[Catherine Chandler]

Surabaya

Du hast kein Herz, Johnny,
und ich liebe dich so. (“Surabaya-Johnny” – Lane / Brecht / Weill)

She thinks there’s no more deadly word than "And".
(As in "and Juliet"…) The moon and sea
are up to their old tricks. It should be banned,
she says, this syllable of tragedy.

He asks her (Dido and) why women fall
for liars. In reply she sings You’ve got
no heart, Johnny, and I do love you so.
Desire’s catastrophe lies in such small
conjunctions. (Bonnie and) A speckled knot
of snakes is winding through her hair, although

she seems oblivious. (and Heloise)
He plucks a reed and coos a lazy air.
She walks away between the sleeping trees
to tell the moon it has no business there.


Comment by Mr. Gwynn:

This is very inventive, and works very well once the reader has got familiar with the song and situation. The only real problems I have are with capitalization and punctuation. Why is “And” capitalized in the first line, and why is it in quotes instead of italics? Why is there a period at the end of l. 1? I find a similar inconsistency with the quotation in ll. 3-4 and the next one in ll. 6-7 and with the ellipses in l. 2 that aren’t used elsewhere. Hearing this read would be an absolute pleasure, but on the page it strikes me as too “busy.” “A speckled knot / of snakes is winding through her hair” is very nice, full of beauty, stealth, and poison. “sleeping trees” might be improved upon. “swooning trees”?

Perhaps not.

[Catherine Chandler]

I love the rhyme scheme the poet uses in this love sonnet (abab, cdecde, fgfg), but that’s not the only imaginative or admirable aspect to it.

This might interest readers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJKkqC8JVXk.

As Sam says, this needs some basic housekeeping, but retaining some of the extra spacing in for effect. Maybe:


She thinks there’s no more deadly word than and
(as in and Juliet). The moon and sea
are up to their old tricks. It should be banned,
she says, this syllable of tragedy.

He asks her       (Dido and)      why women fall
for liars. In reply she sings You’ve got
no heart, Johnny, and I do love you so.
Desire’s catastrophe lies in such small
conjunctions       (Bonnie and).       A speckled knot
of snakes is winding through her hair, although

she seems oblivious       (and Heloise).
He plucks a reed and coos a lazy air.
She walks away between the sleeping trees
to tell the moon it has no business there.

[R. Nemo Hill]

This manages to be coyly inventive and yet quite passionate at the same time. I agree with Sam & Cathy on the need for some basic housekeeping--but I'm not sure exactly how to proceed, and think extensive experimentation on the page would be necessary to decide on a consistent visual plan. I do think the italicizing of both the parentheticals and the direct dialogue is a mistake: that's where it gets just too busy. I think all the direct quotes could just be straight, with nothing but the she say/she sings to identify them as dialogue. That would smooth out the look considerably and keep all those italics from competing with one another for attention.

I do so love the device of only translating the epigraph within the body of the poem! And the closing image of each stanza is startlingly good.

Nemo

[Cally Conan-Davies]

Yes - I love this one for reasons already mentioned: its inventiveness, the imagery of moon and sea and snake, not to mention its use of one of my favourite songs!

And this: "Desire's catastrophe lies in such small / conjunctions ..." I love it when a poem can slip in such enormous truths without seeming wise.

And I love "sleeping trees" - great sound, and image. (But them I'm the one who loves the "weeping moon"! so pay no heed to me!)

Cally

[Maryann Corbett]

I like this one a great deal, and I have no difficulty dealing with the sentence fragments, nonstandard punctuation, and italics. For me, they work fine in distinguishing the components in the mix of straight story and literary allusion/thought intrusion, and that mix is the poem's major point of interest.

[Julie Steiner]

What Nemo said. Again. Damn, the dude's psychic.

[Petra Norr]

I like this sonnet a lot, and I'll probably come back later with more comments. Meanwhile, I'm wondering if what's italicized and in parentheses are snatches of her conversation -- she's giving examples, out loud, of the "syllable of tragedy". In a sort of a meandering, drifting way. A name comes to her mind, and she speaks it aloud, then a little later another.
It would make sense, because the italicized parentheticals are not quotations -- they don't come from Brecht's song. Reasonably, then, they are also parts of her dialogue. Not sure why the "Juliet" parenthetical isn't italicized, though. If it is the narrator's own example, then it would be better to delete the parentheses.

[Jean L. Kreiling]

This sonnet really grew on me. On first and second readings, I found it interesting, but less than clear--partly because of what others have noted about punctuation and italicization, so I hope the author will fix that . . .

. . . because I understand now how clever and cutting and rich this is. It's essentially a sonnet about the dangers of "and"! I did immediately zero in on a line that Cally liked, too: "Desire’s catastrophe lies in such small / conjunctions"--yummy.

I wish there were a way for "and" to appear in the very last line--or maybe even "und" . . .

The ideas are very finely considered, but I do think that this sonnet proves how important tiny technical details can be in the impression a poem makes.

Best,
Jean

[Petra Norr]

I have to agree. Although Catherine's 'housekeeping' did help the poem, I think it might need even more work, as Nemo and others have said.
For me personally, as I said above, I can get the parentheticals to work better if I imagine them as snatches of the woman's dialogue. It makes for an interesting effect, especially in S2, where it feels as if she is talking at the same time as the omniscient narrator is telling us what's happening:

He asks her (Dido and) why women fall

The omniscient narrator says "He asks her" and it's as if the character suddenly "interrupts" to say "Dido and" to the man in the poem.
It's very strange but very cool to see it that way, rather surreal. I very much doubt that's what the poet intended, but it works for me.

I love the writing style in the poem. I wouldn't know what to call it, but the words "nonchalant sophistication" come to mind, and I mean that as a compliment. Cally said it better when she commented on one of the very fine lines in the poem: "I love it when a poem can slip in such enormous truths without seeming wise."

I love the part about the moon and the sea, and of course the "sleeping trees". I also like the "speckled knot of snakes" in the woman's hair. Though it's hard not to associate to Medusa, and I'm not sure whether that's intended. Finally, I wonder about this couple. I get the feeling it's a "prologue" to a possible relationship. That is, It doesn't seem as if the passion is there yet; it's a relationship that hasn't got off the ground yet. But you can feel the potential passion in the periphery, out there with the moon and the sea. Very charming.

[Gail White]

This is clever as all get-out. I particularly admire the last 3 lines and the sound of the man who "coos a lazy air."