[Carol Taylor]

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Riderless Horses

"Why do we mourn? He lived to eighty-two!"
Soc Glasrud said, tears coursing down his face,
a weathered headland where the decades drew
furrows that death will all too soon erase.

My father’s youthful face was disarranged
when a rogue draft horse kicked him in the head.
By words, not blows, we later were estranged
but I forgive a man now four years dead

whose last confession was "I’ve been too dark,"
whose final, whispered insight was "Vince wins."
Lord may his knack for words that hit the mark
win him remission of his venial sins.

And when I bear Soc Glasrud to his hearse?
More boots to fill or stirrup in reverse.
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Stanza one is a little four-line play about mourning done by a strong man. Stanzas two and three--full of ambivalence that won't quit--meditates on a son's relationship with the lost father being mourned, and concludes by forgiving, which is not the same as forgetting, the "words, not blows" that "hit the mark," whatever their mark. The prayer with which stanza three ends is all the more remarkable, generous and worthy for the clearly vivid and still-painful memory behind it.

The closing couplet--unexpected and quite perfect in retrospect--returns to the father's mourning friend in stanza one, and looks ahead, sadly but resolutely, to the future mourning ahead for this son, who imagines the next loss: that of the surrogate father as well as the blood father. The imagery is spare and apt, the language simple and controlled, and the effect devastating. Amazing poem, for how much ground it covers in so few lines.

Should there be commas in line 9, after "confession was," and in line 11, after "Lord"?

~Rhina

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[Robt_Ward]

Comma after "confession" not needed, comma after "Lord" is necessary. The first depends which stylebook you use, the second is mandated by all I have seen.

(robt)

(edited for spelling)

[This message has been edited by Robt_Ward (edited November 25, 2004).]

[Sharon Passmore]

Maybe I don't get it but I don't see how the friend can be mourning the father here because the father is refered to as being "four years dead" and "youthful" whereas the dead person being mourned "lived to eighty-two". I think the dead person is a fourth person and the funeral is bringing past and future deaths to mind for the son but, besides that, the present dead person doesn't have any other bearing on the poem at all.

[Katy Evans-Bush]

Sharon, youthful doesn't mean young. It means holding the qualities of youth. In any case, here, the word "later" in the next line indicates a passage of time... so the author has chosen to show us the father in a youthful light, perhaps accentuating the sense of loss.

And I don't see the import of your remark that the dead person has little bearing on this poem; the poem is entirely about learning to accept (long after the fact) that the father is dead, that he was as he was and that it's all okay.

I found the poem touching.

KEB

[This message has been edited by Katy Evans-Bush (edited November 25, 2004).]

[Simon Hunt]

I well remember this from the Deep End. In fact, seeing it develop in exhilarating drafts was one of the key reasons I became so addicted to eratosphere so quickly. I agree particularly with Rhina's comment about how much ground it covers in 14 lines without straining or seeming to leave things out. I think it's wonderful!

Still, last time I saw it I had a question or two that I am now brave enough to ask. Without following the discussion of this on Deep End, I would have no idea who Soc Glasrud is. I think the poem itself reveals that he is a surrogate father of sorts to the speaker, as well as a contemporary (and perhaps a friend) of the speaker's father, but that doesn't capture as much of the relationship as I now understand from extra-textual discussion. Likewise--and perhaps more so--I don't think anything in the poem conveys that Vince IS the father. And without knowing that, does "Vince wins" make sense? It's the kind of information that can be conveyed by notes (as in the kind of anthology in which this may one day deservedly reside), but without it isn't this a kind of "coterie" poem (not that there's anything wrong with that)?

A related question: how is "Soc" pronounced?

Thanks to all involved. I was pleased to take another look at this beautiful poem, and my question about it doesn't mean I don't enjoy it. It's just that I wonder whether a reader who saw ONLY the poem would enjoy it as much as I do...

Best, --Simon

[Robt_Ward]

Simon,

"Soc" in this case is short for "Socrates" I believe, so that'd be "sock" I think.

I'm not aware that "Vince" is the father. I suppose he may have been, but it's certainly not "in" the poem. Indeed, if the father is Vince, then his final words make rather a mockery of his "last confession", don't they? Thus, that "Vince wins" statement is the part of the poem I do not understand.

However, I think the relationship with Soc Glasrud is adequately laid out for this poem to stand alone; S1 clearly shows him to be a contemporary of, and close friend of, the speaker's father. The first line of the couplet, where the speaker anticipates being a pallbearer at Soc's funeral-to-come, speaks firmly to the closeness of the relationship between the son and his father's friend and contemporary.

Sharon,

In S1 we have a description of Soc Glasrud's face eroded by time and the elements. In S2 we have the father's face ravaged by a sudden accident. A well-wrought parallelism, to my mind. The "four years dead" does give us pause, but it doesn't require the creation of a 4th person. At least not for me. It just makes me realize that the speaker is in media res, so to speak — he's looking back on his father's funeral and anticipating Soc's funeral to come. So in that sense there is no "present, dead person" in the poem.

(robt)

[Janet Kenny]

The opening line of the poem is brilliant. As though we'd entered a room and interrupted a conversation. We don't know everything because the characters are in their own world and we are looking in. Soc Glasrud is real because of his tears and the wonderful "weathered headland". The emotions are clear enough and the rural setting also. I decided that Vince was the name of the draft horse.
The ghostly couplet resonates after I've finished reading the poem. The reversed stirrups haunt.
Marvellous poem. I read it before and was impressed but now it is cut free from the workshop I think it's terrific.
Janet

[Tim Murphy]

No need to preserve the fiction of anonymity here. Rhina helped edit it. Simon, I'm delighted that watching the tussle over this hooked you on the DE. Your comments are great. Rhina, of course, it reading it right; and it is a coterie poem, the coterie being those who have read my books which furnish all the context required.

Pater Vincit Omnia

'Vincere' means to vanquish.
His last words to a son
and daughters in his anguish
played with the Latin language.
He smiled and said "Vince won."

from Very Far North

Soc Glasrud makes his first appearance, but he can be googled, even by the above nickname. And as I pointed out, Dick Davis, Dana Gioia, Charles Martin, Dave Mason, Tim Steele, and I have all delivered the Glasrud lecture at MSUM. He's the Harvard PhD who told me to go to Yale so I could study with Warren, a pretty central figure in my life as well as Dad's. I shall footnote him when the poem is in book form, but Tom Fleming is publishing it in Chronicles where it must stand on its own.

[Margaret Moore]

This is the first time I've read 'Riderless Horses' with attention - possibly because it was posted when I was engaged in Non-Met modding.

A strong, memorable piece indeed.

(Have deleted a suggestion I made which derived from a careless misreading! Apologies.)
Margaret

[This message has been edited by Margaret Moore (edited November 27, 2004).]

[Janet Kenny]

Tim
Of course I did get the pun. All opera singers know vincere. The noun is what unimportantly foxes the reader who finds this poem in isolation. But there is no problem. The poem carries its own mysteries.
Janet

[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited November 26, 2004).]