[Mark McDonnell]

Wintering

For a long time he watches from the window,
watches the waving trees that break the horizon
where the road grows faint, dips and vanishes.
Something will be coming, he has heard,
perhaps in motley, with apples and wooden toys,
perhaps to bring news of some dreadful struggle.

Or perhaps, he thinks, it has already been,
has crept into the room like Christmas Eve
to kiss his brow. It knew he was not ready,
and before it left — smiling, walking backwards —
had leaned close to his ear to sing him songs
of his childhood, songs of roaming and return.
X
X

[Matt Q]

Hi Mark

Lots to like here. I love the "motley" line, and the way the thing that might have already come, knowing he wasn't ready, then leaves "smiling, walking backwards". The poem leaves itself open to the reader to decide the precise details, and wonder what came (or might have come) and why and how it might have impacted the man, which leaves me to reread and ponder -- something I like doing with poems.

"dreadful" stuck out for me. I'm not exactly sure why. Maybe because it's so general or maybe because it's abstract. I dunno, it just seems a bit too bland. Actually "struggle" is similar on that front, some maybe it's the combination of two abstract/general words. "bring news" is pretty general too, now that I think about it. In contrast, "perhaps in motley, with apples and wooden toys," is a lovely line which manages to convey its idea with concrete, specific images. (I love the use of "motley" here).

So maybe there's a more specific, image-based word/phrase or even whole line or that is more suggestive of image somehow -- which would similarly have the effect of being specific. Again, I'm admiring the "motley" line which offers a specific image but manages to convey something more general (can be read as a metaphor). So, I dunno, maybe the thing that comes, comes limping or on crutches with powder burns, say. Something but in that direction that conveys it's come from some dreadful struggle?

In the close of S2 I wonder a little about "sing", "songs", "songs" in the space of two lines which maybe makes the close sonically flatter than it could be, but I've no suggestions, and maybe am being overly picky -- unlikely, I know, but there's always a first time

Matt

[R. Nemo Hill]

I adore this, Mark. And Matt's suggestions bring up an interesting issue: the balance in a poem between striking imagery and a more leveling sort of imagery. He hesitantly calls it bland here, and others might call it cliché—. But for me it is a matter of allowing the mind settle, and thus providing an unostentatious space in which certain more prominent bits of language can leap out in aching silhouette. That line . . .

perhaps in motley, with apples and wooden toys,

. . . is certainly superb, yet I wonder if it would stand out with such force if it were surrounded by other lines of similar qualities. It's like the climactic note soaring out from an aria, a note that distinguishes itself in part by the help of a less heroic background music. I've written poems where I tried for such a note in every moment of the piece, and that is a viable approach but, equally, I think it is a creative feat to create a background landscape out of which such climactic notes can soar. In this poem I find the whole orchestration so finely tuned, and I sense it is those lower-luster moments that so skillfully move the poem along, smoothing the ground for that line's sudden crescendo. The whole poem is a state of waiting at the familiar window, facing the familiar world—all the while watching for the extraordinary. That line embodies all those expectations, thrillingly. And at the same time it helps sculpt, by contrast, the quieter tones of the quotidian embrace which, in turn, inspires such fantasies. The two moments shape one another, "roaming and return". For me it is a perfect poem.

Nemo

[Joe Crocker]

I like Nemo’s take on this. It begins matter of factly, flatly, monotone and unadorned. Then it adds colour and oddity and mystery. I loved the spirit walking backwards as it left, and its whispers to the child within.

[John Riley]

You've pulled off something difficult here--a poem about the type of memories that could so easily become so what. "dreadful" is reminiscent of other stories but that seems to be the point. It links the poem to a larger tradition. We sometimes try too hard to avoid what may be seen as cliche to the point everything is unfamiliar and distant.

[Jan Iwaszkiewicz]

Hi Mark,

I echo the praise already given. Paraphrasing what Nemo said. Jewels can get lost in their setting. Here is the authenticity of voice allied to flashes of transcendence.

