navwin » Archives » Open Poetry #41 » Branches Everywhere?
Open Poetry #41
Post A Reply Post New Topic Branches Everywhere? Go to Previous / Newer Topic Back to Topic List Go to Next / Older Topic
effjayel
Senior Member
since 2007-09-30
Posts 1474
At the Crossroads of Infinity

0 posted 2008-01-16 06:14 PM




A wardrobe that had seen better days
An even older chest of drawers
Not much of a legacy
For one who had been through the wars

First editions of Old Newspapers
That have long since died
Are carefully wrapped in plastic
And placed to one side

A tobacco tin full of things
That may one day have a use
A broken watch, a brooch, a fuse
Half a dozen assorted screws

Placing the last of His worldly goods
Into the cardboard box
My eye catches a photograph
Lying beneath His socks

And as the tears well in my eyes
It is at that point I realize
Everyone in that picture has gone but me
I am all that is left of My Family Tree


© Copyright 2008 John Lawrence - All Rights Reserved
inkedgoddess
Member Rara Avis
since 2002-11-19
Posts 7392
Ohio
1 posted 2008-01-16 11:02 PM


vividly sad

good though

Earth Angel
Member Empyrean
since 2002-08-27
Posts 40215
Realms of Light
2 posted 2008-01-16 11:11 PM


Gulp...I got a lump in my throat while reading this. ~ A very moving read.

Giving you a warm, compassionate hug,

Love & Eternal Light,
EA

Marchmadness
Member Rara Avis
since 2007-09-16
Posts 9271
So. El Monte, California
3 posted 2008-01-17 02:12 AM


This brought tears to my eyes as well. I know something about that lonely feeling.
                                   Ida

TomMark
Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133
LA,CA
4 posted 2008-01-18 12:21 PM


sad. But you still have friends, yes, friends.

Roniece Dawson-Bruce
Member Ascendant
since 2000-01-29
Posts 5689
Sydney, Australia
5 posted 2008-01-18 05:01 AM


John... a very sad write.. sending some of my special hugs to smile your day... love RDB

Be kind at heart....for everyone you meet has their own battle to fight.........

simon
Member
since 2008-01-14
Posts 440
London, England
6 posted 2008-01-18 09:18 AM


Loved it. So sad, love the way that you extract so much power from what you DON'T say as much as what you do. Like I say, absolutely loved it.
vandana
Deputy Moderator 5 Tours
Member Patricius
since 1999-10-22
Posts 10463
USA
7 posted 2008-01-18 11:58 AM


enjoy your read
effjayel
Senior Member
since 2007-09-30
Posts 1474
At the Crossroads of Infinity
8 posted 2008-01-18 04:29 PM


EA, Thanks for the hug, they always make me feel better!

Inked G, it was a sad moment, clearing out after the loss of a loved one is very hard. I guess it is the finality of the act & the realization they are no longer part of your (physical) day to day life.

Ida, sadly we all have to endure the numbness of that emotional vacuum during our life.

Tomtoo, Yes, you are so right, but we can always count on our friends, & I count you as one of those along with the amazing posters on these pages of blue. For once Blue does not have to mean feeling sad…….

RDB, you say & send the nicest things, Thank you  so much

Simon, welcome to the board, I am sure you will gain much from it. As  a relative newcomer myself, all comments are appreciated ( kind words are in the main in abundance here as you will find & always welcome) I enjoy your writings also, Please keep posting & stick around.

Vandana, Thanks & I am glad you enjoyed it. As is probably obvious, this was written after my Father died when I went to clear out his house. He was of the old school & never threw anything away in case it ‘came in handy’ he always bought the first issue of newspapers & wrapped them in plastic to preserve them convinced they would be worth something one day, along with all the things mentioned that I found in the tin. The photo was one of 3 generations ( paternal) at a family gathering & I realised that I was the only one remaining and the last in the line with no one to carry the name on..So yes a sad tale but all part of lifes rich tapestry….



Bob K
Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208

9 posted 2008-01-18 06:27 PM


Dear Effjayel,

         It's really nice to see you here again.  I was in London over 9/11, attending a reading at Batterton House, just feeling the warmth of that wonderful English poetry community.  I miss that night, that place and those people very much.  I bet that if you get to London, they still have those regular Tuesday night poetry readings.  Anybody can sign up to read any it's the warmest audience in the world.  You really ought to give it a shot.  I bet that Poetry Review has something about it on its web site.  And The Wolf, which is a very nice English little magazine, used to have and may still have a good web site.  

     If I'm not being presumptuous, I'd like to talk to you about your poem.  First, everything that everybody said before I'm putting my bit in, well, they're right.  It is a sad poem, there is a lot of feeling, it is moving, and it does get loneliness across.  What I want to talk to you about is how to improve the poem by listening to the poem and trying to get at what the poem wants from you.

     I think that's a somewhat different poem than the one you've written here.  I think what you've got here is a very fine early draft of a good poem.

