[John Riley]

These two connected prose poems are part of a book I'm slowly working on. The poems tell the story of a boy, an older boy who decides to follow his imagination into a deep forest. These are at from the beginning and hopefully reveal him before his trip begins.

Winter Knows

The day before he left, soon after a breakfast of walnuts, he returned from the well with a heavy bucket of fresh water hanging from his hand and stopped to lean against the old house’s brown-board wall. He knew no spirit would come that day, that nothing is ever provided an exile. The day before when this house burned down the flame fired between his feet and raced across the dirt. In moments the ashes piled waist high and the last of the smoke dragged through the dry air. The house was gone and he ran across the empty brown fields, excitement flying past his wind-chapped face. Now, leaning against the house, he thought of wrapping himself in blankets and walking to the fjord hidden deep beyond the distant woods lining the horizon. Go to where the dark water lies heavy under the different colors of the sky. When he climbs into the canoe and pushes away to row up the black water rabbits will scurry away up the rocky bank and crows will squawk warnings. Bears will wake and watch as he moves past. He will not respond to their notices and will become aware spirits come easier on deep water and will stay long after the trip’s end tries to send them away.

Walnuts Out of Their Shells

He did not always love the night. Before he was confused with blood and beginnings and endings he woke early each morning and walked toward the same woods. This was before the roosters crowed but not before the thrush and blackbirds and skylarks sang. She would be sitting on the remains of a fallen tree at the edge of the forest, waiting for him and for the morning to arrive. She held walnuts out of their shells in her hand. This would be his only breakfast and as he ate the small portion of the meaty nut they talked with voices light to suit the soft sun. Sometimes her words almost lured him back to sleep and when his eyes drifted open again she would smile and hold out her arms for him to rest his head on her shoulder, but he never did. As soon as he touched her all would change. He never questioned how he knew this. They would continue to talk until the roosters finished their crowing and he had no choice but to stand and walk back to the old house. When he reached the barn and stopped to look back a last time she was always gone and this made him happy that no one else would visit her and she would be there tomorrow only for him.

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, John—
You open up a myth-infused world that I’m guessing will connect in some way to the Norse tradition. I base this on the reference to the “fjord” in the first piece. The woman who provides walnuts seems to be a fairy or elf, but the walnuts seem real. The main character’s fear of touching her seems to foreshadow a dark intent on her part. I can’t help but wonder if the brain-shaped nuts he is taking from her might be exerting an as-yet-undetected baneful influence on him. I’m hooked!

[Nick McRae]

I've read through this a few times now, and I don't know if these comments will help as you know more about the form than I do.

When I read through them they come across like eccentric fiction to me. And when framed this way, as unusual fiction, they work well to my eye.

For whatever reason, when I hear the word poetry attached to anything I'm expecting some poetic flourishes, maybe some deviation, and general playfulness with the language. I don't read as much of that here as in your past stuff, which is maybe exactly what you intend.

Overall it's hard to know what you're intending, or where you want to take these two pieces of writing, so it's equally difficult to give you concrete suggestions. Maybe if your hope is to be poetic, add more of that, if your hope is to convey a narrative, keep leaning into that instead.

Beyond that I'll highlight a few pieces of syntax that threw me. Apologies that I haven't added comments for them, they're just the grammar / word choice / positioning etc that gave me a jolt.

The day before he left, soon after a breakfast of walnuts, he returned from the well with a heavy bucket of fresh water hanging from his hand and stopped to lean against the old house’s brown-board wall. He knew no spirit would come that day, that nothing is ever provided an exile. The day before when this house burned down the flame fired between his feet and raced across the dirt. In moments the ashes piled waist high and the last of the smoke dragged through the dry air. The house was gone and he ran across the empty brown fields, excitement flying past his wind-chapped face. Now, leaning against the house, he thought of wrapping himself in blankets and walking to the fjord hidden deep beyond the distant woods lining the horizon. Go to where the dark water lies heavy under the different colors of the sky. When he climbs into the canoe and pushes away to row up the black water rabbits will scurry away up the rocky bank and crows will squawk warnings. Bears will wake and watch as he moves past. He will not respond to their notices and will become aware spirits come easier on deep water and will stay long after the trip’s end tries to send them away.

