Answering a strange question

[DieterM]

Weeklong rain has rinsed
the last remains of joy
off of the country,
cars drift through the streets
with tanks that no one filled for days
owing to blocked refineries

Gazing out my office window,
I notice the dirty panes,
the soaked walls on the other side,
and the small snail sliming up its way
towards the rooftop…
the glistening trail it leaves
could be the shape of a dandelion

Then I am asked to to send
twelve posters of the new Versace perfume
to a Polish client via Wetransfer,
and when the browser window opens,
who would stare at me but an old lady
wearing glasses and a blue suit:
she’s surrounded by uncounted
open drawers in which lie
hundreds and hundreds
of colourful macaws and budgerigars,
but all stiff and stuffed;
the caption says ‘Smithsonian’

I’ve caught a cold last Saturday and sneeze
and rummage in my bag for hankies,
and the sky outside remains
the same and vast expanse of lead and crows,
that makes me rather feel like
lying down in a puddle
and disentangling myself from all this

and yet, to answer your question, Mr Lowell,
this is a day in June, you see? –,
a day in June with absolutely nothing rare about it

[Danik 2016]

I like the combination common day (Alltag)+ elements of surprise in your poetry.:)

[Hawkman]

Hi Dieter.

A few minor issues with this one... I feel your expression lacks its customary elegance and economy. Also, the punctuation becomes a little haphazard in places. You seem to have an aversion to full stops.

Firstly, please, for the sake of my sanity, don't ever say (or write where I might see) "off of!" Oh dear... shakes head crawls into a corner and gibbers quietly to himself...

You can say "from" or "out of" in context here. At a pinch you can just say, "rinsed off."

"Blocked refineries" sound as though they need a pipe cleaner. Perhaps blockaded would be more appropriate here.

Sliming up its way is superfluous.

Gazing out "my office window" feels rather clumsy. "Out of," perhaps, or "Through" would be better. According to my researches, WeTransfer is an application name and has two capitals in it. I wouldn't like to say whether it requires a registered trademark symbol after it. Probably not. We don't bother for Coke, do we? ;) S3, I feel, does ramble a bit, and might benefit from a little judicious pruning. How much commercial detail do we really need? Is the product placement really necessary? Would the stanza flow better without? I merely raise these questions for you to consider. Regardless of my quibbles regarding brand names, the imagery in this stanza is interesting and powerful. I was particularly taken with the contents of the open drawers.

"I’ve caught a cold last Saturday and sneeze
and rummage in my bag for hankies,
and the sky outside remains
the same and vast expanse of lead and crows,
that makes me rather feel like
lying down in a puddle
and disentangle myself from all this"

There is something of a confusion of tenses here: I don't think it we need to know which day you caught your cold. It is not relevant. "I have a cold, so I rummage in my bag for hankies..." is much more economical and moves the action along. You're ok, then, until the last line, where to maintain consistent tense you should say, "disentangling".

The final stanza is a nice payoff with the reference nicely introduced, although it is only the first day in June! Perhaps you should have let them all pass before answering the question :D

This is actually a sound poem but it needs a little polish to make it shine.

Live and be well - H

[DieterM]

Why, thanks a lot, dear Danik!

[DieterM]

Hawkie, my friend, first of all my apologies – I did see your comment on my thread "Lounging in the improbable city", but rather late. So late, in fact, that I preferred not to answer it because I didn't want to bump my poem back on top of the Section. But be assured that all your comments are received with gratitude and will be considered when this humble poet tackles the polishing of his poetry, which he regularly does.

Now, a big thanks again for your feedback on this one. I couldn't read "customary elegance" without blushing. And yes, don't ask me why, but when writing poems, I often forget that full stops exist for a mighty good reason ;-) I admit as well that I can see how the use of "off of" offends (<-- **giggles** I'm rather proud of this one – dedicated to you, haha) your eyes. Blame it on my having caught a cold last Saturday (which is a fact and perfectly irrelevant, no doubt). As for the line about the refineries, I might opt for "refinery blockades" because "owing to blockaded refineries" doesn't really satisfy in terms of syllable count. "owing to refinery blockades…" hmmm, sounds better. Maybe. Oh well, I'll have a fresh go when I'm less braindead (darn cold).

