Moving Life With Questions
 

Revision


Moving Life With Questions

She is ironing a blue dress in the white washroom
The heat from the iron warms her hand
The room is filling with the red slant of a falling sun
A kitchen is through the open door
Steam rises from a boiling pot
Her hair is cut at a slant
Her bangs angle down her forehead
A darker red light comes through the window
Her free arm is now covered with red
She sets the iron on its end
She smiles and takes a slow whirl
Her hair is too short to fly up
She turns back to the ironing board
She picks up the dress with both hands
She presses it to her breasts
Now we must make a decision
Does she move into the kitchen to cook dinner
Is the dress her finest
Is she planning to wear it tonight
Is she a young virgin still confused
Is a young husband upstairs
Is he about to disappoint her
Is she a French girl who sings La Vie en Rose
Is she leaning toward the window
Is she still here


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Moving Life With Questions

She is ironing a blue dress
Standing in the white washroom
Heat from the iron warms her hand
The room is filling with the red slant of a falling sun
A kitchen is through the open door
Steam rises from a boiling pot
Her hair is cut at a slant
Bangs angle down her forehead
A darker red light comes through the window
Her free arm is now covered with red
She sets the iron on its end
She smiles and takes a slow whirl
Her hair is too short to fly up
She turns back to the ironing board
Picks up the dress with both hands
She presses it to her breasts
Now we must make a decision
Does she move into the kitchen and cook dinner
Is the dress her finest
Will she wear it tonight
Is she a young virgin still confused
Is a young husband upstairs
Is he about to disappoint her
Is she a French girl who sings La Vie en Rose
Is she leaning toward the window
Is she a beauty soon gone

John, this is fantastic! You effortlessly led me in and out of a painting (or at least it felt effortless :p ) in a unique way.

The only thing that stood out to me on the first reading was the repetition of “slant”, which may have been intentional, or might be unconcerning to you.

Regardless, really well done.

I really like this too, John, and Brandon’s right about the “moving life” painting. You paint a realistic picture, stroke by stroke, but stop before filling in the subject herself (though I love the way you sketch her hair and movement by telling us something that didn’t happen). The only thing that bothers me a little is the double image I get from last line: You seem to be saying, “was she a beauty whose beauty is now gone,” but the grammar says, “was she a beauty who is now gone.” If you mean that her younger, beautiful self is gone, replaced by an aging woman, I suppose it’s not a problem. I also wondered about the association of virginity with confusion, but now I’m really splitting hairs. It’s a painting I’ll linger in front of for a while.

Beautiful, John. Perhaps de-capitalize the pronoun "With" in the title?

Like Carl, I'm not sure if the last line is 100% there. Maybe it is. I'll need to mull it over some more.

Thanks to all. I post poems I'm unsure about and am happy this one is working for you three.

I knew the last line wasn't there. I've changed it and hope I get feedback on whether this is better.

Thanks again.

I like the way that the new last line keeps the latter part of the poem as a progression of "Is" rather than switching to "Was". She still "Is" all these things in this moment.

It's not clear if the "Was" after the stanza break is still part of the poem. I'm thinking it's not.

No, Julie. Forgot to delete.

Still not sure about the last line, John. You’ve still got the ambiguity of whether it’s she who’ll be gone or her beauty. Grammar says the former, though we may understand the latter. And in the grand scheme of things, whose beauty isn’t soon gone?

Carl, I need to decide if the ambiguity is not appropriate . I’m looking at her and see beauty. She in her entirety is beauty. Maybe I should capitalize the “B.”

I will continue thinking about it. I have one line to say it.

Thanks

I've posted a revision. It has a few changes and another attempt at a last line. I've dropped mentioning "beauty." If it isn't in what is said about her directly I can't depend on the last line saying it. Poetry Writing 101.

Let me know and thanks for the help.

I really like this too, John. It seems like a brimming frozen moment (although I know there's movement in it). My first reading was of your revision, and your new last line worked very nicely for me there.

Your details are well chosen.

Just a quick word from our correspondent at Pedants' Corner: I'm assuming "panning" should be "planning". Not an over-bold assumption, I'd have thought.

But a lovely poem anyway.

Cheers

David

I think it's wonderful, John.
"Now we must make a decision" what a wonderful arc into the vertical. I think you are far into your project of making things that have removed the "poetical" glitter of language and yet are poetry in their hard crystalline truthfulness. I think the revision masters the last line but I wouldn't advise for much more.
Hope this helps.

For what it’s worth I preferred the original ending

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I was getting ready to grumble about the last line again, but I see you’ve got a new one up, and this one I can only contemplate in silence. True, I would have expected “there” rather than “here,” but that’s because I’m standing in front of a canvas, and “here” puts me inside the picture (or brings her out), which is probably the idea.

Yes, this is quite great, John, though I prefer Carl's idea of changing the last word from here to there. The form here is particularly fresh, those unpunctuated single sentence lines. It telegraphs your oft-professed desire for a poetry that contains absolutely nothing unnecessary, and raises an interesting paradox: that pure necessity here is really carried by the form rather than the content, for the content is all circumstantial, all evanescent, yet the form presents it in a way in which nothing distracts us from what it is. We are drawn in by the sound of your voice, yes, but we are not drawn in to that voice, we are drawn in only to the picture that voice paints. That is not easy to do: to direct the reader invisibly.

Even the title is nakedly frank, and yet its depth seems infinite.

And I agree with Cameron about this transition: "Now we must make a decision". How lovely, as a reader, to be included in that moment by the word "we".

I would study your own hard-working intuitions in this one.

Nemo

David, thanks for reading and I'm glad you like it. Also, thanks for the typo catch. It is "planning."

