agree about losing the 's' in books.

Must admit I was fascinated at how it came back.  I rolled out of bed and headed for the computer to catch it in case it ran away again.  I would say I had no idea what triggered the recall, but just before I went to sleep I was reading an old and very different poem about that particular bakery.  But why my subconscious grabbed at that specific offshoot is still a mystery.

I wish I still had the original scrap of paper though.  Just for the hell of it.

Before I thought of using the flour bags I sometimes used to dust the bench with a handful of flour and write in that to help me turn a promising thought into a visual memory.  I got the idea from a workmate who was a bit of a cartoonist.  He used to draw in flour dust with the point of a knife, and had a gift for capturing the memorable points of a face in a few lines.  Easily wiped with a single sweep if he was doing a derogatory sketch of the head baker

The lesson I learned from all this was to capture the moment, capture the thought.  I sometimes write on an entirely imaginary (mental) board on the rare occasions I don't have pen and paper in easy reach.  These 'notes' aren't always there when I go to write them up, but usually enough remains to get started again.

Funny thing, the human mind.

Gyppo
 

Every so often I write something that rings through my head for days until I have it memorized whether I wanted it so or not. The poem keeps coming back over a period of months or years. I believe those poems are the ones that require further attention. Sometimes I edit and edit some more. Sometimes it came to me fully formed and it is one of my favorite children. I have learned that eventually I must choose the ones that have been with me for a sufficient amount of time to submit somewhere: a poetry journal or annual. 

This poem of must be one of yours that needed to be seen. Good thing it came back it is fabulous. 

Now that you removed the "s" from book, your verb must agree: "says". Would it read better if you now use the singular in S2 or would it be even better to avoid the repetition? Perhaps something like: "studies of physiology make it perfectly clear"

Love the poem---one of your best in my book.

I've been pacing up and down, reciting it aloud and realised why I changed books in the first verse to book (singular).  It was to avoid the sibilant 's' which annoys me by sometimes tripping over my tongue.

When reading aloud I have a similar problem with the word months.  It reads just fine, but sounds like munce.

Not all sibilants sound wrong, but I guess over the years I've learned to avoid the troublesome ones.  I guess this is why I sometimes end up with a verb which disagrees, until I either spot it myself of someone else points it out.

So, some fine tuning before I read it in public

Thank you for a great reminder---I do not pay enough attention to the spoken poem

    It is all too easy to forget the spoken result when in the creative flow of writing.

    Written and spoken English have some distinct differences.

    If you are regular 'performance poet' you may well write your poems in a way which helps guide the performance.  They may look more like stage directions than verse.  It will look fine to you, but weird to anyone else.  Anyone listening to your performance won't see the weirdness, just hear the effect you intended.

    If you are comfortable performing it will become more of an act than a recitation.  I recently saw a man performing Poe's Raven, and in the role of narrator he was dancing along the thin edge of insanity with his body language mirroring the words.  He sucked the whole audience into that world. 

    After he finished there were several seconds where he was clearly finding himself again.  And a similar pause before the audience shook off the spell enough to start clapping.

    =====

    But if you never read out loud, even to yourself, you are missing some useful clues.

    Speaking aloud will reveal the little 'speed bumps' which disturb the underlying metre.  It will reveal which words can be elided together for best effect.  For example, here are times when 'shall not' reads perfectly, but needs to be voiced as 'shan't'.  It will also reveal when this doesn't work.

    You may have an unusual vocal delivery, or just a dialect which sounds words differently according the way you stress syllables within the words.

    Once you start listening through your ears, instead of just mentally as you read, your poetry may take on a whole new dimension.  You may well find you have two distinctly different versions of the same poem  one for reading silently, and one for reciting/performing.

    Even if you have no intention of ever standing up before a live audience treat yourself to an imaginary one and read aloud.  Listen to how it sounds.

    Gyppo

Sweet poem, but not too sweet.

muchly enjoyed

Phil