Holy Night

[Virgil]

If anyone would like to comment on my poem for the Christmas Poetry contest, please feel free to do so here. I would like to hear comments, good and bad. Thanks to those who voted for it.


Holy Night

The rocking motion of the beast
Jiggles the belly,
Wobbles the amniotic sac.

They reach a barn,
Granted privilege,
Poor beast watered and fed.

Husband cushions wife in hay,
Breathing of bestiary only sound,
Marital understanding between eyes
In silent consecration.
Wife slips into sleep.

Husband ventures out for midwife
An evening which may bring
Fatherhood or widowhood,
Returns unaccompanied,
Wood being easier to shape.

Returns with evening meal,
Some bread, some wine.
Returns to screams of wife,
Eyes wide, teeth glaring,
Preagonal motions of enfeebled ritual.

Water, then, to rinse her face
To cool her arms, unwrapping her clothes,
Bathes pre-maternal breasts,
Spreads arms out to refresh pilous pits.

Her hands grip to fists
Contraction strikes through belly
An unclothing to light
Lifts her legs to release, to release—

Beasts clench to screams
Husband strokes her head
Sweat pastes black hair to crown
Naked on her back with streaks of heat
With bulge of belly below.

And the water that flows from her groin
And the pain—to release
Like a crucifixion.

And water—
And lifts her legs—
To release—
And pain—
To a crucifixion—

Will it bring death this life
In some invisible double?
Or will life bring death?

And then release to final pain
To feel arms and feet glide
Through her opening.

And then release of blood,
Release to pure light
Babe swaddled with pain of cry
Wet and bloodied in father’s arms.
Husband covers her with beast’s blanket.

Feels ease of numbness,
Eyes close once again
Crosses legs to close pain
Passes to ethereal sleep.

Hours later she wakes to morning light,
To look at eyes of love.

[jon1jt]

If anyone would like to comment on my poem for the Christmas Poetry contest, please feel free to do so here. I would like to hear comments, good and bad. Thanks to those who voted for it.

i have to tell you i had mixed feelings about this one. the first time i read it i thought it rambled a bit. then i read it again and i sensed a momentum driving the anxiety-laden delivery, and the anxieties were subtleties---the eyes meeting, clenched fists, the "beasts clench to fists" - my favorite line. that i liked. the poem, in my humble opinion, runs a bit too long and at least three stanzas could have been compressed to give it a tighter overall flow and feel. but hey you went with the length maybe to build the anticipation, and it works really nicely too. so no biggie.

another thing involved transitions between lines - there are none, purposely the case. there's a matter-of-factness though i over time that creates a hum-drumminess, compounded by the 4-6 word lines---i would have tried to play with the lines with punctuation and breaks:


Beasts clench to screams
Husband strokes her head
Sweat pastes black hair to crown
Naked on her back with streaks of heat
With bulge of belly below.

(revised)
Beasts, clench to screams
Husband strokes her black hair
crown; the sweat pastes
and naked, on her back
with streaks of heat;
infant-bulge of belly, below.

imperfect, you get my point though. a little more diversity in the lines, that's all.

anyway, a truly great christmas poem and i enjoyed reading it...there's a whole lot to like about it. hope i made some sense here.

[dramasnot6]

virgil did you want me to post the critique i gave you via PM or would you prefer me to keep it private?

[jon1jt]

virgil did you want me to post the critique i gave you via PM or would you prefer me to keep it private?


yeah i say you post it i wanna see what cha got! virg won't mind! :lol:

[dramasnot6]

I really liked yours! I can sincerely tell you it was my favorite, but yours in the other poetry contest tied with Pen's as my favorite too.
You always use very interesting and creative imagery, in this poem I especially liked "Jiggles the belly,Wobbles the amniotic sac."
Your religious foreshadowing was also very clever in
"And the water that flows from her groin
And the pain—to release
Like a crucifixion."
It was so ironic to compare the giving of life to the end of it, but at the same time very appropriate and thought provoking.
Compared to the other poems i considered yours to have the most depth in it's symbolism and philosophy. Although during the stanzas after she had gone into labor, it was a bit abstract and the transitions could be tightened a little.
I like to judge poems on two levels, their content and their stimulation of the mind and emotions. I thought you took content that has been used and written about hundreds of time before and really gave it a creative spin. Most Christmas poems are rather one dimensional but i liked how yours really made me think. Im sure everyone else who read it felt the same. Congratulations on winning!

[Virgil]

virgil did you want me to post the critique i gave you via PM or would you prefer me to keep it private?

Sure, this way I can always go back to it. Once my PM box gets full, I'll have to delete it. Or save it, but I have never gone back to saved PMs.

[Virgil]

Thanks Jon and Drama. All comments are always appreciated.

[jon1jt]

in light of my remarks, i also wanted to say separately that your poem was the winner and my poem, poem #4 untitled, was among those that was not, and so i took more notes from your poem than i offered, i assure you. :)

and by the way, congratulations Sir Virgil, very nice poem. :)

[Janine]

