is not the title of the poem but i've been slicing and dicing and smushing together bits on this one. Any advice is welcome, especially for the troubling last stanza.
Relocating to Colder Climates
The urgency of August has disappeared.
Gone are the towns of dust and spit and dung––
I’ve been sent looking under some other rock.
Here is where the city lines draw a mazed procession,
the mind rambles among cobbled edifices;
containers we’ve made to store books and chairs,
scribbled papers, and the little crooked cupboard of the heart.
The contrabass beyond this door and then another
plays a pebbled path bubbled, swerving.
The pin-pointed part of the self remains elusive.
It’s best to cling to things that can be molded by hand,
tugging on strings to fill this space with life-rumblings.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Some of your lines are really great:
Gone are the towns of dust and spit and dung
Scribbled papers, and the little crooked cabinet of the heart--this I love, as well as the next couple,
The contrabass beyond this door and then another
plays a pebbled path bubbled, swerving.
(although have you considered putting "swerving" at the beginning of this line?)
These lines, especially the last two I quoted, have a sort of Elizabeth Bishop rhythm to them, and are sealed into a unit by the rhyme of another/bubble. For me, that rhythm is the strength of this poem--it seems to work best at the moments when your strange and unvisualizable descriptions of the city form a rhythmic net, in which the reader is rocked, soothed, captured.
Depending on how discontent you are with the poem as it stands and how much you agree with this line of thinking, you might consider rewriting the poem, starting with a line or a couple lines that makes a strong statement metrically, and then really holding yourself to that pattern as you write--you can alway make it less sing-song later.
Hope this helps.
i picked out these same favorite lines in my reading of the poem, and generally agree with elsbeth's advice, but i think "gone are the towns of dust and spit and dung" could be a fine place to begin and a fine way to establish the rhythm, though it is quite different from the rhythms that come later in the poem. i think that could be just it, though, to use contrasting rhythms so that the reader feels the tension between the warm place and the cold place.
I was going to suggest beginning with the second stanza and losing the first altogether (though then you lose the comparison you're striving for...?).
Ditto about strong lines; for me, the last one especially:
tugging on strings to fill this space with life-rumblings.
I want less alliteration in the final stanza--here it seems to distract from the meaning.
Thanks everyone, I think you're right, it needs a happier rhythm. I'd like to do less alliteration and more rhyme, but it's harrrder to write. I'll try. The lines you like I also mostly like, though, Elsbeth, I did consider taking out "bubble." A rewrite coming in the future. And possibly a title change with it.
Can't wait to see the rewrite, whatever form it takes. Regarding the title, I think that the word "Relocating" alone has a powerful cache of meaning.
Post a Comment