Great Lady

[Lykren]

The great lady dabbles in magical realism,
frost in summer, a body on a blade of grass,
a season connected to nothing. The harried sun
paces its own route, on which the image of you
is reliant.

Of reflection no one talks. Light
from the water’s edge enters bladelike
into your home, an unparalleled intrusion
gilding your hands with bright amber.
Eyes unnoticed

form a whirlpool, crinkled with doubt
and darkly seeing. That afternoon the headlights
were cinders. As a tide introduces itself step by step
under your long shadow breath hardens
on the window.

[blank|verse]

And as soon as I've finished one critique, another poem appears!

On first reading/s, I find this one stronger and more coherent - yet more imaginative as well - than 'The Binding'. The title and first stanza invite us to consider who the 'Great Lady' is. It could be an insect or butterfly - a ladybird/bug or a Painted Lady butterfly - (as suggested by the 'body on the blade of grass') or it could be Mother Nature herself; the first line suggests that the latter is more accurate as it requires something bigger to make such dramatic changes ('dabbles in magical realism').

The 'body' image is quite disturbing though, suggesting also that someone has been killed. And it's not the only time 'blade' will be used in the poem to refer to nature. Something's wrong here; we're also alerted to this by the seasons being out of kilter ('frost in summer'). Nature is malevolent in a lot of the poem's imagery: the home-intruding light in the second stanza; the whirlpool that forms (whether it's metaphorical or literal); the tide that creeps 'step by step' towards you. Or it's simply not working, as in the brilliant: 'A season connected to nothing'. However, the light is also 'gilding' the addressee's hands with 'amber', beautifying them, enriching them. This seems to take the edge off the 'blade' of light, but maybe we're only concerned with the superficial effects and not with underlying causes; although perhaps I'm being a bit generous to some slightly muddled imagery here.

The poem very much puts man and nature in opposition. Perhaps one of the key lines is the inverted: 'Of reflection no one talks'. Nature is acting in strange, threatening ways, yet no-one is 'reflecting' upon it, in the sense that they're not thinking about it, even though we're 'reliant' (line 5) on it. Our own ways of adapting and mimicking nature ('the headlights') appear to be failing ('were cinders'), in a well-achieved metaphor using the lexis of nature. The sense of things breaking down is expressed formally, with each stanza ending in a short line.

There are just a couple of grammatical issues: the first stanza contains a dangling modifier ('A season connected to nothing') which reads as an appositional phrase to 'the harried sun', ie. it reads as if you're saying 'The harried sun is a season connected to nothing', which I presume is not what you mean. And you could do with a comma in the line: 'under your long shadow breath hardens', after 'shadow' I'd suggest.

But overall, this is very good. Without wishing to damn with faint praise, I'm sure there are some smaller magazines that would accept this for publication. I'm trying to work out why I don't quite consider this good enough to make the bigger magazines. Perhaps it's too abstract and still a bit bold in its imagery compared to what a published poet would write. Maybe that's something you could think about yourself, as I'm sure you can continue to improve on what is already remarkable writing.

[NikolaiI]

Your poem was beautiful, and flawless as a work of art, to quote dear old Fyodor. Thank you so much for sharing, and we hope to see more poems from you in the future.

[Lykren]

Wonderful to hear from you again, blank | verse! I usually feel like you put more meaning in my poems than I do - or that, at least, the meaning changes utterly in transmission. This poem started out with the image of Andrew Wyeth's entitled 'Spring' (below).

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From there I followed a train of thought that involved considering the way my body and emotions interact, the way it sometimes feels like emotions are trying to physically leap out of me. I guess I can't really point to any particular place in the poem where that comes through, but maybe it explains why nature seems alternately benevolent and cruel (though mostly cruel): I'm talking about the interface between body and mind, not any particular aspect of the mind. Anyway it seems that whatever I'm thinking of when I write the poem has little or nothing to do with the result I get.

You'll notice I followed your suggestion regarding the dangling modifier; I've decided to hold off on the comma after shadow, for now. Thanks again, to both you and NikolaiI!

[blank|verse]

Thanks for the reply, Lykren, and for the link to 'Spring'. I've not heard of Andrew Wyeth before, but his artwork seems well worth investigating. That explains the fascinating imagery in the first stanza. I wonder if you could have followed the convention of acknowledging the poem was inspired by another piece of art by putting 'After Andrew Wyeth's "Spring"', or similar, beneath the title.

I found what you said about the disjuncture between your intention and realisation interesting. I don't have a problem that the poem turned out differently from what you intended, in fact, prefer it when my own don't as well, but I suppose you need to ask yourself how bothered by this you are. Asking how other people could read a poem is always a worthwhile exercise, because, although you can't control the way a poem is interpreted entirely, you can certainly guide the reader down certain paths and steer them away from others.

As for 'long shadow breath', as it stands, it reads as a noun phrase, with 'breath' premodified by 'long shadow', which by itself is really inventive, but in context reads awkwardly, as I'm sure you realise anyway, and I accept that may be the effect you're after. Removing 'under' utilises it differently:


As a tide introduces itself step by step
your long shadow breath hardens
on the window.

but then you lose some sense of menace. However, ultimately, I appreciate this might not be what you want to say, and it's your poem to write as you choose.

Thanks again and keep writing! b|v