     The first two lines of the poem start us off well.  You've given us two objects, two things that we can see somewhat vaguely in front of our inner vision.  Then you comment editorially about the objects in the next two lines.  The difficulty here is that I, as a reader, don't have enough of a picture in front of me for you to leave me alone in the dark while you fill in backstory.  The editorial comment is, in effect, a flashback with no pictures, no sounds, smells or sights to make it come alive for me, the reader.  One possible solution among many is that you make the details of the wardrobe and dresser more visual and lively by extending your imagination further into the scene.  You've only been able to show in the poem what you've been able to imagine the room in your writing process, so if you make your scene more visually detailed in your head by taking a walk around the room and putting the lamps and rugs and windows and plants and stairs in, you'll have more details (and their colors) to chose from in fleshing out your first stanza.

     Now if it's still important to you that you get it across that this character about whom you're talking was in "the wars" you need to think about how you get that across.  Remember, you can't do this on a first draft and often not for several more; you need to get stuff to work with down on paper, as you do here.  What I'm talking about is letting the poem help you with your revisions.

     I say "the character about whom you're talking" because at this stage, that character will need to stop being your father and will have to start to become the character your poem needs him to be.  

     In Richard Hugo's book, The Triggering Town, which I speak of often, he makes an interesting point.  It's better to find the place and the characters that hit you or turn you on in some other place, a place in the imagination that you can transport to some realistic town someplace else.  In your town you have trouble talking clearly about Mr. Peabody, that poor guy with the alcohol problem next door who has to go to all those meetings, but in the town your poem makes for you, the Triggering Town, he can be

The fat drunk next door who smells like wool.

I just made him up.  But for the sake of the poem, you may want to see where the poem takes you, and who the father the poem creates may be.  It may surprise you.  You can always hope so.

     Anyway, should you want to talk about the pitiful legacy the man leaves, you can actually show it.  In the second stanza, rather than offering us "First editions of Old Newspapers"  a decent detail by the way, why not offer us some headlines, with markings and underlinings on The Guardian, The Mail or whatever that would tend to place him in specific places, doing specific things that are unheroic or desperatly heroic and that are in contrast or are a forshadowing of the life he has since come to lead.

     Don't let the necessity for a rhyme force you to pad out a stanza.  If there's trouble, as an experiment pick four already decent rhymes that aren't the ones you have and see if you can come up with another stanza that says something else using those rhyme words.  It doesn't have to follow, you know.  If the stanza is good, you'll probably be able to find a bridge at some point.

     The tobacco tin is another good touch.  Three Nuns?  Sobranie?  Some mixture of Burley and Bright?  If used decently, you can use brands of pipe tobacco as a means of characterizing and forwarding the direction of a poem as well, and installing the sort of detailing that can make a poem sparkle.  When I used to smoke a pipe, one of my favorites was an American tobacco called Revelation.  I bought it by the pouch, and my first pouch cost me seven cents, about three pence these days.  The I switched to a mixture called Half and Half, which was, oddly enough, half Burley tobacco and Bright tobacco, and I liked to think of myself as being half burley and half bright.  I use myself as an example.

     You have a lovely touch here with the broken watch, the brooch, the fuse, the half dozen assorted screws.  Again, if you can insert your imagination, this will become more real.  You will be able to report what you in fact did with the watch or any of these objects.  Did you wish you had a wife for the brooch?  What did the broken watch feel like on your wrist?  Did the band still smell of old man?

     If you offer enough of these actual sensory details, you won't need to call these things "worldly goods," because the reader will experience more fully what an insult that cliche is to the actual life of the man, even if he is shown
Like a knife thrower's assistant,and only in the ring of details in which you can outline him.  They need to be sharp and they need to be accurate and they need to be close, otherwise the picture is lost.

     Leave out the tears in your eyes.  You can approach the same result without hitting your reader with a a book of instructions.  Talk instead about the details of the photograph.  

Nine people in a photograph
Taken at a fun fair by the sea
Thin mouths slung open for the laugh.
The only one survives is me.

     This is clearly inferior, and not in your style at all.  There is a tone of self-pity that in implied far too openly, but I've tried to be a bit more concrete, and I've taken out "my family tree," which is not really fresh enough for the effect I think you're shoot for.

     I think I sent you some comments about a prior poem as well, but I couldn't find it in the lists to see what you'd made of my thinking.  I'm hoping you find this useful.  That's the way it's intended.  All my best, BobK.    

  

Margherita
Member Seraphic
since 2003-02-08
Posts 22236
Eternity
10 posted 2008-01-18 08:14 PM


A very touching moment and I loved how you conveyed your mood.

love
Margherita

JamesMichael
Member Empyrean
since 1999-11-16
Posts 33336
Kapolei, Hawaii, USA
11 posted 2008-01-20 05:38 AM


Fine writing...James
Earl Brinkman
Senior Member
since 2010-03-03
Posts 1183
Osaka, Japan
12 posted 2010-10-06 12:35 PM


An outstanding example of writing.
Post A Reply Post New Topic ⇧ top of page ⇧ Go to Previous / Newer Topic Back to Topic List Go to Next / Older Topic
All times are ET (US). All dates are in Year-Month-Day format.
navwin » Archives » Open Poetry #41 » Branches Everywhere?

Passions in Poetry | pipTalk Home Page | Main Poetry Forums | 100 Best Poems

How to Join | Member's Area / Help | Private Library | Search | Contact Us | Login
Discussion | Tech Talk | Archives | Sanctuary