[Jim Moonan]

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Plover: a gregarious wading bird. That sounds like the good life.

FYI, the first thing I did, even before reading the poem, was google search Plover Island. That was a mistake. I went down the rabbit hole and ended up in the far north of Canada. I now know google doesn't know you very well : ) I know it’s the place you used to call home. I should have known that. It’s also a place plovers call home. Now the whole poem comes into focus. Now it all makes sense.

To the poem: It’s a lamentation. A beautiful, poignant lamentation. Plovers are a wonderful expression of that place you loved, I think.

I haven't much to offer in the way of crit. Only praise for creating (and you said you're not creative?!) another word painting of Plum Island. I've watched plovers race along the beach in Truro, CC and Ipswich. They are a bit like puffins, which I also had the pleasure to have seen up close last year in Cape Breton, NS. For some reason they also remind of wrens (which are just now returning to my woods out back) and could be described as being the wild woodland cousins thrice-removed of plovers and puffins. I am watching one collect bits of moss and tags to build its nest. So for all those reasons this poem hits home for me.

I, too, was surprised to read a free verse poem from you. The lyrical quality is soft and clear. It never waivers from its contemplative tone. I thought it would, at some point, break free, but when I reached the end I was glad it had remained that way. It gives the reader a sense of quiet that used to be full-throated, as if the N is the only living human left on an abandoned island. The N simply tells the reader what it might be like without him, ruminating on possible scenarios of when the place was alive. It’s got a haunting quality.

It is always good to read your poetry here and to read your critiques.

Once I found out Plover Island = Plum Island I realized that, in a poetic sense, Plum Island was no longer real. (it is not lost on me that Plum Island is no longer real to you.) Hence, the unreal name.

Picking up on Roger’s thought, I took the last two lines and put one at the beginning of the final stanza and left the second line to be the last line. I felt like the questions might do well grouped together and then let the final line feel as if it's tapering. Maybe.


What happened here?
Did snow dance meanly through the cracks?
Did the wind invade and freeze the marrow
of cold and unloved lives?
Was the fire gray
and then turned all-consuming?
... The dumb surf rattles rocks and shells.
... Gulls hover, screaming at the sun.



I've only skimmed the other comments. Roger's was one I just picked up on and ran with.
It's a very good poem. I hope you share it with people you know on Plover Island.

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