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Hero Wanted:

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

Hero Wanted:

Post by indar » Thu May 28, 2020 10:28 am

Hero Wanted:

Penny sits on a park bench
under one of the last surviving elms,
a tree so old 2 grown men
could not get their arms around it.
The rest succumbed to Dutch elm disease years ago.

Penny leans back to watch a grackle
hop limb to limb,
it lives because the elms died.
One woman sparked a nation to quit DDT
lest our springs become silent.

Penny remembers Minneapolis canopied over
with a thousand shifting shades of green--
it was a fair trade.

Not far away a man lies
in the gutter, handcuffed, face down:
Please sir, please, I can't breathe.
He calls for his mama who died
on this very day years ago.
 

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

Re: Hero Wanted:

Post by ajduclos » Fri May 29, 2020 5:02 am

Powerful, Linda... painfully powerful............... nice use of "Silent Spring"...... and like my Portland Street, once "canopied" with majestic elms...........  but, int the end, who are we ?!?
Beautiful and sad.
Aj

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

Re: Hero Wanted:

Post by indar » Sat May 30, 2020 10:58 am

Thank you AJ, you've asked the pertinent question--who are we indeed. What happened to a people who once were willing to pull together to effect change. And where are our priorities when we can collectively go crazy over an abondoned dog but let these human events continue. I love dogs and can't watch those horrible commercials that show them suffering but.....

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Colm Roe
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Re: Hero Wanted:

Post by Colm Roe » Sat May 30, 2020 7:09 pm

From what google tells me DDT was killing pretty much everything (or at least making them very ill) in an attempt to save the elms. It was banned, most of the elms died...but the grackles thrived. Assuming I'm correct so far, we are left with the question.
Would you prefer lots of healthy elms or birds?
If I had to choose between dead trees (with a few birds) or a healthy canopy...you know what I'd say.
Ok, DDT had to be banned because it's so toxic. But the grackle element doesn't work for me, that Penny would be happier with dead trees if there were a few birds in them...it's too much of a compromise!
The last S is powerful. And what you are trying to say is valid....

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

Re: Hero Wanted:

Post by indar » Sun May 31, 2020 1:03 am

Thank you Colm for the read and comments,

I'm sure it took more than Rachel Carson to get DDT banned but her book sure motivated a lot of people to agitate for the right thing. I didn't mean for the reader to then ask the question you suggest: elms or birds. My question is how can these horrible killings due to police brutality continue year after year and the issue gets fogged over and forgotten. Penny sitting on a park bench under a tree enjoying the bird, I thought, was a surreal contrast to another killing being carried out "not far from there". Penny finds herself in a setting that has resulted from doing the right thing. But an ultimate question of what to do and how will this end is sneaking up on her.


 

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

Re: Hero Wanted:

Post by Dave » Sun May 31, 2020 5:39 am

Hey Linda,
A worthy and timely poem that could however be radically cut in my opinion to remove much of the distraction. Since in your explanation you have yourself distilled the main contrast perhaps your poem could do the same. I hesitate to suggest - many people hate it and think it impertinent but perhaps you can get the idea (and then happily reject it):

Penny sits under a surviving elm
so old 2 grown men
cannot wrap their arms around it.

Not far away a black man lies
face down in the gutter,
handcuffed and dying;

Please sir, please, I can't breathe.

Penny remembers Minneapolis
canopied over with shifting shades of green,
leans back to watch a grackle
hop limb to limb,
alive because the elms died.

One woman sparked a nation to quit DDT
lest our springs become silent.

Excuse my massive fiddling.
Dave
 

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Colm Roe
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Re: Hero Wanted:

Post by Colm Roe » Sun May 31, 2020 7:48 pm

indar wrote:
Sun May 31, 2020 1:03 am
I'm sure it took more than Rachel Carson to get DDT banned but her book sure motivated a lot of people to agitate for the right thing. I didn't mean for the reader to then ask the question you suggest: elms or birds. My question is how can these horrible killings due to police brutality continue year after year and the issue gets fogged over and forgotten. Penny sitting on a park bench under a tree enjoying the bird, I thought, was a surreal contrast to another killing being carried out "not far from there". Penny finds herself in a setting that has resulted from doing the right thing. But an ultimate question of what to do and how will this end is sneaking up on her.

The main body of the poem concentrates on Penny and the elms v birds. I struggle to find an easy connect to the last S.
But an ultimate question of what to do and how will this end is sneaking up on her. Unfortunately I can't see this either.
I have to say Dave's rearrangement, which is obviously a rough thing, connects the elements more cohesively.

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

Re: Hero Wanted:

Post by indar » Mon Jun 01, 2020 8:54 am

I hesitate to suggest - many people hate it and think it impertinent but perhaps you can get the idea (and then happily reject it):

Never hesitate Dave. Almost everything I've learned about poetry I've learned by reading it. Nearly everything I've learned about writing poetry I've learned by online forum efforts such as yours on this one. I always appreciate the time and effort my writing community gives to my writing.

I think I got caught up in those elms because I lived in a far-out, flat, treeless suburb and loved the beautiful cool green inner city. I was so happy to move there to an old house with 6 monster elms around it. When the trees died city-wide Minneapolis became a different city and it felt like a necessary tragedy to me. I wrote this very messy knee-jerk poem and there you have it. How would any reader get my intention?

Your suggested rewrite vastly improves it but I think I need to write a different poem entirely. This is the house I lived in, raised our 2 children, from 1974 to 1991. Its in the 5th precinct. Then I went to the north woods of Wisconsin for 6 years and went back to the 3rd precinct. Both at the heart of these demonstrations. 

[font]https://www.realtor.com/realestateandho ... 5901-08943[/font]

Note the trees are back---there's hope

 

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

Re: Hero Wanted:

Post by indar » Mon Jun 01, 2020 9:28 am

.I have to say Dave's rearrangement, which is obviously a rough thing, connects the elements more cohesively

I totally agree Colm. Actually this is just the wrong poem written in an incoherent spur of the moment. I need to process my rage and grief for a while before I revisit the horror of this event.

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

Re: Hero Wanted:

Post by Dave » Mon Jun 01, 2020 9:41 am

Linda
I think you are being to negative. The poem contains the Kernel of a good and necessary poem or even poems. It just tried too much at once. the trees, the racism, insipient violence and protests and DDT are all interconnected elements in a complex and long-running American story. That relationship between the environment and man's management of it does indeed man's relationship to others and the attempt to manage them rather than live with them. DDT cannot be divorced in my head from agent orange and Vietnam. The angry protests and their destruction is intrinsically tied up with the loss of the trees. You have caused a train of thoughts and stories to move and now is the time to follow where they go.

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