[Ashley Bowen]

Kind-Hearted Woman (Revision 2)

Suffering feels better in a brand-new suit.
Just take last night: a juke joint jenny swaddled
me in the lonely blanket of her body
until she drained the whiskey out of me.

I think she reckoned love was taking root
in us, the way she slid my hands inside
the sleeves and pulled the coat onto my shoulders,
then posed us both as for a camera flash.

She played our future out all afternoon
until she found the picture of my favorite
and wouldn’t let me lie it was my sister.
Her bullets barely missed me tearing out
for Texas, praying, Devil? Lord? Be fair.
Just get me where no women know me there.

Note: I just worked on the ending. Other suggestions are percolating.

Kind-Hearted Woman (Revision)

Suffering feels better in this brand-new suit.
Just take last night: a juke joint jenny swaddled
me in the lonely blanket of her body
until she drained the whiskey out of me.

I thought she reckoned love was taking root
in us, the way she slid my hands inside
the sleeves and pulled the coat onto my shoulders,
then posed us both as for a camera flash.

She talked our future out all afternoon
until she found the picture of my favorite
and wouldn’t let me lie it was my sister.
Her bullets barely missed me tearing out
for Mississippi, proving true the omen:
Hell hath no fury like a kind-hearted woman.



Kind-Hearted Woman (First Draft)

Itinerate bluesmen like Robert Johnson relied on women for food and shelter following their performances. Those who knew Johnson said he pursued unattractive women, believing them less-likely to have boyfriends--or husbands--eager to retaliate against his advances.

Suffering feels better in this brand-new suit.
I took it to the tailor to have a cuff
hemmed on the slacks, the jacket taken in
a quarter-inch. He kneeled to mark the inseam,
recounting how the fabric was last year’s fashion,
and, lifting the lapel, remarked he’d stitched
his son’s initials in a suit like this
the day he met his bride before the altar.

A bluesman’s always bound to have his troubles
a kind-hearted woman can help him through.
A bowl of beans to put his hunger down,
the hayloft left unlocked when whiskey needs
to be slept off, another suit and shirt
to replace the ones her lusty hands ripped off.

[Richard G]

Hi Ashley,

it feels a little flat, to me, and the one word that does stand out, and not in a good way, is 'lusty'. Why not some reference to their apparent unattractiveness? (Grateful, homely ...?)

Did you consider switching the order of the verses? (To me it raises the possibility that the 'bride' and the lusty handed woman are one and the same.) And might the title be plural?

RG

[Ashley Bowen]

Hi, Richard,

I like your suggestion about the hands. And I had intended that the "bride" and the "woman" be one in the same. It must not be clear.

Thanks for kicking the tires on this. Much to consider in your comments.

[Susan McLean]

Ashley, your meter strays from five beats in S1L1 and S2L2. The first has too many beats and the second too few. For the first, I might suggest something like "Suffering hurts less in this brand-new suit." For the second, I might suggest "a tender-hearted woman can help him through."

Susan

[Ashley Bowen]

Hi, Susan,

SUFF'ring feels BETter IN a BRAND-new SUIT. (A trochaic sub in the first foot)

a KIND-HEARTed WOMan can HELP him THROUGH. (Two trochaic subs in feet 2 and 3).

Those are five beats; they're just not iambic. But that's probably the least that this poem has to worry about at the moment.

Robert Johnson's song title is "Kind-Hearted Woman."

[Susan McLean]

Ashley, I hear the lines differently. I didn't know you were giving "suffering" two syllables, and when I hear "kind-hearted" I don't hear a stress on "heart."

Susan

[Julie Steiner]

Hi, Ashley! I've been enjoying this crown of sonnets.

This bit feels artificial to me:

     and, lifting the lapel, remarked he’d stitched
     his son’s initials in a suit like this
     the day he met his bride before the altar.

First, it seems hard to believe that the father of the groom was monogramming his son's suit on the the actual day of the wedding, when his main focus should have been getting him to the church on time. Couldn't that task have been done before or after that day? Second, the stilted reference to "the day he met his bride before the altar" feels like beating around the bush for meter's sake. Maybe there some other way to mention the bride?

I don't have a solution to the "Kind-Hearted Woman" metrical challenges, but I can sure admire the problem.

I'm another non-fan of the lusty hands in
     to replace the ones her lusty hands ripped off.
Maybe:
     to replace the ones she'd ripped from him in lust.


Nits in the prose epigraph/context:

     Itinerate Itinerant bluesmen like Robert Johnson relied on women for food and shelter following their performances. Those who knew Johnson said he pursued unattractive women, believing them less-likely less likely to have boyfriends--or husbands-- romantic partners eager to retaliate against his advances.

[Ashley Bowen]

Hi, Julie,

Thanks for liking this. I appreciate all of the kind words and the incredibly useful edits and suggestions!

[Ashley Bowen]

A major revision is up, should anyone want to check it out.

[Julie Steiner]

Wow! What a transformation!

I like it, especially the revised kind-hearted woman line.