[John Riley]

Thanks, Nick, the prose poem conversation is endless. These may lack enough flourish for you to see what you see. I understand that. Thanks for the suggestions. They’ll be there for revisions.

[David Callin]

I'm hooked, John. And I want to read on.

Cheers

David

[Matt Q]

Hi John,

I enjoyed these. I think you have some strong ingredients for a series, and I look forward to one day reading it. Here we get a small look at this world, and I imagine that in each further instalment we would learn more. I definitely sense a journey / quest on the horizon, into and through that wood.

Winter knows: So, the house is magical. It burns down completely and is there again in the morning. I like that he is excited when the house is gone. It's suggestive. Of some sort of freedom, perhaps. I enjoy the description of the imagined journey -- the dark water the colour of the sky and the rabbits, crows and bears.

You might lose "hanging from his hand". It doesn't seem to add anything. It's exactly how I imagine a bucket of water being carried.

I find "old house's brown-board wall" a bit of mouthful and would prefer, "the brown-board wall of the old house".

Something about "will become aware" feels a bit flat, or like it could be tightened. Is there a single verb that could replace "become aware". Something like "notice", "learn" or "discover" maybe -- though I guess they don't have quite the same sense.

You need a comma after "black water", I think.

Walnuts out of their shells gives us a possibly magical disappearing woman. I get the sense that she is a mother-figure or sorts, and that maybe the boy lacks a mother (or a loving one). Also, we get a little closer to that forest. Again I like the nature description, the naming of the birds.

Sentence 2. Is the waking and walking a single event, or the general case? In context it sounds like the latter, in which I wonder if you need a "would" before "wake"?

"She held walnuts out of their shells in her hand" Struck me as a little awkward/odd about the current phrasing, because it's not quite clear what's going on with the verb. "holding walnuts out of the shells" might mean prevent the nuts from returning, or she holds them just above their shells, say. Also, it seems first as if the verb is "to hold out" but then isn't. I don't know. But does "She held shelled walnuts in her hand" convey anything less than you want to say?

At the close I'm wondering how it follows from her being gone that no one else would visit her. She might be in the forest rather than at its edge and just as visitable.

best,

Matt

[W T Clark]

I think this is you writing to your maximum. You've cut spare the ribs of things: you've gotten down with the very soil-words. It's like Tolstoy's last novellas, the ones I love, the ones after "Crime and Punishment" and the one about being killed by a train. Like those last stories by Tolstoy: the bare meat of truth in this makes questions of definition irrelevant. I love particularly "Winter Knows". Would you make "notices" "noticings"? The second I like: but I feel as if it still needs to be stripped back, like there is still some skin you haven't torn off: like it could be made barer.

Hope this helps.

[Cally Conan-Davies]

John, these are not from day consciousness, but from the hinterland. Like Cameron, I was thinking of primary words like soil and root. It's a wonder to see this kind of work that is not tied to logical rationality, and yet is clear as rainwater as it pursues its dream logic.

I'm able to fully enter both poems. I love the conluding part of Winter Knows when the boy is in the canoe and the animals come out.

If I had to chose a favourite, it might be Walnuts Out of Their Shells. I have special deep memories of a walnut tree that have become part of my mythic imagination. Maybe that's why this poem holds me. I see Matt has queried "she held walnuts out of their shells", and I take his point, and am still unsure if it effects my overall sense of things. The part of the walnut inside the shell is called the kernel. I don't know if this word would work in the same way.

To get such dream stuff onto a page without breaking it requires a soft touch. Dream images are powerful, and they become fragile when one tries to bring them to the light. This is why poets have to find another language.

And you are working in another language now, John. I can only echo David: keep going.

Cally