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<tr><td>Rays at Cape Hatteras

The cownose rays are showing off today.
They flip themselves like flapjacks in hot pans
of Carolina surf, and when one lands
the splat reverberates a mile away.
Sometimes you see the backs of their whale-gray
pectoral fins, outstretched like flipper-hands;
or else they show their bellies as they dance,
white slabs with grins carved out, as if from clay.

In great outlays of energy, they burst
through breakers, moved by some instinctive wish
to flounder in the air. Their flight is brief
and clumsy, evolution having cursed
these would-be herons with the flesh of fish:
rude fliers in the face of disbelief.



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[center]<table bgcolor=white cellpadding=25 border=0><tr><td>This poem begins with such a perfectly apt image--the rays "flipping themselves like flapjacks"--that the reader is drawn into the experience at once, and then not disappointed by the highly visual stanza he walks into, right down to the "grins carved out, as if from clay." What a playful view of living things! And how apt to end with the biblical stuff of creation that links us to the ray.

The sestet is another kind of delight--auditory. It picks up the "clay" sound and repeats it in two words, and then goes on to an orgy of alliteration that continues the playfulness, down to that wonderful ending full of Fs, ''showing off," like the ray/flapjacks. Glorious ending!

~Rhina

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This is one of the most living sonnets I have seen on this board.

It is a breathing, pulsing thing.

And it makes me smile every time I read it, just like the first time.

Sure, you might find things you think could be improved, but what's the point? It would be like trying to glue wings on a ray. The thing is living quite well as it is.

Change nothing.

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Mark Allinson

Rhina,
I don't have anything to add to your comments other than to endorse them. It's an absolutely beautiful poem that gladdens my heart.
Janet

Just to add to the chorus of praise. Am glad no-one has objected to the heavy use of 'f' alliteration in the sestet. It is IMO entirely appropriate to the theme and tone of this exuberant and amusing piece!
Margaret.

I love this poem. The subject is so fresh and original, and the treatment is so energetic. Full of joie de vivre!

Regards, Maz

.

[This message has been edited by nyctom (edited December 07, 2004).]

Yes, this one has an infectious energy, vivid images, and sheer delight in the music of words. One can be surprised by joy in the most unexpected places: the comic picture of the rays doing flips so exuberantly could make any reader smile.

Susan

This is an OK poem. Just OK though.

It demonstrates the use of DANCE. Poets always dancing with their muses and subject matter you know.

I personally think this should be avoided. Especially with ocean faring vessels and sea life.

Wonderful, controlled wordplay by a writer who sometimes plays a bit too much - but not this time. Here, the language is controlled and graceful - and delightful - throughout, and the joy of the poem mirrors that of the rays. One of this poet's best.

Michael Cantor

I already offered to publish it. http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/smile.gif Yus yus, I think it's excellent. Exuberance is a quality I wish more poetry had, and this one has it.

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Steve Schroeder

I wonder if there's any kind of imagery that should be "avoided," really, even those that you think have been used to death. That "dancing," for instance: just think of the way those mayflies dance in the Richard Wilbur poem! Who could wish he had avoided that? No, I think everything--even the commonest and most overused idea--will work in the hands of someone looking at it afresh, turning it over in a new way, applying it to something unexpected.

No offense to you. I wasn't aware that you had written the poem!

I've seen this poem before, commented on it (I believe in a consistent manner) on the workshop board. I think it is a poem that some folks find quite pleasing, quite sanitary.

I find it lifeless and cliche. Sorry to disagree with you.

I could be wrong and afterall, Steven is publishing it so it must be a winner. After all, no one publishes bad poems.

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/smile.gif

Maggie, I wasn't aware that you had entered one. Better luck next time. http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/wink.gif

Carol

Maggie:

A person doesn't have to have written a poem to want to defend it from rambling insanity. This is a good fucking poem. The author wants to save it for something better than the Muse, which I wholly support. (Specifics deleted at author's request.)

And some people publish bad poetry, but I don't.

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Steve Schroeder

[This message has been edited by Steven Schroeder (edited December 06, 2004).]

What's all the sniping about?

Did I miss yet another contretemps?

Well.

Its vivid physicality is
terrific, with the flapjack image
turning the hissing-surf surface
of the ocean into a griddle. That
alone makes it terrific.

But... "great"
is weak, and the poem doesn't conclude
with any surprise or sense of finality;
it repeats, in effect, a label for
the creature, which is a real anticlimax.