Manny, I suspected this might be your poem when I came to the line about crucifixtion....it was reminescent of the poem you wrote to the Dali painting "St. John of the Cross"..."The Chantry"...I think that was the name of your poem. However, I did not vote on it thinking it was yours; I really wanted to be fair to everyone. I read all the poems over a couple times. I had good reasons I voted for this one, but all were a fine effort and good in different ways. I aplaud all of the participants!
Here's my reasons I favored this one and voted such:
"Holy Night" was a very "gutsy" poem. It had a lot of substance to it and was downright honest. Personally when I first read it, I was not sure I liked it, but I knew it was “powerful” right away, and later I thought of it more than the other poems...it stayed with me....also, it gave a more realistic view of Christ's birth, unlike the cleaned up fantasy story we are all feed...I liked that about it; then when I re-read all of of the poems I thought "this poem is the most complete and complex, and written in the best form and sequence and says the most....this is a poem with deep thought and a core of authenticity about it. Good job, Manny - do be proud of it! You are a very good poet. The meter was good and the guts of the poem were right out there, unafraid to be expressed. At first, your poem sort of hit me personally, being a mother, having gone through a birth myself, first-hand. I thought it make the whole scene of Christ's birth so graphic, human, painful, which on a second reading, I found to be an excellent idea.
To recap - a "gutsy" poem on your part, good and well written; left a strong impression and much to think on..birth to death being suggested...good point. The ending lines are wonderful, so true and beautiful...came full circle at that point....from darkness into light.

[Virgil]

Thank you Janine.

[Ranoo]

I really liked it!

[ktd222]

I’m sorry I dismissed your poem so quickly, Virgil. There are a lot of things I like about it. I like you're contrasting descriptions of father and mother. When the father’s actions are described, it is in a relaxing and soothing way. When the mother’s actions are described, it’s in abrupt, painful ways. I don’t how else to see it; but this gives the poem a certain balance that prevents chaos(which I guess is the agony) from overwhelming the scene you describe.
I also like that you made the speaker of your poem a witness to the scene, and not part of the scene itself. It really does give me(the reader) sense that I, also, am a witness to the scene taking place. And it doesn’t throw off the balance that you created between the father and mother’s actions.
It’s funny you have this movement from the baby being a ‘beast’ to the baby being ‘babe’ at the end of your poem. What is the significance of describing the unborn child as a ‘beast?’ Is it only a beast can cause such pains? I don’t know.
The title is very appropriate too. Holy Night…it goes so well with the contrast of dark and light you describe in your poem. The fact that your descriptions of the birth were of pain, and happened at night, gives the dark a really eerie connotation. And at the same time the word ‘holy’ brings all the pain that had been undergone by this woman into perspective for me; it makes that connection to what a crucifixion must be comparable to.
Maybe your poem is all about compare and contrast?
Top notch poem, Virgil. Sorry again. Next time there is a poetry contest I will definitely vote.

[Pensive]

I am not that much of a critique when it comes to poetry. The only thing I can tell is whether I find the poem good or not.

So I will just say that it was a really emotional poem. Maybe, a little rhythm and rhyme could have made it even better (I have always been a fan of rhymes :p), but still it was really good.

[Dr Eep]

This poem is actually a feast of symbolism and meaning. I would recommend that anyone reading it should read it a few times in order to enjoy this feast.

For example,
Virgil wrote;
"The rocking motion of the beast
Jiggles the belly,
Wobbles the amniotic sac."

I first thought this was a reference to the baby (the beast) but I realised it was a description of the discomfort of Mary's journey upon donkeyback and the relative danger it could perhaps impose on an unborn child. That, in and of itself, is a fantastic sensitive image!!
Yet, there is more - on a more subliminal level, the line takes on a whole new 'animal' - where perhaps there is a dark description and almost poetic prophecy of the adversary (Satan, Lucifer, the beast) already starting his attack on the future Savior of mankind - the lines tell us that even before he was born there was menace and danger and hardship knocking at the door.
When I saw this I literally felt the hairs rising on my neck Virgil so powerful was that discovery!! Sometimes the words we write seem to come from somewhere else and I see this as an example of that.

A very, very thought provoking poem Virgil!!

[ktd222]

"The rocking motion of the beast
Jiggles the belly,
Wobbles the amniotic sac."

Dr. Eep

I first thought this was a reference to the baby (the beast)

Isn't it?
There is nothing else mentioned to extrapolate further.

[Dr Eep]

Hi there!! I imagined it to be the movement of riding atop the donkey that was causing these particular movements and just imagining how uncomfortable it must have been. I don't really know - just how I see it in my minds eye!!

[ktd222]

Maybe Virgil, whenever he logs on, can discern this for us.:)

[Virgil]

It’s funny you have this movement from the baby being a ‘beast’ to the baby being ‘babe’ at the end of your poem. What is the significance of describing the unborn child as a ‘beast?’ Is it only a beast can cause such pains? I don’t know.


No ktd, Eep is right. The beast is the donkey.


I first thought this was a reference to the baby (the beast) but I realised it was a description of the discomfort of Mary's journey upon donkeyback and the relative danger it could perhaps impose on an unborn child. That, in and of itself, is a fantastic sensitive image!!
Yet, there is more - on a more subliminal level, the line takes on a whole new 'animal' - where perhaps there is a dark description and almost poetic prophecy of the adversary (Satan, Lucifer, the beast) already starting his attack on the future Savior of mankind - the lines tell us that even before he was born there was menace and danger and hardship knocking at the door.
When I saw this I literally felt the hairs rising on my neck Virgil so powerful was that discovery!! Sometimes the words we write seem to come from somewhere else and I see this as an example of that.
Thank you Eep. I had not consciously thought that in. That is the reference to satan as beast. But Wow!!! It fits fabulously.

[ktd222]

No ktd, Eep is right. The beast is the donkey.


Thank you Eep. I had not consciously thought that in. That is the reference to satan as beast. But Wow!!! It fits fabulously.

I do see what Eep is seeing. I guess it was just too obscure of a connection for me.

[Janine]

Nice reference Eep. It goes a lot deeper than we thought. Interesting to interpret it that way. I agree - sometimes things just emerge unconsciously. I like that idea.