[Carol Taylor]

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<tr><td>The Quick and the Dead

It was so quick. The kitten frisked;
with one ungainly bound
she struck the spokes of my brother's bike
as they went spinning 'round.

Her tiny body in the wheel
made a tuneless strum
and a tawny circlet around the hub.
We kids stood stricken dumb.

As eldest, every eye was turned
toward me. A splat of red
on the sidewalk broke into my trance.
"Get Mom. The kitten's dead."

She freed the broken little corpse
and told us to be brave.
We prayed there would be a happy home
beyond the backyard grave.

That night, she tucked us kids in bed
and played Ave Maria.
I thought about the quick and the dead
and Daddy in Korea.
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[center]<table bgcolor=white cellpadding=25 border=0><tr><td>The poems I've been privileged to read for this project suggest that narrative poety is alive and well, and that it's being done in different ways in various parts of the English-speaking world: that's great news. This one, anchored to recent American by the last line, tells a homely story clearly grounded in memory. It's painfully visual--impossible to read that second stanza without wincing--and widens out beyond the domestic only in the last stanza.

A few questions: in line 9, does that misplaced modifier ("every eye" is defined mistakenly as the "eldest") create unintentional humor for everyone else, as it does for me? I would get that out right away. And does stanza 4 strike everyone as hovering dangerously on the brink of sentimentality? I know what the poet is after, and it belongs in the poem, but maybe it could be more lightly done.

And the thing that troubles me most is this: why is the speaker in the poem at all, when it was the brother's bike that did the damage? The "turned to me" in stanza 3 feels extraneous, because it's the brother I want to hear about, his response, the grief and guilt I can imagine--but he's dropped right away. This appealing and moving poem could be even stronger, with a change in the cast of characters, and maybe in the diction of stanza 4.

~Rhina

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[Susan McLean]

I missed this one when it was originally posted. I particularly like the way it opens out in the last stanza in an unexpected but perfectly appropriate way. Like Rhina, I flinched a bit at the rather maudlin tone of stanza four. I had missed the misplaced modifier on the first read, but once you know it is there, it is distracting. Although one can certainly say

We kids stood stricken dumb.

it occurred to me that a pause might work to break up the rhythm and add additional meanings:

We kids stood stricken, dumb.

The visual and aural details are shocking and effective.

Susan

[Rose Kelleher]

FWIW, I didn't notice the misplaced modifier until after I read your comment, Rhina.

I'd suggest shortening "we prayed there would be" to "we prayed there'd be".

[Kevin Andrew Murphy]

The homely simplicity of the rhymes and meter did well to emphasize the childhood angle, especially with the unexpected final rhyme and switch of focus. Switching to a feminine rhyme for the final pair also helped kick the ending.

What I think makes this poem work is the fact that the manner and the mode makes one expect the ending to be a hollow homily or distasteful sugarcoating--or worse, both mixed with kitsch piety of the Precious Moments school--but instead ends with a very real and immediate thought about death and the realities of war.

[wendy v]

I really like this one, too, and am not troubled by the focus on the 'elder' child, in fact, think the poem sort've hinges on it. Being the oldest, it's possible s/he feels even more responsible/weighted than the child on the bike, but there's also the raised consciousness at the close which signals a kind of 'aloneness' or wisdom in his understandings/recognitions/fears that the younger children may not share.

I wouldn't change the opening two lines of S4 - I think it's the 'happy home' that's to blame for the Maudlin Charge in that stanza. The ending is excellent.

The tone of voice here very much reminds me of Countee Cullen's little poem, Baltimore.

wendy



[This message has been edited by wendy v (edited December 02, 2004).]

[Clay Stockton]

Was this posted before I showed up around these parts? What a brutal, memorable, utterly fit last line! I didn't notice the misplaced modifier in L9, though now I can't stop looking at it. In S4, I didn't notice or mind the "sentimentality" at all, since I was trusting the poet so much by this point--and then, of course, I felt like the bright and comfortable S4 worked as a perfect set-up to the vicious punchline of S5. What a knockout of a poem!

--CS



[This message has been edited by Clay Stockton (edited December 05, 2004).]

[Maggie Porter]

This is one of the best, if not the best in the selection.

The Lariat points out a problem with voice but I don't see it as such. The agreement to be a part of this poem stands as a solid reminder that prose and poetry generally differ in terms of narrator/listener assignment making.

It was so quick. The kitten frisked;
with one ungainly bound
she struck the spokes of my brother's bike
as they went spinning 'round.
*Extraneous use of SO in so quick

Her tiny body in the wheel
made a tuneless strum
and a tawny circlet around the hub.
We kids stood stricken dumb.
*Extraneous use of AND in L3

As eldest, every eye was turned
toward me. A splat of red
on the sidewalk broke into my trance.
"Get Mom. The kitten's dead."

The Lariat stumbles here as I do.
But not significantly so. Adding THE to eldest is helpful, as is deleting WAS.
As the eldest, all eyes turned
toward(s)me....
Then:
Extraneous use of INTO in L3, suggest
..on the sidewalk AND broke my trance
(in which the word AND is used as it should be used.)

She freed the broken little corpse
and told us to be brave.
We prayed there would be a happy home
beyond the backyard grave.

As a nonmetrical kind of person, I find too many syllables in this stanza (and Rose apparently agrees much to my delight) for natural speech. Suggest:
She freed the broken corpse,
told us to be brave.
We prayed THERE'D be a home
beyond the backyard grave.
*Happy is extraneous here. I heartily advice the conjunction!

That night, she tucked us kids in bed
and played Ave Maria.
I thought about the quick and the dead
and Daddy in Korea.
*Weak in L1. Suggest:
AT night she tucked us all in bed
and played Ave Maria,
I thought about the quick and the dead,
THEN Daddy in Korea.

No comma betweeen night and she...not helpful in terms of the stop that is intended and not consistent with the previous stanzas.

FINAL and KILLER last line. The mark of a very well made poem.

Kudos.

[J.A. Crider]

"As eldest, every eye was turned
toward me."


What here is being called a misplaced modifier occurs in a sentence that also happens to be semantically crystal clear. So I'd say you have a grammarian's stand-off. I say Tomato, you say Tahmato. Further, I bet you could cull no less than Keats and find half a dozen of the same constructions. Just a hunch.

John






[This message has been edited by J.A. Crider (edited December 04, 2004).]

[Rhina P. Espaillat]

No, I'm afraid this is not just a "tomato/tomahto" difference, because the placement of the modifier affects the image created. If the text said, "Every eye was turned on me as the elder," that would make sense, because the modifying phrase is right next to the pronoun being modified, "me." But leaning the modifier up against that "eye" says, quite literally, that the eye was doing its turning and gazing in its capacity as "the elder." That's unconscious humor, very badly out of place in a poem as serious--and as good!--as this one. Grammatical construction is not optional, guys.

[Steven Schroeder]

J. A.:

Sorry, Rhina's right. When I read that sentence, the phrase jumps out at me as ungrammatical. Reading that sentence, the phrase jumps out at me as ungrammatical. No, no, that second one doesn't work, does it? The one in the poem isn't the most egregious misplaced modifier I've ever seen, including from poets and in poems, but I still don't think it's okay.

------------------
Steve Schroeder