[Siham Karami]

Thanks for your most helpful and thoughtful input, Matt! (And I’m glad to be back, the feedback is so worthwhile.) First I’m very happy that you liked the original first line. I actually thought it was a stronger beginning exactly as you said, but am always ready to revise and reconsider. I know its lack of regularity is dissonant with the overall rhythm, but hoped that would jive with the rest of it somehow.

Also thanks for your suggestion about fingertips and bones, which I took; very receptive and it inspired some other changes as you can see. I prefer “drones” as a verb where it picks up on the “bones” new more effective placement, and the foghorn was more confusing perhaps (and I actually used “foghorn blue” in another poem so wanted to change it). “Blue” as a noun could be many things but for me adds a note of sorrow. I changed the last line to see if it works, and hope the change to the penultimate line echoes the earlier harp to give it a sort of coherence without saying “finally.”

Re S3, for me it reminds me of my parents and of an era where mornings began with radio - with commercials and occasional static between songs, although I didn’t say that. It’s only a ghost of a suggestion. Maybe it doesn’t matter who Walter Cronkite is, he’s a specific man who bid us farewell. Half the people famous in this hour will be forgotten some years down the road, and the value of a year shrinks with age, but is that really a shrinking or is it an approach to a more timeless state, “floating on a sound?” And “Sound” is also a name for a body of water as in “Puget Sound” we could see from our house when I was a child in Seattle. So for me it has that sense too. Maybe I should put a footnote lol. Hope the revision is an actual improvement, but I’m open to all suggestions.
Thanks again,
Siham

[Matt Q]

Hi again, Siham.

I think dropping the comma from the first line maybe helps with the metrical issue others some had, since the reader is now less likely to hear a caesura, which is what would get in the way of a naturally promoted "and".

Rereading, I now see that S3 follows on from S2, and that "so" has a logical function -- it's "so that". I had read it as more of a non-sequitor: "So, television news is now a ghost". Now I read television becomes a ghost as a consequence of the universe as a waveform passing through. On type of wave occluding another. And the fading (of news TV) is like a WC's farewell. The stanza seems to fit into the poem better, for me, read that way.

Somehow -- maybe in part because of war currently being all over the news (TV and radio) -- I have the sense of war being in the background of the poem, a shadow perhaps, and so your choice of "drones" seem to add to that. Along with the awful drumming (suggesting war drums), Walter Cronkite's association with war reporting, and the word "wars". Maybe it's just me, but intended or not, I think it adds something to the poem.

I like the new last line, and the double meaning of "sound", which fits in with the other water/wave imagery in the poem. I do miss "finally" from the penultimate line, though. The revised version maybe has as stronger image, but I lose the sense of time and waiting that the original had, which for me had more of an emotional impact.

best,

Matt

[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by Matt Q

I prefer the original S1. With regard to line order, the original L1 makes for a very strong opening line, I think. It grabs my attention. It's new position at the end of the stanza doesn't work so well for me; it seems more of an afterthought.

I also didn't have an issue with the original L1. Your new version of it seems clunky to me, less naturally phrased, though yes, it yields a very regular IP.

Pace Matt, would you consider taking only half his advice about the original L1? I think he’s right about leaving it in that position, but I so miss the revised “I know you dying, know you too alive.” A smooth opening line draws you into a metrical poem. It may be less naturally phrased, but hardly clunky, and isn’t that one of the things poetry does so well: “a tune beyond us, yet ourselves”? True, I’m not the connoisseur of irregularity that most of you are, but “too” also added a dimension of meaning: “too alive” is when the heart throbs with love, excitement, fear.

[Matt Q]

Interesting point, Carl. I'd not seen the double read of "too alive". The issues I'd had with the revised line was the dropping of "I", and that the "too" seemed redundant. But if "too" is doing some work, then I guess there's also the option of:

I know you dying, I know you too alive.

With or without the comma, I guess, as there's no other punctuation in the poem and the "too" would require commas as well I think. An "epic caesura" like what Shakespeare done. Classic "loose" IP, and five clear stresses. Assuming Siham wants the "too alive" reading, of course.

