Poetry Forum

Ray

I think this is great and I laughed out loud.

I understood it too, Black Country translates very well.

Even the names of the protagonists seem so appropriate.

I would love to hear it read out loud by a Black Country lad.... I was hearing Noddy Holder as I read it!

elph

Riverrun, Jules, Jackie and Luke, I appreciate your time and feedback

elph

Hello bjL

A performance piece? I can hear it. Rip roaring abandon.

"nibble your food" ... very understated compared to the rest.

Enjoyed

elph

Hello Perry I hear this poem more as a performance piece than written verse. I think it needs tonality of voice to land well. I see you believe it to be raw, raw is probably a good quality in an “anger” poem. For improvement, I would look at stanza lengths. It had nice 4 line start then deviated, I ...

I have read this back and fire over the week. It grows on me even though the literary references are not ones I specifically know. However that PG Wodehouse Englishness is sufficiently in our national psyche ideas like Plummy a wonderland are easy to reference. I like the Aunts and gongs. Are there ...

Hello Perry You have made your decision and I agree it’s a good version. So just a couple of comments The praline and vanilla beach image is a great image. The closing verse and in particular the closing couplet is very atmospheric. Can I niggle on one point? ..sand-seared sun-worshippers...... I am...

Thanks all for passing by and the comments @mac — I agree I could probably go to metaphor and reduce the likes @ James m - I will take poignant sadness, it was certainly one of the feelings I was hoping to express @nqs — appreciate the close reading. Let me reflect on your points about naming distri...

Last night in my half sleep, I imagined we’d walked from the Blue Mosque to the Hagia Sophia, a short distance in the November rain. Above us, the cupola was hovering, like a welcome umbrella, over the mihrab and the minbar; in the apse the Mary and child mosaic, yellow and blue, like a bruise on th...

Very nice.... has its own sense of place which is important for me at least. Love the steaming midden ... evocative... and the definitions. Would the Manx words be useful? Perhaps, but not a big issue for me as it’s enogh to know that there are words for incestuous marriage etc. Quibbles, I am not s...

I am not sure this is working old fella. In typical David style it starts off elegiac and then a slight sense of the ridiculous with the Arthur swan ride and the Wurlitzer. All good and well with the approach .... but I think to really land it the ridiculous needs to be extended, something disclosed...

Spot on Seth.. inspired by the Crofters Trust and one of the first community land buy outs sometime in early 90s.

MacCaig holidayed and visited Assynt many times. A Man in Assynt is as you say one of his few (only?) long poems. Maybe not his best but certainly heartfelt

Elph

As a lifelong MacCaig fan... he came to our school to talk poetry sometime around 1976 (ish) I am enjoying these tributes One of my favourites [url]https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/aunt-julia/[/url] Also worth a read by Andrew Greig is a wonderful book At the Loch of the Green Corrie......

Another one from the past inspired by NM Perspectives (Reading MacCaig while Dylan strums) Suilven, Torridonian, claims to be not a Munro, to be well short of a Corbett. He's a pyramid, a pillar, a leopard-skin pill-box hat, How many years can a mountain exist before it's washed to the sea? an agele...

Well that made me smile, I love the voice, not dowdy just worldly wise

And ... a NM poem i wasn’t so familiar wit

Elph

One of my all time favourites. Easy to imagine the odd pieces of straw as lightnings. You may recall my own take on Summer Farm Zen Calvinism in the Farmyard (after Summer Farm by Norman Maccaig) I am not just a one eyed hen, pecking at nothing at all. I am a worker, searching among these scratching...

This certainly caught the mood of the season for me, not Christmas but New Year with its mix of nostalgia and looking forward. And a modern sonnet to boot! You know i would niggle if I could but I can’t, this is perfectly formed in all aspects; in tone, in word choice ( the mundane watercourse to th...

I like the conceit Luke. I vote for the longer lines, I think the tone of the poem is one that would benefit from a regular metre. Worth a try? And maybe some pruning of excess but to make the right cuts I would let it marinade in its entirety for a week or so, For some reason the Jerry can image is...

Just picking up line 2 is very similar to the well known Robert Burns lines from Tam O Shanter

But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flower, it's bloom is shed;
Or, like the snow falls on the river,
A moment white, then melts forever.”

elph

Sorry to have to second that... I think we need more clues Luke.

Norse goddess of love?

Elph

I think the short lines are particularly effective in building the tension in this. I didn’t know who Alice Glaston was but by the end of the poem and seeing in memorium I had guessed she had been hung so that means the poem worked. I agree with others about the “I’m sure she knows line” .... it’s n...

Thanks Mac, Luke and NQS

Two poems in one year is almost prolific for me

NQS - your close reading is highly appreciated. I think I will pick up almost all your points. Very helpful. Does poetic licence allow me to overlook Heinrich... damn wiki!!!

Cheers elph

Clever, and visually appealing.

I pondered over it longer than I do most "regular" poems

elph

The Grand Old Duke of York in this procession is played by the Grander and the Greater Margrave of Meissen, Conrad he had ten thousand men I exaggerate. His men were fewer but somewhat more majestic; 35 margraves, electors, dukes and kings of the House of Wettin, tiled along the wall of the Augustu...

Quite exquisite.. beautiful elegiac tone but never sentimental. The contrasts are clever.. fall/spring, diamonds/prayer beads. I am sure it won’t be to everyone’s taste to have to parse the poem themselves, but for me it was part of unravelling the package to find what was inside. For a British read...

“Elbow of confusion”.... kind of sums up the responses

I take the point, this is bordering on obscure. I will work on that.

Thanks for the feedback... @Perry I don’t mind rewrites, sometimes it’s easier to explain that way.

Cheers

elph