The Mother's Gift

[Jack of Hearts]

Me in the crib

and you by the window;

the room frosted pale blue and

evening drapes like

a spectral marionnetteer.




You made whispers

into pictures.




Twenty years later

the ghost of your voice

hearses my mind

and pulls at both ends

until the demon is

coaxed onto paper.

[hillwalker]

I seem to recall you once suggesting that maybe you don't 'get' poetry. Well, now you do. However you reached the point at which you put these thoughts onto paper, that's what transformed you into a poet.

Almost every line is perfection. No more to say on this one, Jack.

H

[PrinceMyshkin]

Did you really once make the statement Hill refers to? How passionately I agree with him that whether or not you "get" other people's poetry, you've certainly learned how to give it to us.

I wonder: did you have to labour at all over this or did it come to you all at once and did you immediately know this is a poem!

[everyadventure]

Beautiful, ethereal, haunting. "You made whispers into pictures..." what a lovely, lovely thing to have someone say about you.

Wonderfully done.

[Jack of Hearts]

Thank you hill, Prince and everyadventure. For the author's part, he has no idea what this piece is but he recognizes kind praise when he sees it.


I wonder: did you have to labour at all over this or did it come to you all at once and did you immediately know this is a poem!

The author has to trick his mind into allowing himself to write prose. He does this by sometimes purposely writing false steps (small portions of low quality, go nowhere, cheesy prose) or writing goofy little poems. When the pieces' death is so eminent (usually deleted instantaneously) it turns off a certain internal editor and allows composition to occur quite quickly. As to why it was posted rather than deleted, the author doesn't know- a whim or venting frustration at how difficult writing his current prose work has been (but also at times euphoric).



J

[PrinceMyshkin]

The author has to trick his mind into allowing himself to write prose. He does this by sometimes purposely writing false steps (small portions of low quality, go nowhere, cheesy prose) or writing goofy little poems. When the pieces' death is so eminent (usually deleted instantaneously) it turns off a certain internal editor and allows composition to occur quite quickly. As to why it was posted rather than deleted, the author doesn't know- a whim or venting frustration at how difficult writing his current prose work has been (but also at times euphoric).

J

The respondent is wondering at this curious habit the author has of referring to himself in the 3rd person. The respondent vaguely remembers having read somewhere that what might appear to some to be the manifestation of 'normal' grandiosity, it might also or instead be the symptom of some sort of mental disorder. But since the author's preferred writers are Joyce and Faulkner, the respondent assumes that this habit may be a tongue-in-cheek expression of old-fashioned courtliness.

[Delta40]

I especially like the last verse - as if the tug of war inside, spills out for us to read. Your reluctance is superbly crafted

[Alexander III]

I really like this, strong ending. I can think of only one change which would bennefit the poem

"The room frosted pale blue and"

"frosted pale blue"

Putting two adjectived before a noun makes them feel meanignless. It is an overload on the senses and the natural reaction is to ignore them, that is what happens on an aethic level. A better way of putting it would be

The room pale and frosted blue

OR

The room a pale and frosted blue

[Jack of Hearts]

You are all very kind and the author appreciates that. Alexander III, thanks very much for that practical advice.

Kookaburra, your continued support and insight is treasured.




J

[AuntShecky]

Me in the crib

and you by the window;

the room frosted pale blue and

evening drapes like

a spectral marionnetteer.




You made whispers

into pictures.




Twenty years later

the ghost of your voice

hearses my mind

and pulls at both ends

until the demon is

coaxed onto paper.


Forgive me for being so tardy in reading and commenting this as another project consumed me (in the Gen. Literature forum) and devoured all my computer time.

But, man, am I glad I got a chance to see this. It's not too long, it's not too "self-conscious" of itself as a poem, it's not too abstract, it's not pretentious.

That's all the things it's not. Here are the things it is:
brief, compressed (the way verse is "supposed" to be),it is about something specific, it's refreshingly colloquial and contemporary, it's subtle without being incomprehensible, and it evokes emotions that resonate with a wide variety of readers.

Another thing it is is original, with its images and tropes--"spectral marionnetter," "whispers into pictures," and "hearses" as a verb, which is rarely used such but certainly is a verb. (Look 'er up in the ol' Webster. Incidentally, the word "rehearse" sounds like a verb that means "to hearse again" doesn't it? Of course it isn't, but the theatrical allusions behind "marionnetteer" made me think of how it almost could be, in an etymology of some alternative universe. "Drapes" could mean "curtains" too, both with the show biz angle.)

As you can see, I can see multiple levels of meaning just in these few lines. Good work.

PS. "Frosted pale blue" works for me. I pictured the tint fashionistas and interior designers call "ice
blue." The piece emanates for a memory from the
speaker's infancy; it can't be too precise yet at the same time it can't be gibberish or baby talk. You hit the right spot, like Goldilocks and her porridge--
"just right."

As for referring to yourself in the third person, you've learned your journalism lessons well, although in recent decades editors aren't so strict--
must be the non-fiction fiction craze or the Hunter
Thompson effect. On the other hand, we can carry it too far and start sounding like former Senator Bob Dole or ballplayers Ricky Henderson and Bo
("Bo Knows") Jackson, or the llate great Howard
("This Reporter") Cosell.

To this day, yours fooly still feels squeamish typing the upper case "I." That's why I refer to meself as
"Yours Fooly."

[Jack of Hearts]

Please Excuse My Dear Stray Auntie, thank you for being so kind to this. The author must reiterate that this is mostly a happy accident incomprehensible to himself; the outcome of yet another struggle staged behind his forehead with his consciousness, his fears, his insecurities and least of all that ever-present monkey on his back that demands he, in spite of these things and any other articulated 'identity' of himself, must write.

So he appreciates your reading and praise but laments he still knows nothing about poetry- which is where some of your technical posts have proved most interesting.




J

[AuntShecky]

Please Excuse My Dear Stray Auntie, thank you for being so kind to this. The author must reiterate that this is mostly a happy accident incomprehensible to himself; the outcome of yet another struggle staged behind his forehead with his consciousness, his fears, his insecurities and least of all that ever-present monkey on his back that demands he, in spite of these things and any other articulated 'identity' of himself, must write.

So he appreciates your reading and praise but laments he still knows nothing about poetry- which is where some of your technical posts have proved most interesting.




J

To answer this, let me cite the poet/critic T. S. Eliot who has been on "this writer's" mind of late. This is from "Tradition and the Individual Talent":

"There is a great deal, in the writing of poetry, which must be conscious and deliberate. In fact, the bad poet is usually unconscious where he ought to be conscious, and and conscious where he ought to be unconscious. Both errors tend to make him 'personal.' "

So if, as you say this poem was a "happy accident incomprehensible" to yourself, then perhaps you were as '"unconscious" as Eliot would have expected a good poet should be.

[Jack of Hearts]

That's very interesting, Auntie. This writer has had no technical training and is at a loss to discuss such items (lacking natural talent there in conjunction); you, on the other hand, are a veritable scientist of literary and poetic form, as your behemoth magnum opus in the General Literature forum demonstrates. Thank you very much for the insight, discussion and taking the time to read this.

This author, for the most part, is a bit ashamed of himself. He dabbles in critique and poetry where he has no business, neglecting his elephant in the room, the demon itself, out of insecurity or fear or god knows what.

In other words, see you all on the Short Story forum.





J

[Haunted]

Lovely and loving amid the pain. This poem is a very moving gift back to the mother.

[Jack of Hearts]

Thank you Jane. It's been awhile since you and the author crossed paths- he's glad you're still out there.





J