I love, love, love those first eight lines, but felt the same little metrical hiccup others registered at the word "upon." It's such a Baudelairean poem--the flaneur's eye taking in urban street scenes, the lurid images, the sense of a sordid underworld peeking through the glittering surfaces of things, the lyricism, the jaded tone.

I'm with Carol. The scene-setting is beautiful, but it takes up most of the poem, which fails to recover from the imbalance, IMO.

Alan

bump

Apologies for not responding earlier – I’m having horrendous problems with my broadband connection at home.

Firstly, I’d like to thank Rose, both for selecting Barcelona, and for running an exciting and thought provoking Bake-off.

It was quite something to have such a concentration of skilled readers and writers respond to my poem, I’m not sure you’d find that anywhere else – so thank you all for your comments.

From the moment ‘Barcelona’ was workshopped a few years back, it has provoked mixed reactions. Quite clearly, when interpreted as a travelogue there are too many internal ambiguities for it to read well, and the poem does not work for some people because of that.

Others respond with a kind of, ‘OK it’s pretty, but what’s the point?’ If you like pithy, clever sonnets which pack a punch, then ‘Barcelona’ won’t work too well for you either. ‘Fist’ is a great example of this, and if I’d voted, then it certainly would have been included in my top 3.

Those of you who, like Richard Wilbur, read it as a ‘Baudelairean city sonnet’ seemed to enjoy it the most. There was some interesting debate about who the ‘we’ referred to in the latter part of the poem. Nemo and Lance got very close to where I was coming from when I wrote it. Mr Wilbur’s take that it could be a more inclusive ‘we’ is, I think, a perfectly good alternative reading. I hope the ambiguity concerning the identity at the end enhances the poem.

Finally, I’m pleased ‘Jar of Dead Sea Mud’ won the ‘non-competition’, It was easily my personal favourite. My third choice – I’m torn between ‘Caravel’ and ‘I’ll call him Art’.

Thanks again to everyone who responded, I’ve really enjoyed being part of this. Of course to have Richard Wilbur's comments on something of mine is not something I could have imagined happening ever - and makes the whole thing very special indeed.

Alan


[This message has been edited by Alan Wickes (edited May 16, 2008).]