[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by Matt Q

... there's also the option of:

I know you dying, I know you too alive.

... An "epic caesura" like what Shakespeare done. Classic "loose" IP, and five clear stresses.

I still prefer it without the second “I,” but I’m a sucker for regularity. I agree that your “compromise” is metrically clearer than the original and, as such, an improvement.

[Siham Karami]

Thanks, Matt and Carl, for coming back to this. I posted another revision above.

Upon thinking further, I want the original first line without the comma. Your point about the two I’s was spot-on, Matt, maybe for different reasons. For me, I wanted an equality between the N and the heart. The “hands” are the N’s, which becomes possible with the second “I,” not so clear without it. (For me fwiw I used to play piano, took lessons as a child - my parents’ thing - but would get tired of practicing and just spend some time looking at my hands as if they were a personality.) In the poem I’m hinting that a person has a relationship with their various body parts, notably hands (a significantly human thing) and the heart. Also there’s a sort of tandem thing I’m feeling about it. The extra “too,” despite having 2 possibilities, is just too much off-subject I guess for my taste. Other than that I also prefer the “finally” and the “glissando” as I sat on it awhile doesn’t seem to add anything. I wanted to add “odd-shaped” because I’m thinking of these really old lutes that seemed to be competing for Most Unpredictable Design, and frankly I’m fascinated with those who actually play them. But that too is a distraction so. Finally it is. Thanks again for your input!

Siham

[Rick Mullin]

Hi Siham,


Your revisions have really improved the poem. When I first read it, I thought... hmmm, I wonder what giving this a rhyme scheme might do. I'm no longer thinking that at all.

Two gnitty suggestions. Change "Vast orchestras" to "The orchestra". As in: the one orchestra. Vast orchestras--well they are all pretty big. Even with the plural choirs, a single engine or universe in the orchestra makes sense and grounds the imagery.

And, the "So" starting the intriguing S3 would be better as "The". It's a curve ball stanza, and "So" is hitting it too hare, I think.

My only other problem is that you posted it in ~~The Deep End~~
Defund the ~~The Deep End~~ ~,:^)

I can feel the experimental chances you too on this one, and they paid off. It's very good.

Rick

[Cally Conan-Davies]

Arrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I concur with the Rickster. The final revision is exquisite.

I absolutely love reading this aloud. It really comes into itself as music. It's body-driven, a body of sound and emotion. The rhythms are captivating. I'm not even thinking as I read it. I'm carried.

The first line is perfect. As is the last. I love where the last line has come to, the perfectly ambiguous 'sound'.

Yes!

Cally

[Siham Karami]

Rick,
Thanks so much for this feedback. I agree with those two changes and will probably add them soon. (Lots going on at the moment.) So glad you liked it! Re the Deep End - lol - I thought I was doing a good deed by posting in it. There was always talk about reviving the Deep End. Probably was a band somewhere by that name that never got off the ground. It survived all this time after all, being both deep, and an end of something, like the coelanth burping under glass. ;- D

CALLIGRAPHY! So unexpected and amazing to find you hear, a rare moment in time. And I’m thrilled that you too enjoyed this. It was well-worth posting it and returning to the sphere. I spent some time doing prose and my whole heart drove me back to poetry. Nothing else works for me it seems. I’ve been writing more lately, so this gives me hope that I’m not going down the proverbial drain. Ha. That’s probably the best time to write anyway. “Sorrowing down a drainpipe’s ear.” I dearly hope you will post something for the road or maybe all the ceilings of the world that missed you. Xox

[Cally Conan-Davies]

I dropped in because I saw your name!!!!!!!!!!! And Rick's, too, so it felt a bit like old times!!!

But I am thrilled to hear you have returned to poetry. You are a poet. You are the heart of a poet! I laugh to myself because I cannot imagine you as anything else!

Drains are well-worth peering into!!! Lot of good stuff goes down the drain!!!!

Keep ----------->>>>>>>

Calligraphy