[Catherine Chandler]

Matriarch

For Betty Thompson on her 90th Birthday

You speak of them, your frieze of fallen men,

Your father, brothers, lovers, husbands, son

As though they were alive and well again.

When guests arrive and lighter talk’s begun,

You smile, connecting every face and name.

Uncertain where to put your fragile hands,

You barely blow away each candle flame.

Your daughters whisper manifold commands.

The birthday gifts are opened, put away.

Their children, bored now, scuffle on the floor.

Old matriarch, the guests all gone away,

The house grown still, you speak of them once more,

Your father, brothers, lovers, husbands, son,

The strength it took to bury every one.

Comment by Mr. Gwynn:



This strikes me as entirely competent, both as a sonnet and as an occasional poem. I especially like “frieze of fallen men” but do have some problems with other bits of diction: “fragile hands” and “manifold commands” especially. I wonder also about “barely blow away each candle’ flame” since the flame could be made to move or blown out but not blown away. But I do have another problem, a rather serious one. If the honoree is 90, then her daughters would probably be in their 50s at best. For them to have “children [who can] scuffle on the floor” doesn’t seem likely. I’d more expect great-grandchildren, given the lady’s advanced age. And “Old matriarch” seems a little redundant, given the epigraph and the poem’s description of an aged woman.

[Catherine Chandler]

I believe the author may have had the guests’ children in mind when s/he wrote about the scuffling on the floor. This confusion might be addressed by removing the word “Their” in L10, or by changing the line to “Their children’s children scuffle on the floor”, or by replacing “scuffle on the floor” with something like “shuffle out the door”.

My main nit is with using “away” in lines 9 & 11. My minor nit is the capitalization of each line.

The repeated lines 2 and 13 is an excellent device and the overall effect of the sonnet is one of a gentle yet poignant portrayal of someone, I’m sure, we all know -- the Betty Thompsons in our lives.

[Petra Norr]

I, too, like the "frieze of fallen men", which conjures up the friezes of fallen warriors on ancient classical temples as well as vases. And, for me, anyway, it sets the theme of the sonnet. It would be far-fetched to call this sonnet an "anti-war" poem, but nonethless I think it is the tragedy and horror of all the wars during a ninety-year life-time that come to the fore and make this sonnet powerful. The couplet is, of course, especially moving.

[E. Shaun Russell]

I quite like this -- it captures a common character, and a common perception of how that character must feel. I particularly love the repetition of L2, which is, in my opinion, a somewhat bold and deft poetic move.

I share Mr. Gwynn's nit regarding the children scuffling on the floor.

Overall, I find this a great character study, and wouldn't be surprised if it's in my personal final three when this bakeoff is done. Nice work!

[Roger Slater]

What Catherine said about "their" children. Just changing "their" to "the" would fix Sam's problem, I think.

I like the sonnet very much, but there are spots where I find the diction seems a little pumped with air, though so skillfully one might not even notice at first. In L3, for example, "and well" is really just there to fill out the line, I think, since the whole point would have been conveyed by "alive again." Is "and well" suggesting that all of them, without exception, were unwell for some time before they died?

In L4, I can't help feeling that the tense has been mangled a bit to end on "begun," since it would be more natural to keep to the present tense with which the entire scene is being described, i.e., to say, "when lighter talk begins."

I'm with Sam on "fragile hands." We get it. She's 90. We don't expect her hands to be made of iron. In the next line, the same sort of strain that gave us "begun" instead of begin gives us the candles being blown "away," as well as "each" and "candle flame" instead of just "candle."

Unlike Sam, I do like "manifold commands."

I may be the only one here to quibble slightly with the last line. I find "strength" to be a solid but insufficiently good word to carry so much of the weight of the poem's conclusion. It's not a poet's precisely chosen word, but something anyone might say. I also find the line a bit imprecise in terms of who is speaking about "strength". Is the speaker saying that the woman herself is claiming to have been strong? Or is the speaker giving her own gloss and summary of the woman's conversation, telling us her own conclusion that what the woman said demonstrated strength?

In any event, what does the last line really add? The poem tells us in L13 that she immediately returns to the subject of her dead frieze of men the moment the guests all leave, and we know quite well that the men are dead and presumably were buried, and we know quite well that these were tragedies in the woman's life, so we already know that the woman must have been very strong to endure what she has endured and to keep moving forward. Why do we need the last line to hit us over the head and to make explicit what was already perfectly clear? I'd prefer a last line that gives us another telling physical detail, perhaps. Maybe show us where she now puts her hands. Or reveal to us who the speaker is (now that the guests have gone away) -- another man perhaps? I don't have a specific suggestion, just the general idea that L14 isn't strong enough to close on since everything it says has been well established in the poem before then.

Comma at the end of L2.

Strong sonnet.

[Petra Norr]

About the "manifold commands" which some have mentioned...
First of all, I already have a feeling I might be the only one to see the poem the way I do -- that the woman's men either fell in war or died of war-related injuries later. On a "personal" level. it's not impossible that Ms Thompson's male family members & lovers really did die in or from a war. But since I don't know Ms Thomson I take the poem to a general level and what I myself see is all the men being singled out as dead and the women alive. And on a general level, that can be read as the effects of war. The last lines -- the couplet -- can be seen as saying that, yes, it takes strength to go to war, it takes courage, but for the women who lose their men in war, it takes strength & courage to bury them, to live with the loss.
And back to "manifold commands", though spoken by the daughters, I think the phrase also conjures up military commands that the men would have heard in war.

[Philip Quinlan]

I remember this, and who wrote it.

The last line is plain and strong.

It's a sonnet that doesn't take huge risks, but the content sits comfortably in the form.

I suppose my main nit is there is little sense of a turn until the last line. Otherwise it feels like a list of things that happen.

Philip

[Richard Meyer]

I also remember this poem. It is a proficient and well-packaged sonnet. There is much merit to the various responses, both the compliments and the perceived weaknesses.

Richard

[Pedro Poitevin]

I also remember this poem, but have forgotten who wrote it. I favor a different fix for L10: Their children's children scuffle on the floor. The bit about "bored now" doesn't seem to add much to the poem, I think. Like Catherine, I don't like the capitalization of each line, but I don't think this is a major nit-- it's just that this flows gently, and the capitalization of each line calls too much attention to itself. (Though this may be because I read Catherine's comment, and was already predisposed to paying attention to it, who knows.)

I don't mind the repetition of "away" because I think of "put away" and "going away" as very different actions. Unlike Philip, I love me a good late turn in a sonnet, and this one delivers a lovely one.

Craft set aside (and this poem is very well crafted, in my opinion), this poem moves me, and this matters to me. Excellent sonnet.

Pedro.

[Elle Bruno]

Hello,
Roger asks:
In any event, what does the last line really add?
For me, the poem opens with the woman speaking of the men as if they are still alive.
It ends with her realization that they are all dead.
I see this woman as going in and out of reality and the past.
I like how the crowd and bustle of the party creates the illusion for her that all is well.
And then the near empty room brings her back to her losses.
Very touching, Elle