Cameron, I'm glad you read this one. You know what I value most about the shape and sound of a poem. The last line has been tough but that was inevitable. I like what I have now though there is discussion of making "here" to be "there."

Thanks, Brandon for rereading it. As I said, that damn last line.

Carl, I'm pleased in a cocky way that I changed the last line before you got to it. You've been a great help by pointing it out each time. I'm pleased you like this one.

Nemo, thanks. I always love it when you comment on my poems and other people's poems. I was sacrificing the poem for the image and the image's possible consequences. I fell into writing this one without much thought, which is usual, but I realized what I wanted it to do sooner than usual. What you and Cam said has centered my thinking these last couple of days. I've written poems in so many different structures and styles. I guess that is good but I want to settle down. It's time.

I decided to change “here” to “there.” “Here” was trying too hard.

John - This is a fascinating piece, and no small part of the fascination is generated by the last line. I greatly prefer the original and the way it pulls the reader to consider who the speaker might be and the nature of the impetus for the creation of the narrative.

Your willingness to make changes in that line seems to say (to me, anyway) that you are looking for something that is not quite settled in your creation. It will be interesting to see how this might change for you in a year or so.

It's a first-class effort as it is.

JB

Thanks, John. I’m grateful. Yes, the last line is the challenge and I will keep considering.

.
It is a declarative exercise that arrives at a point where we are asked to join in speculating what happens next, or more accurately, after all that has happened. The N brings us only so far and then invites us to muse with him, and with her, perhaps. It is a fascinating way to end a poem: to leave the reader involved but empty-handed, asking the reader to imagine who this woman is and how she handles her beauty.

The slant-cut bangs are interesting.

It's a red, white and blue poem with the emphasis on red. The blue dress makes me think of "Devil With A Blue Dress On" by Shorty Long of Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels. The red sky and red light streaming through the window heightens the sensuality in the poem. The washroom is a vivid blank white canvas. There is an Edward Hopper-like feel of isolation.

From an elocution standpoint, how does the voice go at the end of each line 17-25 — Does it rise or stay flat?

Again, another punctuation-free poem, which you do so well. In your hands it creates tension; a compressed feel unabated by commas/periods/marks of any kind.

As for my hunch, I like to imagine the answer is "all of the above." After all, I am we as you are me as she is me and we are all together : )

Another warm poem. (ironing is a lost art.)

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She is ironing a blue dress in the white washroom
The heat from the iron warms her hand
The room is filling with the red slant of a falling sun
A kitchen is through the open door
Steam rises from a boiling pot
Her hair is cut at a slant
Her bangs angle down her forehead
A darker red light comes through the window
Her free arm is now covered with red
She sets the iron on its end
She smiles and takes a slow whirl
Her hair is too short to fly up
She turns back to the ironing board
She picks up the dress with both hands
She presses it to her breasts
Now we must make a decision
Does she move into the kitchen to cook dinner
Is the dress her finest
Is she planning to wear it tonight
Is she a young virgin still confused
Is a young husband upstairs
Is he about to disappoint her
Is she a French girl who sings La Vie en Rose
Is she leaning toward the window
Is she still here

Hi John,

This is a unique poem grounded in several images, and each of those images is crystal clear to my imagination. My main critique is that the first half contains quite a few passive or weak verbs that don't work for me.

Thanks for sharing,

Ella

Jim, thanks for your comments and for thinking so clearly about the poem. Wallace Stevens said the only poems of his he cared about were the ones that flew in his ear. I agree with that although some people say they are baffled by it. This one came to me line by line. I did a little revising but not so much. Thanks again. (My wife still irons certain things.)


Ella, thanks for commenting and I'm happy you find it unique. That's a big deal. I wouldn't dream of turning the verbs you point out into transitive verbs. That would end up with me shoving something artificial. The poem is a scene and a few things in every scene are there and to create an active verb set would be phony. How else could I say "Her hair is cut at a slant?" I'm going on about it because always having an active verb is one of the workshop things that is said too much. It's like "show don't tell" when it's often best to tell.

Thanks again to both.

.

I'm so happy to hear you say that. I've always been puzzled by the "show don't tell" advice, even though I understand how it might be better in some situations to show vs. tell. Same, too, with incorporating abstractions. Done well, abstractions can be powerful catalysts to understanding, imo.

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Well said, Jim.

Those workshop clichés seem to be hackneyed carryovers from modernist poetics. Pound, Williams, etc., were (rightly, imo) reacting against Victorian moralization and abstraction.

Yet when Williams wrote


the abstraction at the beginning is what adds an introspective twist to the images.

John’s poem does something similar at that turn, where the images suddenly rush inward by reflection: “Now we must make a decision.”

Good poem, John.

I'm pleased to see more discussion of how common workshop suggestions are made too often. What started as worthwhile suggestions have become the easiest things to say about someone's work. Glance at the poem or story, pick a couple out, regardless of how they're used, mention them, and get the job done. Easy peasy.

I'm pleased you like the poem, Andrew.

On "Moving Life with Questions"
 

Hi.
My thoughts on "Moving Life With Questions".

• A Hopperesque conceit on Still Life.
• I think the repetition of the word “red” makes the tone less colourful.
• Is the “slant” in line 3 needed given its repetition in line 6.
• I’m unsure of the word “presses” in line -11. To me it suggests intense anxiety and I wonder if what’s intended is that natural way we have of holding a garment up to our shoulders to view it.
• At line -10 I am faced with a choice between fantasy, cinema or voyeurism. If “we .. make a decision”, it must be the first whilst the overall drift of the poem suggests the last.
• Final line: “here” or “there”?

My best wishes,
Chris.