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-   -   A Sonnet (https://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=5531)

Tom Jardine 04-08-2002 10:04 AM


Sam,

If a student, good. Guidance, encouragement.
If old, like me, it's too late.

TJ

R. S. Gwynn 04-07-2003 08:49 PM

Curious about reactions to this one (not by me) that was posted on another poetry list:

> Millrace
>
> Each April's different: this one saw a spate
> Of rain increase the run-off from the snow
> To make the village millpond overflow
> Well-groomed banks and leap an unused gate
> Into the race, which had not felt the flood
> In fifty years. That's when the mill and wheel,
> Back then thought insufficiently genteel,
> Were leveled and the stream shut up for good,
> Or so it seemed. But flood will out, commotion
> Run its course. I watched the water boil
> Through undergrowth, sluicing astonished soil
> Off toward the deep disturbance of our ocean,
> And so subside and next day leave no trace
> But mud and some erosion in the race.
>

Sharon Passmore 04-08-2003 10:10 PM

Popping this back up as a number of posts from Tuesday April 8th 2003 were wongly dated 2002 due to some weird computer glitch and wound up on the end of the forum lists.

David Anthony 04-08-2003 11:51 PM

I think it's formidable work of great depth.
The image is finely sustained throughout, and the close is brilliant.
Wish I'd thought of the dual meaning of "race" as applied in the close. ("You will, David, you will".)
Like the author, I had fooled myself into thinking there are some things we don't do any more. Life's full of shocks, and surprises.
Who wrote it?
Regards,
David
http://www.davidgwilymanthony.co.uk/

A. E. Stallings 04-09-2003 12:00 AM

Looks quite masterful to me. (Maybe a bit "Frost-y" with all those great monosyllables.) I love "flood will out" and the "race" pun at the end. Can't think of anything I'd tweak, really. I have the feeling I've come across this somewhere before.

RCL 04-09-2003 01:45 PM

Yes, a wonderful piece:

Excerpted from Some Assembly Required by George Bradley. Copyright©
2001 by George Bradley. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a
division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part
About SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED: http://info.randomhouse.com/cgi-bin2...XMGo0Wa0JO20AZ

A conversation with George Bradley: http://info.randomhouse.com/cgi-bin2...XMGo0Wa0JO30Aa

Bradley's essay about his working methods: http://info.randomhouse.com/cgi-bin2...XMGo0Wa0JO40Ab



------------------
Ralph

R. S. Gwynn 04-09-2003 06:47 PM

Glad for the positive responses. I was unaware of this poet's work until someone posted it on another list as yet another "excuse for a sonnet." I rather liked it. The poster especially objected to "sluicing astonished soil / Off to the deep disturbance of our ocean""--which I don't particularly like but wouldn't fault excessively. The poem reminds me a little of Frost's "Spring Pools" if for no other reason than the subject.

Len Krisak 04-10-2003 12:43 PM

Damn. Somebody beat me to it
(identifying Bradley).

This appeared in "The New Yorker
about two years ago, in the same
issue that had Wilbur's "The
Gambler" in it.

Bradley has two books out, but
his most recent (can't remember
the title) has a brilliant modern
georgic on growing wine in Connecticut.

edeverett 04-11-2003 02:45 AM

Personally I found 'sluiced astonished soil/ off to the deep disturbance of our ocean' the most illuminating lines of a sustainedly lucent poem. A poem that lifts the lid on the workings of things, I think. Thanks for posting it here,
Sam (if I may).
Ed Everett

Richard Wakefield 04-11-2003 08:43 AM

Although it fits the subject pretty well, I found the breathless enjambment running across five lines to be a bit much, but only a bit. I might have quibbled with "insufficiently," too. But those are very small issues in a poem that does lots of wonderful stuff. "Or so it seemed. But flood will out, commotion / Run its course" is perfect conjunction of form and sense, to my ear, and although "sluicing astonished soil / Off towards the deep disturbance of our ocean" is a tad on the ornate side, to my taste, it sure fills the mouth -- all those sibilants sluicing around...
RPW


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