[Matt Q]

Hi Michael,

I like this a fair bit. It's evocative. I like the fire grey and then all-consuming, and the metaphoric work that does. The ending, closing on the image of the screaming gulls works very well too, is darkly suggestive, and for me gives an impression of the present and the past. I also like the formal choice of ending each stanza on an image, and how these work collectively to suggest darkness and/or decay. The screaming, the hunter and the hunted, the withered seaweed, the grass invading.

I do wonder if there's a slight imbalance in the poem's focus on winter. The N, observing the house in summer, what it was, who lived there, seems to be largely only wondering how the winters were. And it's kind of implied that perhaps it was the fire in winter that burned it down, though I appreciate this is doing more metaphorical work.

S2L1 "put" seems a little weak, general, especially given how much emphasis it's given by the line-break. I wonder if there's a stronger, more specific verb?

I'm not sure if "young and strong" is pulling its weight, it also has me wondering if the entire family could be young and strong, can a three-year-old be strong, for example, or if the kids are grown and strong, can the parents be young? (And for how long they could remain young, assuming they lived there for any length of time. Did they leave when they got older? Etc.) There's maybe some scope for ascribing them some clam-like property, I guess. The house as their shell. Tightly sealed. Underwater. Something closed around them. Something along those lines?

The luring of ships with false beacons is apparently something of a myth but, of course, that's not an objection to the N wondering about it. "wreckers" is an option for "scavengers", if you want to make things clearer (and then you'd no longer need "false", "setting beacons" would do it), but I like "scavengers", which puts me in mind of seagulls and other shoreline scavengers.

S3L3-5 the short lines work well here to show the compression. Though I wonder if that's as effective in L7-8. I might be inclined to move "the fire" up to the end of the previous line. I can see that you want to emphasise the "the fire" in the light of the poem's close, but I think it gets a much, if not more emphasis, moved up. And L3-5 are maybe more effective if the effect is not repeated.

best,

Matt

[Nick McRae]

Originally Posted by Michael Cantor

The Old Camp at Plover Island

The charred bones of the house
and the blackened hearth
squat between summer dunes:
dry, sun-blasted ruins
of an ancient shrine.
... Withered sea-kelp lines the beach.

Somebody lived here once, put
flesh on these bones.
Fishermen? Whalers?
Perhaps a clam digger’s family,
young and strong.
Or scavengers, using false beacons.
... Falcons dive at rabbits in the marsh.

Was this a tight house in winter,
compressed and warmed by snow?
Did those who lived here cling more closely so
face to face
flesh to flesh
mouth to open mouth
welcoming the snow’s weight
the long nights
the fire
and winter’s absolute silence?
... Beach grass threads among plum bushes.

Or did snow dance meanly through the cracks?
Did the wind invade and freeze the marrow
of cold and unloved lives?
Was the fire gray
and then turned all-consuming?
... The dumb surf rattles rocks and shells.

What happened here?
... Gulls hover, screaming at the sun.

Hi Michael,

What I enjoyed about this and the last one of yours I read, The Gray House 1968, is that I've never read a style quite like the two poems. From what I can glean you've developed your own voice which is likely the highest compliment I can give. You don't need me to tell you that as you've been at this longer than I have.

Enjoyed this poem. The only word that stood out to me was the blue, which I gather could use something less intense, or maybe more realistic to the sound a gull would make. Maybe 'screeching', or something else with less intensity.

Nick

[Jim Moonan]

.
Plover: a gregarious wading bird. That sounds like the good life.

FYI, the first thing I did, even before reading the poem, was google search Plover Island. That was a mistake. I went down the rabbit hole and ended up in the far north of Canada. I now know google doesn't know you very well : ) I know it’s the place you used to call home. I should have known that. It’s also a place plovers call home. Now the whole poem comes into focus. Now it all makes sense.

To the poem: It’s a lamentation. A beautiful, poignant lamentation. Plovers are a wonderful expression of that place you loved, I think.

I haven't much to offer in the way of crit. Only praise for creating (and you said you're not creative?!) another word painting of Plum Island. I've watched plovers race along the beach in Truro, CC and Ipswich. They are a bit like puffins, which I also had the pleasure to have seen up close last year in Cape Breton, NS. For some reason they also remind of wrens (which are just now returning to my woods out back) and could be described as being the wild woodland cousins thrice-removed of plovers and puffins. I am watching one collect bits of moss and tags to build its nest. So for all those reasons this poem hits home for me.

I, too, was surprised to read a free verse poem from you. The lyrical quality is soft and clear. It never waivers from its contemplative tone. I thought it would, at some point, break free, but when I reached the end I was glad it had remained that way. It gives the reader a sense of quiet that used to be full-throated, as if the N is the only living human left on an abandoned island. The N simply tells the reader what it might be like without him, ruminating on possible scenarios of when the place was alive. It’s got a haunting quality.

It is always good to read your poetry here and to read your critiques.

Once I found out Plover Island = Plum Island I realized that, in a poetic sense, Plum Island was no longer real. (it is not lost on me that Plum Island is no longer real to you.) Hence, the unreal name.

Picking up on Roger’s thought, I took the last two lines and put one at the beginning of the final stanza and left the second line to be the last line. I felt like the questions might do well grouped together and then let the final line feel as if it's tapering. Maybe.


