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Library Inscapes

General Poetry - post, comment, review, critique
bruise
Posts: 101
Joined: Sun Jan 23, 2022 6:51 am

Re: Library Inscapes

Post by bruise » Sun Jan 23, 2022 7:34 am

AlienFlower wrote:
Fri Dec 10, 2021 4:00 am
With an armful of donated books, 
her face slightly left bent 
toward a near vent-block window, 
a volunteer leaves behind her
a tabled holograph, 
a roach-chewed novel’s 
dust-gloss cover frontispiece 
ignited by rays from the sun.
Does she see ahead the brace 
that light through the doorway 
reveals to her, cast on the wall?
The brace in the bookshelf she plans to fill
that once approached, will obstruct 
her will regarding this armful of books?

Some of the syntax I find a bit troubled. 'slightly left bent' - 'the brace/that light through the doorway/reveals' - feels a bit 'poesy'. 

'a near vent-block window' - this means nothing to me - maybe it made sense in the original scene, but doesn't translate into the poem? or it's just something i don't know, a cultural difference or something.

Did the volunteer leave the window, or is this referring back to the 'armful' or are we on to further items? I think some thought about sentencing and punctuation may help me here. 

Are we one light from window or door? Perhaps that could be tightened up? Do we need both a door and a window?

I don't have an image of what the 'brace' may be - some type of shelving? - the repeated use of the word with the near proximity of another meaning that you don't quite touch on, suggests it has importance, but which is lost on me. 

In the end her difficulty with placing an armful of books seems to lessen the impact of the rest of the poem. 

I realise that all seems negative, but it's not supposed to be - i like the essential idea of it, and can see that it's an arresting image. In parts I think you are trying too hard with it - something more natural is maybe dying to flow - but i also think that you haven't finally thought why the image has resonance for you. 

bruise
Posts: 101
Joined: Sun Jan 23, 2022 6:51 am

Re: Library Inscapes

Post by bruise » Sun Jan 23, 2022 7:37 am

I should say that the poem's title attracted because I love Gerard Manley Hopkins and the Duns Scottus concept of 'inscape'. 

AlienFlower
Posts: 475
Joined: Fri Feb 05, 2021 9:32 am
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Re: Library Inscapes

Post by AlienFlower » Mon Jan 24, 2022 2:36 am

Hi Bruise
 
Thanks for reading this and for your comments. You’re right that I wrote the poem (this draft, I should say) working out my thoughts. You can google vent blocks; they are usually precast concrete with designed holes in them, used more in warm climates. 
“Brace” was a stickler for almost everybody so I need to work on that especially. I like GMH, too (see entry on him at https://jacquelineleighbooks.wordpress.com I wrote for some students I’m working with) and I stand by the word because it relates to inscapes; I just didn’t write that section well. 
For me, writing is just ongoing revision. I rarely look at something I’ve written and say to myself, “Well, that’s finished.”
 
Jackie

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