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  #1  
Unread 09-01-2009, 02:02 AM
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John Whitworth John Whitworth is offline
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Default Light Verse 4: Farewell, Farcia

Farewell, Farcia

Don’t try my patience, gentle telephone.
Go split your wires, crack your hand-set bone,
go digital, go slow, go beat a drum,
go ring yourself to death. I will not come.

I’ll hear instead the doves cry overhead.
So still I’ll stay, she’ll surely think I’m dead
to love; but no, I hear the loving doves
that fit together like two hands in gloves.

The doves fly west to east and east to west.
But why? Because doves know love has no rest.
The doves compose me with their loving song,
transforming into goodness what is wrong.

And I remain below, a single one
like every other single ‘neath the sun,
taking a walk in the dim dove-land wood.
Farewell, Farcia, farce will bring no good.
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Unread 09-01-2009, 02:03 AM
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But is this light? The question asks itself, as it does with certain poems of Auden, for instance the one in ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ – ‘Stop all the clocks’. But then I consider (and I have met nobody else who does) that Larkin’s ‘They fuck you up..’ is essentially a light piece, trading in exaggerations and winks and nudges. I might also use this poem with my students (if it should happen I still have some) as illustrative of the power of the repetition of words in poetry, particularly those sonorous ‘doves’ and ‘loves’.

Perhaps all love poems are light. They are all working within a complex set of rules and expectations, like the finest sort of game, like chess or cricket. ‘My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun’ depends on the reader knowing all about the required exaggerations of love poetry. Which is why ‘neath is OK, is even witty in this context, though all the books say you shouldn’t use old-fashioned poetic language.

I particularly like that wonderful 12th line – ‘transforming..’
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Unread 09-01-2009, 05:45 AM
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Petra Norr Petra Norr is offline
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Writerly-wise, there's a light hand in back of this poem. It's a very lovely poem; there's nothing heavy or strained about the writing. I'm not sure whether there's even a ripple of humor in it, though.
Granted the word "farce" figures in the poem, and it's even part of word-play, playing lightly as it does on the name(?) Farcia. But that's not enough to call humor. In fact I think the last line and the title are the most (or perhaps only) problematical parts of the poem. They don't seem to fit in this piece at all. In my view, íf you're going to use the word "farce" then you'd better have something in the body of the poem that illustrates farce or at least hints at it. I can't find anything. Just because a relationship isn't working out doesn't mean you call it "farce", which is a pretty expressive word. As said, there's got to be something to show the "farce" in the poem.
I really like S1, but I question the word "gentle" in regard to the insistently ringing phone which is obviously bothering the narrator. If it's meant to be ironic use of the word, it doesn't work, at least not for me.
A very lovely poem, one that could easily be nipped and tucked and sent to the Sonnet Bakeoff, where it might have been more at home.
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Unread 09-01-2009, 06:59 AM
Janet Kenny Janet Kenny is offline
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A graceful poem which has movement, light and shade, depth and tragic melancholy. Just like some of Lear's light poems this is light because it slightly parodies itself.
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Unread 09-01-2009, 09:31 AM
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Marybeth Rua-Larsen Marybeth Rua-Larsen is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Janet Kenny View Post
this is light because it slightly parodies itself.
I agree with Janet. For me, there's gentle parody here, which makes it enjoyable and saves it from becoming the glurge of most love poems. All those "dove/love" repetitions. The first stanza, where I thought this was going in a totally different direction, is my favorite.
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Unread 09-01-2009, 02:07 PM
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Rose Kelleher Rose Kelleher is offline
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Quote:
For me, there's gentle parody here, which makes it enjoyable and saves it from becoming the glurge of most love poems.
Exactly. That's why this poet so often gets away with things the rest of us would be skewered for.
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Unread 09-01-2009, 04:29 PM
Terese Coe Terese Coe is offline
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The name "Farcia" seems forced and reminds me of the French "farci," meaning "stuffed" (this is also the origin of the English word "farce," which was "stuffed" into the interludes between parts of a play).

Introducing "farce will bring no good" into the final line is a stretch, certainly for this confused N, as until that moment farce seems to be the farthest thing from N's mind.

"transforming into goodness what is wrong": but the big question remains, What is wrong? A few hints along the way would not have gone amiss.

S1 is the best of this, and in an entirely different voice from the rest, which doesn't strike me as the least bit light; indeed N appears to be feeling more self-pity than anything else in S2-4.
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Unread 09-01-2009, 08:38 PM
Michael Cantor Michael Cantor is offline
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Every stanza here is wondrously wrought, and the poem is a delight to walk through, but I end up with two large questions: (a) I'm not sure it's "light" verse (already discussed, I know), and (b) quite possibly I took my stupid pills twice by mistake this morning - but I'm not sure I follow what it's all about. I think that Farcia is not calling the poor jerk, and that he's consoling himself - but either the narrator is confusing or I'm confused. It sounds wonderful - as long as I don't think about it, or try to sort it all out. (And that's true of a good deal of life and art, so it may not be a sin.)

Minor nit. "Digital" in S1 bothers me. I think "analog" makes more sense, but either way I think the techological language is out of place in the poem. There are plenty of substitutes.
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Unread 09-02-2009, 05:25 AM
Tim Murphy Tim Murphy is offline
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When Dick Davis published A Kind Of Love with Arkansas, Alan suggested it be retitled Of Love, for those words constituted so many rhymes. I abuse Dove/Love. That's my Death/Breath, and it is good for me to see them so well used in this poem. This is probably going to get one of my votes, not that any vote but Whitworth's matters! Just now I am going dove hunting, far from the reach of my gentle telephone.
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  #10  
Unread 09-02-2009, 09:30 AM
Keith Kaplon Keith Kaplon is offline
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Default The poor carrier pigeon

I find myself associating, with the telephone and doves, to the fate of the poor carrier pigeon -- who I imagine might have welcomed Bell's invention as auguring less work for his tribe, but sadly soon found a far worse destiny than the tedium of message delivery.

I guess I'm saying whether 'light' or not it is certainly thought provoking.

The telephone itself may seem a comely object for the lighter verses, but the Freudians tell us it is a powerful symbol, along with letters, mailboxes and so on, of umbilical connection -- the spiraling cord connecting ear to pulsing human connection on an end as out of sight as the containing womb.

Lewis Carrol might be my favorite writer of light verse or perhaps A.A. Milne. But the things often turn out to be rather as serious as can be.

Those poor oysters, and Christopher Robbin's mum.

Good job.
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