What happened here?
Did snow dance meanly through the cracks?
Did the wind invade and freeze the marrow
of cold and unloved lives?
Was the fire gray
and then turned all-consuming?
... The dumb surf rattles rocks and shells.
... Gulls hover, screaming at the sun.



I've only skimmed the other comments. Roger's was one I just picked up on and ran with.
It's a very good poem. I hope you share it with people you know on Plover Island.

.

[Michael Cantor]

Matt - thanks for the good words. I hadn't thought about the focus on winter, but it's certainly there, and I think it's because (a) the house was destroyed by fire - more likely in winter - and (b) Plum Island in the summer is a typical beach community, saturated with tourists and renters and day-trippers; but in the winter only the hard case nuts remain, and you're living much closer to the bone. We have more than our share of piping plovers, and for much of the summer much of the beach is off-limits while the dumb little dears build their nests on the beach, often below the high water line.

Would "set" work better than "put". Dunno. It's slightly more specific, adds a little more music to the non-meter. Whaddya think?

In the series of short lines in S3 I wanted one thought per line, and no punctuation. My feeling is that moving up "the fire" clutters the string, and requires dreaded punctuation.

Nick - re screeching/screaming, I wanted the intensity, and "screaming" is more intense and works better visually.

Jim - Your rewrite of the final stanzas doesn't quite do it for me. Advancing "What happened here" is a little too telly, and I'm in love with the final two line stanza. And ending with two descriptive lines breaks the rhythm I had established earlier.

As a Bostonian, I'm surprised you apparently haven't visited Plum Island - and now it may be too late. When we bought the house there it was little more than a fishing shack, and when we added a second story we were Island royalty. It was working class and funky beyond words, the only restaurant was a biker bar, and there was a line of Harleys stretching from the ocean to the bay. Valori ordered a campari soda the first time we were there, and I thought they were going to rape us both. "Ask for a Bud" I hissed. And now the beach is lined with mega-mansions, and Teslas and Porsches clutter every driveway.

[Matt Q]

Hi Michael,

Yes, I'd say "set" is better, and has a nice double meaning -- "placed" and "hardened" -- and better sounds. I think you also gain something by deviating from the familiar idiom.

For reasons I can't easily justify, I think a quantitively heavier stress (as in a longer vowel) might sound good here. Along those lines, you could maybe also go with something like "wove flesh onto [or around] these bones", which has nice sounds in the assonant wove/bones, though weaving flesh might be a little odd as an image. Or "bound flesh to [or around] these bones", which also has some nice sounds. But yes, "set" works.

best,

Matt

[Michael Cantor]

Matt - thanks for the suggestion. "Bound flesh onto these bones" it is, and I'll make the change.

And thanks, also, for giving me a change to make. I feel like a dick when I put up a poem, and a bunch of people read it and make suggestions, and I bat them all back. My stuff is almost always well worked over before I post - I try to avoid putting up quick drafts - but even so, a workshop isn't working well when every response is "Thanks, but...".

[Mark McDonnell]

Hi Michael,

I get the sense you're pretty happy with this now but I just wanted to say I've read this a fair few times now and think it's very strong. For what it's worth, I love the sudden shock of the screaming gulls at the close.

The only thing I trip up on slightly is the word "so" in the third stanza and whether you need it at all or if a comma might do.

[Nick McRae]

Originally Posted by Michael Cantor

Matt - thanks for the good words. I hadn't thought about the focus on winter, but it's certainly there, and I think it's because (a) the house was destroyed by fire - more likely in winter - and (b) Plum Island in the summer is a typical beach community, saturated with tourists and renters and day-trippers; but in the winter only the hard case nuts remain, and you're living much closer to the bone. We have more than our share of piping plovers, and for much of the summer much of the beach is off-limits while the dumb little dears build their nests on the beach, often below the high water line.

Would "set" work better than "put". Dunno. It's slightly more specific, adds a little more music to the non-meter. Whaddya think?

In the series of short lines in S3 I wanted one thought per line, and no punctuation. My feeling is that moving up "the fire" clutters the string, and requires dreaded punctuation.

Nick - re screeching/screaming, I wanted the intensity, and "screaming" is more intense and works better visually.

Jim - Your rewrite of the final stanzas doesn't quite do it for me. Advancing "What happened here" is a little too telly, and I'm in love with the final two line stanza. And ending with two descriptive lines breaks the rhythm I had established earlier.

As a Bostonian, I'm surprised you apparently haven't visited Plum Island - and now it may be too late. When we bought the house there it was little more than a fishing shack, and when we added a second story we were Island royalty. It was working class and funky beyond words, the only restaurant was a biker bar, and there was a line of Harleys stretching from the ocean to the bay. Valori ordered a campari soda the first time we were there, and I thought they were going to rape us both. "Ask for a Bud" I hissed. And now the beach is lined with mega-mansions, and Teslas and Porsches clutter every driveway.

FWIW my main issue was that gulls don't scream. The word made me think a person, not bird, screaming. My impression was that it was a bit of an unusual choice, and that it stood out in a negative way. I get the argument for it's intensity which you likely want to keep, but I'm not sure what alternative you'd use that would retain the strength while being more etymologically accurate. Screeching feels like a decent choice to me, but YMMV.