Weeding

[Ryder]

I kicked a plastic water butt
and watched the surface frown.
Felt the rough sawn edge of it
shoulder the jolt,
and like Frost’s ivy framed god
(to my mind Pan,
for he, to me, is most like man)
saw something white
beyond my reflection.

My father, his grandfathers knife
poised amongst the rhubarb stems,
complains of mares-tail in the onion bed.
Suggesting that there, instead,
an equally unobtainable root
might form a more tangible link
to that which lies beneath the surface.

Then he smells of the rut, the green,
and with a handful of fruit, comes pegging
down the path.
Not boot but hoof, begging down the path.
For I a giant, ripping fir trees from
the flanks of rift valleys and hills
from which, come the summer, great
boulders of spuds would spill
say to him: ‘Panus!, great god of the field,
yield to your son’.

Then he’s gone, and the water is still.

[RonPrice]

You play with words well...good use of the colloquial, of poetic narrative and still the reader reads with some sense of "what's going on here?" That is important to me as I read a poem, if not to all readers. Gerald manley Hopkins once wrote that "the poetic impulse was strong feeling." I sense that feeling here in your prose-poem. (In Barbara Hardy, The Advantage of Lyric, Athlone Press, 1977, p.60).//I'd give you at least an A-(79% if I was still teaching English.-Ron Price, Australia

[R. Broath]

I read poetry in the hope of coming across such as this. When it happens (whatever IT is) I am left with a sense of satisfaction which is almost unsayable, like the contemplation of a vista whose parts are unremarkable but whose eye-filling expanse is sublime.
This resonates with me in such a way. It is filled with moments of precision - 'shoulders the jolt' - 'poised amongst the rhubarb' to name but two.
I would change nothing in this. It has, for this reader, what all good poetry contains; the power of words to shove aside the art and craft of its composition and deliver to the gut (or wherever poetry's receptors live) the arresting moment.

One of I wish I'd written (or could write).
Astounding and one to which I will come back often.

Jimmy

[oranggunung]

Ryder

This is a powerful and tantalizing read. I found, as Ron, that I kept having to stop and check if I’d understood where this was going (or where, indeed, it had come from).

S3 is full of fabulous language and wordplay, but the grammar (why does everyone hark on about it?) tripped me. If (and it seems most advisable to use that word) I have it right,

For I, a giant, …

Then goes on to

Say to him

If (again with suitable stress) that’s what’s happening, I’d expect the whole convoluted passage to be one sentence until the inverted commas close.

Pegging/begging. - This is probably an important transition in S3, but the informality of ‘pegging’ (compared to S1 and S2) and the imagery of ‘begging’ (feeling like a random and desperate rhyme) don’t sit well with the rest. I don’t know if they link back to Frost and are therefore important. I found them distracting.


And then he’s gone, and the water is still.

This line is separated from the final stanza, so perhaps it could stand as a separate sentence. If that were the case, the first ‘And’ would be superfluous, as would the comma. I can see the attraction of the comma to separate the ideas, but a bare last line could stand as a bleak contrast to the fabulous images before.

I really enjoyed this and the surprising journey it led off on. I'm sure a little structural tweaking would improve the reading without denting the impact.


og

[David]

An inspired exhumation indeed, Jimmy. I've never seen this before.

Original Dave, you should be proud of yourself.

What's the Frost poem with Pan?

Cheers

David

[Ryder]

Many thanks.

It's not often I can come back to a poem, I tend to lose faith in them after a while. Yet always felt this one needed a third verse, which I finally got round to. I think it works, I hope it does.

Points on grammar taken on board Og(again), will certainly take a closer look, I can see exactly what you mean.

Genuine David, I cheated a bit with 'ivy', but here's the Frost poem. You've probably read it:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive ... ?id=173528

again, thanks.

[barrie]

Suggesting that there, instead,
an equally unobtainable root
might form a more tangible link
to that which lies beneath the surface. - I'm intrigued by the mystery here: an unobtainable root providing a tangible link.

I liked the repetition of pegging down the path/ begging down the path.

It's got a raw feel to it, and brings with it the smells of the soil. It reminds me of when I was a gardener at a convent, especially the old man I worked with.

You're quite good at these earthy ones.

good stuff

Barrie

[Ryder]

Cheers Barrie.

Suggesting that there, instead,
an equally unobtainable root
might form a more tangible link
to that which lies beneath the surface. - I'm intrigued by the mystery here: an unobtainable root providing a tangible link.

http://www.allotment.org.uk/articles/We ... _to_do.php

Have a look at this link and scroll down to 'Marestail', specifically the length of the tap root. It's virtually impossible to eradicate, and an ancient plant apparently. I'm sure you've come across it. More tangible in the sense that it can be 'screwed off', as deep as possible, yet not completely obtainable. A bit tongue in cheek really, but mean't to tie in with family, or local roots. Again, impossible to eradicate.

Og, I've altered the punctuation slightly, and last line. So thanks for the guidance on that.

[barrie]

I've come across mare's tail before and you're right about the roots. They used to be handy as an early warning system when I was digging graves - If a side of a grave was about to give way, you would hear the black roots snapping which gave you enough time to get out. It happened to me a couple of times - I doubt it happens much these days, H&S would ensure every grave is shored up. There's a lot of mare's tail around that part of Leigh and Tyldesley.
I think it was a giant form of mare's tail that made up a lot of the primeval forests which ended up as coal - now it's smaller descendent grows around the pit rucks.
An old women in our street used to used it for treating sprains and things. She made a sort of tea with it - apparantly it's rich in silicon.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=6710

Barrie

[twoleftfeet]

Ryder (Original Dave (?)),

Thanks for posting the Frost poem.
DOH! Now that's two poems I'm trying to get my head around!
When I was a tot my parents had a dressing table with a main mirror and (sort of) "wing" mirrors that you could
adjust: you could then see yourself looking in a mirror, in a mirror etc.
If this isn't where the poem is going then I'm lost.

an equally unobtainable root
might form a more tangible link
to that which lies beneath the surface
- this clunked a little, IMHo.
May I suggest swapping "elusive" for "unobtainable" ?

Nice one
Geoff

[barrie]

Well done Dave - Honourable Mention this month....and well deserved.

nice one