[Richard G]

Hi Jim.

Just a quick note. I wasn't being sarcastic.
The thought never crossed my mind.
I truly meant I blamed myself for a poor reading
If you want to self-flagellate, far be it from me to intrude, but you weren't alone in your reading (see Hilary and Nemo's comments.) Besides, no reason for me to escape the hook entirely. Drey was so obscure, one might say wilfully so, that I had to go looking for it. Perhaps if I'd found a title with greater clarity much of this could have been avoided?

RG.

[Hilary Biehl]

Originally Posted by Richard G

They can be either, it's entirely up to you, or it could be a reference to (shotgun) shells.

Yes, shells from artillery fire occurred to me also.

I had no idea what "drey" meant. I do think maybe the title could be changed to clue the reader in a bit more.

[R. Nemo Hill]

I really think you don't need to do anything to the poem, Richard. Even the title will reward anyone who does a search, and anyone (like me) who does not do a search. It is like you have written two poems at once: no mean feat.

Nemo

[Richard G]

Hi Hilary.

I had no idea what "drey" meant.
Not surprising, that took a lot of finding.

Hi Nemo.

I really think you don't need to do anything to the poem,
Good news.



RG.

[Carl Copeland]

It’s a clever poem once you get the conceit—men broken by their birdfeeder battles with squirrels—but I was no closer after my fifth reading than after my first. That drains a lot of the humor out of the poem, though some still found plenty to enjoy.

The poem is metrically pretty regular, so I wondered why two lines were so different:

And you've heard it called "The Nuthouse"
which is why you scurry past.

You can shoehorn this into IT with headless lines, but they read more naturally as trimeter with initial anapests. If that’s an intentional effect, no problem.

Unless the German city of Kassel is known for its squirrels, I have to wonder why you’ve used a German variant of the Latin castellum. (The etymology of Kassel is actually disputed.)

[Richard G]

Hi Carl.

You can shoehorn this into IT with headless lines
For me both 'And' and 'which' are stressed/emphasised. Any alternatives?

Unless the German city of Kassel is known for its squirrels
It isn't, so far as I know, but it is was the site of a battle and surrender during WWII and such nominal serendipity could not be denied.

RG.

[David Callin]

Rich, The Knight & Drey is a great name for a pub, even if I lazily read the third word as a reference to a horse (thinking of "dray", no doubt), and I settled myself down for a rollicking poem about a classic down-at-heel pub - which wasn't really what I got.

It carries on rollicking - you handle the metre really well - but the whimsy factor of the Squirrel Wars was just too high for me. And I usually have quite a high tolerance level for whimsy. Put it down to personal taste, not the poem itself.

So this one is not for me. (I'd like to see what you do, one day, with the poem I thought I was reading.)

Cheers

David

[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by Richard G

For me both 'And' and 'which' are stressed/emphasised. Any alternatives?

Yeah, that’s what I meant by headless, both lines beginning with a stress. The problem is that “which” isn’t necessarily stressed, and “and” almost never is, except by promotion, and if you don’t know you’re supposed to promote them, it’s more natural to read “And you’ve heard” and “which is why” as anapests, shortening the line to trimeter. The occasional short or long line really isn’t a problem for me, but if it’s unintentional and you do want tet, here are two of many possibilities:

You’ve heard it labeled as "The Nuthouse,"
and that is why you scurry past.

It’s known to locals as "The Nuthouse,"
and that is why you scurry past.

[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by David Callin

I settled myself down for a rollicking poem about a classic down-at-heel pub - which wasn't really what I got.

It may be a good sign that this poem is getting such diametrically opposed reviews. Some of us think there’s not enough if the squirrel story doesn’t come through, some think there’s plenty without it, and David wishes he’d never found out!

[Matt Q]

Hi Richard,

I enjoyed this. The unsuccessful garden-knights with baffles and spinners, and their Sun Tzu quotes, burnt out and broken, but unable to let go, and drinking in the broken-down Knight and Drey. The title / pub name is clever, echoing "Night and Day" and setting up the garden-owner versus squirrel dynamic. I also like the hint the the "you" (the reader / narrator) might be a squirrel, given the "scurry past". This is my favourite of those you've posted so far.

FWIW I did know what a drey is. Maybe the word's better know in the UK? I think it'd be a shame to lose the title. Plus it nicely sets up and works well with part about squirrel nesting in their heads.

A couple of metrical things:

I tend hear:

And you've HEARD it CALLED "The NUThouse"
which is WHY you SCUrry PAST.

Likely you want both of these as headless lines, but absent a clear strong stress at the beginning, a reader may well hear a headless line as starting with an anapaest. I could go either way on the second, I guess, but the anapaest at the beginning of the first line kind steers me to hear the same in the second

I don't really hear this as iambic tetrameter:

the drawers | full of | grand mast | er plans

I guess because iambs don't make up the majority of the feet.


......................All came to this
slow twilight at the long road's end.


Just wondered if this could be more squirrel-themed. It seems a little generic.

This confused me a little:

The feeders, filled at such a cost,
they can't forget and so remember
how it was they came to cross
the Washing Line, the Borders' Edge.
Those Rubicons which led to woods
of squirrels nesting in their heads.

So, here it's the knights that cross the washing line and the border's edge? Likely I'm over-primed by endless video of clever squirrels shimmying along washing lines commando-style to the sound of a James Bond soundtrack, so I'd expected the squirrels crossing the washing line and the borders' edges on the way to the feeders, not the garden-defending bird-feeder-protecting humans as it seems to be here. I guess, then that the knights are going outward, away from their feeders?

Incidentally, shouldn't it "Border's Edge" or "Borders' Edges"? Can multiple borders have a single edge?

At the close, I wonder if an 8 word slogan would work better, so that you get a full line of tetrameter and, to my ear, a more solid closing line. "All that we did ..."? and then maybe something like "eight short words" two lines above?

best,

Matt