No, I haven't the foggiest who wrote
this sonnet.

This is a fun poem with happy playful rays, and I like to read it the same way I like to look at a postcard: It's a pretty image from a place I'm unlikely to visit, and even if it's not more than that, so what? It's a really nice postcard.

I think this poem's a delight from start to finish.
The last line elevates it into something special.

I am not really sure what I'm supposed to do and I'm not really clear as to whether the Lariat is here to critique or revise. I have however digressed on the notion, this ill conceived notion of poetic censorship, on the Mastery thread. This is because there are two poems (I don't think I've reached the other few available) that use the word DANCE in this exercise. It requires justification and I've provided it for those interested.

I mean no disrespect to the Lariat or poet in this. None whatsoever. There will be people who think this is a great poem and others who will remain silent in light of the presence of such a fine and well known poet as Rhina (because they aren't open risk takers). Rhina has mentioned risk taking in the context of another ?critique and I think that this poem takes no risks, offers not much more than a pretty picture of a pretty scene using an extremely nice word "Hatteras" in the title to coax us along.

I was told to enter something here but felt that it would be inappropriate to do so in that I don't know Rhina nor have I spent enough time at the Able Muse to produce a "workshopped" effort. The few I've workshopped are not what I would call my best efforts and I'd rather burn my own fingers than offer this great poet something that wasn't exceptional in it's excellence.

[This message has been edited by Maggie Porter (edited December 06, 2004).]

Maggie,
For me this poem exudes vitality and energy and exists as a living poem. It's not what it says as much as the spirit of exuberance it is in its own right. I never confuse what a poem is "about" with what a poem "is".

That's true of all art.
Janet

[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited December 07, 2004).]

Good point, Janet, the delight itself is the esence of the poem. But David's right that the last line opens the poem in an unexpected direction, namely religious thought. Is the poet suggesting that the delight visible in the behavior of living things somehow negates disbelief? That it implies the existence of a Maker who is having one helluva good time creating--much as a poet has in writing--and that the delight is transmitted to the creature--or poem?

Thanks very much for taking the time to comment on this, Rhina, and thanks to everyone who posted. I'm pleased this was an enjoyable read for some of you, whether you saw any meaning in it or not. It has a personal meaning for me, but not one that I expect readers to deduce.

Maggie, there's no need to apologize for not liking this poem. Heck, I've gotten much worse reviews than that, lol. A little scathing honesty is a fine thing. I do wish you'd chill out, though, and stop being such a drama queen.

Rose, the following is no reason to adore your poem, as I do, unless it is taken as a sign from Poseidon. About three days after I forwarded it to Rhina, Alan and I decided to risk the shortcut across Miami Bay in Dreamweaver. The boat draws 4'9" and at low tide, the shallows are about 5'5". Just as we were clearing the shallow bank, an indignant ray, no doubt awakened by the uncomfortably close passage of our ray-shaped red wing keel, rose to the surface and went skipping away. Yes, I thought, Rose's poem is the one. For the record, I read its last line just as David and Rhina do.

Rose,
I share Tim's feelings about your poem. If you look at a map of New Zealand you will see that nobody is ever far from the sea. I haven't seen rays behaving as you describe but when I travelled by ship from Wellington, New Zealand, to Southampton, England--via Suez--I saw such magnificent leapng dolphins and flying fishes. I lived by the sea before I sailed for England and after pining in London I've lived near the sea in Sydney ever since. You catch the esprit and energy that I associate with the sea. Uplifting and joyous.
Janet

Rhina you wrote:
Good point, Janet, the delight itself is the esence of the poem. But David's right that the last line opens the poem in an unexpected direction, namely religious thought. Is the poet suggesting that the delight visible in the behavior of living things somehow negates disbelief? That it implies the existence of a Maker who is having one helluva good time creating--much as a poet has in writing--and that the delight is transmitted to the creature--or poem?

I have my own pagan version of that feeling. A sense of being part of (pace Maggie) the dance of life. I feel too unimportant to be sure my feeling of being a part of something enormous and beautiful and dangerous is evidence of a Maker, but I understand that version of my feeling and could describe it like that. In this poem of mine:
Wildfire Remembered I say it better. I just can't name things.

I believe they are the same feelings and Rose's last lines express them beautifully.

The dance is so important.
Janet