[W T Clark]

You may well be right Rick. It's humour — mispaaced — ? — or placed — may not pay enough for the premium of justification.

I'm glad you liked it Carl. You are not — such a big word — "wrong".

Glen et al. — Thank you, for looking back in. It is as "nonce" (a word which means sthing very different here: and I try to avoid it) as "blank verse". I do not deny your scan: though I do not have so much faith in the spondee, and "I will" is many things, but barely trochaic.
If it belongs in "nonmet" then so does The Prelude.
Thank you —

[David Callin]

Originally Posted by Carl Copeland

Glenn and Paula haven’t been here long enough to know that this is the most metrical, musical poem you’ve written in two years (the time I’ve been here). You’ve been working in other directions, but this one appeals to me.

I may have been here a little longer than Carl, and read more of Cameron's poems than him (a lot of which I've liked), but in essence I would go along with this. Enjoyed it, Cameron.

Cheers

David

[Rick Mullin]

I said that "bloodied Adam's still a part of it" doesn't add much. But it does do something with the blood. Maybe you can refer to him as "Bloody Adam." "Bloody Adam never understands".

RM

[John Riley]

I'm late here. Life and all that sort of thing. It's tough to pull off a retelling of the Eden story. As you know, the story turns up in various forms in the creation myths of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Canaan, Greece, and other places. I don't know if Pandora opening a jar she's been told not to open or Eve eating a fruit she's been told not to eat is the better story. The Eve story is certainly heavier so I like that you lightened it up with cherries. Naturally, I thought of sex, which I assume is intended, although the fruit was knowledge. All my life down here in Hootersville I was told Adam and Eve had a boink in the woods after eating the fruit. They discovered sex and condemned mankind so get your hands out of your pants! It wasn't for years that I learned the fruit allowed them to think and wonder and create things like the Adam and Eve story, and because they discovered that gift we need to please the perfect god who made imperfect images of himself so he can threaten them with eternal death.

I kept my hands in my pants.

I can't tell if you're having fun with the sex version or not and that is a strength. If it was obvious you were it'd be boring. But when it moves on to eating eyes and learning to see and falling into separateness "like lovers" it opens up and my slow penny finally drops and I realize you are doing sex and knowledge together. I probably should have seen it coming. It's sneaky and for we slow guys it's brilliant.

The serpent keeps it a secret, Eve moves on, and poor, dumb Adam eats dull meat. I do think the couplet is a stretch. As we saw earlier here, making these comparisons in Hebrew myths, even within Genesis, is tough because of all the ideas and changes between different stories. Eve's last glance back at Eden, the serpent, and maybe even Adam, would be considerably different than Lot's poor, curious wife. Well, curiosity is involved with Eve but she has been the central player in her story and Lot's wife isn't even named? Is she? I don't remember, but if she is it's not important. For me, the ending tries a little too hard. Why not find a cool, more direct way to slam the door on what has happened in the poem? Who knows? I could be wrong.

I don't have any language suggestions. I don't see the need for any but as we all know meter stuff isn't my strength. I like that it has force and a strong pace, but lulls a little too. The line spacing is what I mean. Leaving "like lovers" hanging is just right.

I realize everything I've said might not be what you intended. But if I can read it wrong and still like it that is a strength.

Best

[R. Nemo Hill]

Actually my favorite part is the lovers falling into separateness, which conjures the mood of the fall so effectively, the aftermath of total union. In a way even the sexual impulse is a stage in that fall out of the utter Edenic solidarity of all things. The poem has a consistent grace to it until it introduces Adam and blood and meat and then Lot's wife, which rise like rocks in its smooth stream. These intrusions into the flow are signaled by the abrupt line: The serpent never talks of this. As such I think no drop-down line should occur till then . . .

I will commit the Fall with cherries.
When I am Eve then the Tree will be a cherry
tree & I will eat & eat & eat.

Precisely weighed, each knowing plump will fill
my hand like God, each waxskinned as an eye.
I eat the eyes & spit their seeing stones.

Soon, I've learnt myself to see: to estrange:
to huddle in my I & keep the Not
Me at a distance like a pulsing frog:

until it opens two green eyes & stares me down;
until we're fallen into separateness
like lovers.
......................The serpent never talks about this.

Adam never understands: he's still
a bloodied part of it: he still eats meat.

The final glance will always grasp you in.
When I'm Lot's Wife it's just as it has been.


I do kind of think that Lot's wife is a step too far. The precision of a closing heroic couplet makes me demand more from the allusion that it gives me. Rather than closure, it give me a fresh opening (which well may be your intention), but I am through with classical echoes at that point and desire something more descriptive, less referential. I'd experiment with a single line to replace that couplet, thus preserving the three line stanzaic form. A line with an eat rhyme, which would give you the same precision as the current couplet, but would hurry the ending, a hurry which would viscerally supply the same surprise as the sting of the salt of Lot's wife.

On the other hand I can't deny the brilliance of the penultimate line as it stands now.
Nor the rhythmic shifting of identity of the repeated construction When I am Eve/ When I am Lot's wife.
So there may be more than one way to skin an eye/I.

I adore the idea of seeing as estrangement, and, its connection to your other blindness poems.
Your work has such an inner coherence to it, Cameron, a coherence hard-won, and thus all the more rewarding when it makes itself known.

Nemo