Of course it's only the beginning of June. And I have to say I'm rather fond of June days (not presently because a wee bit less rain and and a wee bit more sun would do me good) and can see why Mr Lowell would consider them rare. In a sense, what I described in my poem were everyday scenes with a touch of that rarity (eg the 'Smithsonian'-photo or the snail on the window pane) that we somehow choose to ignore because we consider we've seen it all. So the last line would be more a cynical rant than a truthful answer to the opening question of Mr Lowell's poem.

Btw, this morning when I arrived in my office, the snail was still there. Slow but obstinate.

[Danik 2016]

Why, thanks a lot, dear Danik!
Something you maybe ought to consider when writing poetry in English: your German background. Some of the elements pointed out by H. (who seems to be native in English)may have to do with that.

[DieterM]

Uhh, let me quote & paraphrase my dear Hawkman here: "please, for the sake of my sanity, don't ever say (or write where I might see) "German background!" Oh dear... shakes head crawls into a corner and gibbers quietly to himself..." –– Austrian, for heaven's sake, Austrian! LOL We Austrians are quite as touchy in that matter as was Mr Poirot when someone called him "French" ;-) And normally I check and double-check my grammar and vocabulary before posting. But normally I don't have a cold. And my brain's a bit more alert ;-)

[Danik 2016]

Sorry, Austrian Dieter!:blush: I have a German language background myself, but I live in Brazil, so I can´t tell the differences between the German tongue and the Austrian tongue.
What I mean is that some language particularities just creep in sometimes, without our noticing. For example, the prefixed verbes so common in German are less usual in English.
Anyway my aim was to help, not to confuse.

[DieterM]

No problem, Danik. It's less a difference of language (it's German anyway, with each country saying that the other one speaks it with an accent) than a difference of culture & history (even though we shared quite a lot of both).

[Danik 2016]

I know, Dieter, and I quite understand your point. That history sent the families of my parents to Brazil, so its my history too.
As for the language matter, the same occurs between Portuguese from Portugal and Portuguese from Brazil. ;)

[JonathanManley]

Although I myself would never use the phrase 'off of' in life or in writing, I would have to disagree with Hawkman slightly and say that because it is acceptable dialect in many parts of the world, it is totally acceptable to use it if trying to reflect that in the voice of a narrator... so I certainly wouldn't take as much offence as to 'crawl into a corner and gibber quietly to myself' (Though that sidenote did make me chuckle!). I enjoyed reading this poem

[Hawkman]

Although I myself would never use the phrase 'off of' in life or in writing, I would have to disagree with Hawkman slightly and say that because it is acceptable dialect in many parts of the world, it is totally acceptable to use it if trying to reflect that in the voice of a narrator... so I certainly wouldn't take as much offence as to 'crawl into a corner and gibber quietly to myself' (Though that sidenote did make me chuckle!). I enjoyed reading this poem

Vernacular, perhaps. Dialect - not really. It's just bad English. I would dispute your claim that it is "acceptable." Certainly not to me, nor, I would suggest, to anyone else with a love of the English tongue. I would grant, that as characterisation, provided one is writing a character who doesn't have the benefit of an education in grammar, that it is excusable. :D

Live and be well - H

[JonathanManley]

@Hawkman Just trying to spare you some time in the corner gibbering to yourself old boy

[DieterM]

thanks for your comments, I certainly will cut the offending "off of" in question because I don't want to cause Hawkie to quiver quietly in his corner forever ;-) just for the record, several internet sources tend to agree that a) it's not even vernacular but simply colloquial, b) was not uncommon in literature (for instance Messieurs Shakespeare, Defoe, Twain and Eliot used it), and c) is not really "awfully-bad" but only "a-wee-bit-bad" English (the grammarist says "using it is never a serious usage error") ;-)