Dear all,
Sunday before dawn once more.
cheers, david 🙂
Rachael
I like this one. And there's a lot here. I like the veil, the hand, the palm,
the red shoes, the scale, and love the colonial slum , the horse and rider, the
storybook dark, the Red Delicious and the perfumed wealth. I like the title. In
the first line i crossed out "street", in the fourth line "now", in the sixth
"the" before Eros, and in the seventh "still" because it seemed to need to
speed up a little. I'm not sure about the sudden past tense "hovered" and
"meant"; they seem a bit of a clunky tense-change, and i wonder if you can keep
both times as the present tense?? i don't think we need to know Anne's name
(just "My aunty insists...") especially as no other person is named; only a
slew of businesses which gives a strange distinctive quality to the poem. i
wonder about the order of the poem; maybe you could start with the archaeology
and the horse; then go backwards and forwards in time??
Julie
I love the list of toys, from Sindy to Strawberry Shortcake, and particularly
"bright ponies with plaits". Also surprisingly the list of electronic games and
media sharing stuff. Though i am on the side of the wide skies too. I like the
title. Not sure about "stream dandelions"; is that sail them down a stream?
"Gambol" sounds a bit literary/archaic; what about "tumble" instead? I don't
think you need "playing" before Fortnite in line 11, or the "this" and "that"
in line 13. And i wonder if "tempt" might be better than "get" in line 15. It's
a bit of a preachy poem, but i can dig it. An exhortation. A bit like Hopkins
(GMH): "O let them be left, wildness and wet;/ Long live the weeds and the
wilderness yet."
Mike (MJH?)
Like the title, and the poem has a good pace to it. Love the sour grapes, the
christmas lights, the line "to empty ourselves and our souls, to overshare the/
daily drama..." and the penultimate "as if". i know you are constrained in the
final words you have for each line, and i haven't looked at your Brooks
original. i like the hyphenated words to finish lines, but "down-keepers" is a
bit of a surprise as a reader. I wonder if you could have another hyphenated
word or words earlier to get the reader used to it. What about "us-them" in
line 3, and "them-us" in line 4??
Jennifer
I like the first line, and love the lines "Find the child that i knew,/ who i
thought had disappeared." Also from "I might" to "the power of the ordinary".
Not sure about the last line though, which seems a little awkward to say aloud,
and how it relates to the title; why is it "my eyes" rather then just "eyes",
when it is already "my window"? Could the title be "Forever Blue"? Could the
last line be "Entering the forever winter of eyes"?? Just wondering...🤓
Gaby
Like the title, but you might think of a better one. Like the pause in the
drilling, the axis, the earth creeping back, some archaic delicacy. And love
the slow march, the recoil, the "get things done", and everything from "I'd
like" to "but not impossible either". I think this is my favourite poem of
yours from the last 6 weeks, particularly the final 8 lines; my favourite line
being "and knobbed with cypress knees," (strangely ambiguously confidently
allusively elusive). My only suggestion is for line 6 you could replace "more
drift then flow" with "less flow than drift", which is easier to say and to
think, i think.
Seeya soon, cheers, David
