Thorns

[Tim J Brennan]

Oh that---over-rated

plums are better

[indar]

my personal fave is "the Jungle"

[Tracy Mitchell]

Late to the party here, but this is a tough poem for its format, its sparsity, and I really like where its at. I do prefer us footie-mad kids over footie-mad us. The yellow works fine for me for the rose as well.

I am not sharing any reluctance about the closing lines.

T

[Matty11]

Oh that---over-rated

The soundscape...

so much depends upon a red wheelbarrow glazed with rainwater beside the white chickens.

A reading that a friend shared with me from Donald Hall's book How to Read a Poem :

 I went back to the Hall book in which he describes the Frost and Williams poems as "good" poems and reread the chapter. I was struck by a comment Hall makes about understanding the "meaning" of the poem that I didn't pick up on, the first time through. An exerpt from the book pages 9 - 10, I thought you might be interested in. 


"Putting the sentence into lines must affect the meaning of the sentence, if we take "meaning" to be the words' total impact on the reader. In search of meaning, let us first try paraphrase:"These things are really important:small red cart with wheels on it, with water on it from the rainshower, next to poultry." (I cannot paraphrase the simplicities of red and white.) When I asserted that meaning must be changed by the line arrangement, my claim was not grand; putting these clauses into lines slows down the sentence, adding pauses greater than the pauses we would make if we spoke the sentence as prose. The pauses isolate the clauses within brackets of time, made visible on poetry's page by the white spaces around the poem. The results are focus, intensity, concentration and emphasis. In the lines quoted, the last three make visual images, and the first line insists on the importance of what follows--- therefore, on the importance of the visual. To isolate these line, by pauses and spaces, is to emphasize the singularity of each unit and draw closer attention to the redness of the wheelbarrow, to the wetness of the rain, to the whiteness of the chickens. The greater emphasis of these lines intensifies meaning.  By this (referring to the original poem) arrangement, meaning is further enhanced, sound is released, and the poem is made exact, fixed, permanent --- like a carving. The prose sentence from page 8 is repeated exactly, but, by breaking the words into these lines, Willliams makes an object; and his object enforces the meaning. "

[Matty11]

Late to the party here, but this is a tough poem for its format, its sparsity, and I really like where its at. I do prefer us footie-mad kids over footie-mad us. The yellow works fine for me for the rose as well.

I am not sharing any reluctance about the closing lines.

T

Thanks for taking a look Tracy. Any reason for the preferences? Would be interested to know.

cheers

Phil

[indar]

So
a few bedraggled

leghorns

stand next to a wet
wagon.

What then?

No unrequited love;
social angst;
rank malevolence;
outraged rant?

What kind
of
poem is that?

 

[indar]

I read your excerpt with interest Phil, thank you. 

[Wren Tuatha]

Revision

chair left out
-side

the back door
where

Dad sat and kept
an eye on

footie-mad
us

and his beloved
roses

 

I have to admit I just read an interview in which an editors were describing enjambment in the middle of a word, as you have in "outside" as something they dislike. Not sure, maybe here that gives it more appeal. I am in the yellow-liking camp. Beloved seems a given to me, and not adding much, except to point out that it refers to the roses and NOT to his kids. Great title.

Much enjoyed!

 

[Matty11]

Beloved seems a given to me, and not adding much, except to point out that it refers to the roses and NOT to his kids.

Some reader felt that point was not be foregrounded with 'yellow roses' (the colour had no purpose or indicated purpose when there was none)

I have to admit I just read an interview in which an editors were describing enjambment in the middle of a word, as you have in "outside" as something they dislike.

Editors are just readers and readers will have their preferences. Stating the obvious, but all poetry templates are subjective. Personally, I like yellow roses

cheers

Phil

 

[Ike]

Hey Phil,

Right off the bat, I'm intrigued by the title- definitely alludes to multiple meanings. I agree that this a cool new style for you, regardless of whether an experiment goes how you predict, you learn new things. I'm not sure what is trying to be emphasized by N in each line, but some of the specific break points slow me down rather than adding to the piece. As an example the first line means more to me as
"chair left
outside"
Stronger cadence in my opinion. There is a sort of unease in the line breaks, however, and in that way tension and suspense are built. Because I'm unsure of the message behind the piece I can't say one way or another which I prefer. One last thing, the revision from "us footie-mad kids" leaves me confused, I prefer the original. Good piece though, and I think it's cool that youre trying different things

edit: team beloved

Ike