Thoroughly enjoyed

[Jim Moonan]

,

Originally Posted by R. Nemo Hill

I find the whole orchestration so finely tuned, and I sense it is those lower-luster moments that so skillfully move the poem along, smoothing the ground for that line's sudden crescendo. The whole poem is a state of waiting at the familiar window, facing the familiar world—all the while watching for the extraordinary.
Nemo

Coincidentally, I've been enamored with maestros lately. I've been watching clips of them at work and I'm in awe of their ability to embody music and to emanate it. I watched Maestro and was blown away by this scene of him conducting. It occurs to me that a poet must be both orchestra and maestro.

For me, it's as quiet and ethereal a winter poem as I can remember ever reading (though my memory is not good : )). The opening “long view” of something coming gives me an uneasiness but it doesn't last — and it returns again at the poem's close but now I have been soothed by the quietness in between. I love a quiet poem. The voice can be heard as if it is a singular sound coming out of the silence. This poem has that quality to it.

The title sets the tone. Using a verb sets the pace of the poem. Wintering can mean so many things. It adds a lot to the timbre that is the quietness in the poem. Although winter typically connotes coldness, wintering does not. In fact, my mind is drawn to something like the timbre of a dying hearth holding glowing embers. I’m not sure why that is. Wintering seems to speak of the N's mood as he recounts someone (not him) sitting at the window waiting for something to come, but then he thinks maybe it has already come, and then the N depicts a sleeping child on Christmas Eve being visited by someone who has come to spirit him away but doesn't. Instead, the visitor sings softly in the child's ear before exiting the room, again in a quiet way.. It's an amorphous presence. Quiet.

As Matt says, the poem leaves itself open to the reader to discover themselves whatever they will. Good p[oetry knows how to do that: lead the reader somewhere but then leave them there to discover for themselves what they will. In that regard the poem does so exquisitely, taking bits and pieces and loosely arranging them to blend into one.

The poem hints at being about death but it is not a poem about death anymore than winter is a season of death. In fact, each season brings with it its own aspect of death trailing behind it.
I could hear Emily Dickinson's Because I could not stop for Death .

Oddly, I could also feel a dusting of A Child's Christmas In Wales in the child-like ambiance of the poem. (But that may be due to the fact that I just spent all day with a group of small children reading books — some of them Christmas stories that were still lying around. To further cement the association, at one point I pushed a low coffee table up against the picture window to let them climb up and look out into the woods. I think they saw everything you could possibly see out the window and then some. Kids.)

I also love the way the trees “break” the horizon.

It’s great to read new poems of yours again…

.

[Clive Watkins]

This is a beautifully elusive poem, Mark. As others have remarked, it leaves the reader interesting work to do.

The first stanza leaves open the question of what it is that is imminent. It does this in at least four ways. It warns us, first, that the imminent event is no more than a rumour. Secondly, it offers two examples to illustrate the kind of thing that has been rumoured. Thirdly, it indicates (in “perhaps”) that these are only two examples out of what might be a longer list of possibilities. Finally, therefore, it leaves the speaker (and us the readers) to speculate about what such other possibilities might be – which puts us in the position of those who first spread the rumour.

In the second stanza, the speaker initiates his own version of the thing-that-is-about-to-be – except it has already happened but not been noticed. That is, the speaker, still without being able to say what the thing-that-is-about-to-be actually is, imagines it as being in the past. He goes on to invent the scene in which a quasi-parental figure (troped ambiguously, and with an edge of menace, as an “It”) has “crept into the room like Christmas Eve”, where “like Christmas Eve” at first seems to be a periphrasis for “as if on Christmas Eve” but in fact says that the “It” that creeps in is an event, not a person. And what is the significance of the smile, and of the walking backwards? As if leaving the presence of a dignitary? As if taking special care not to disturb the somnolent or sleeping person? And whose childhood do the songs concern? The childhood of the sleeper (who might therefore – but not necessarily – be an adult)? Or the singer? And what does the singing of such songs suggest about whatever it is that the sleeper is not yet “ready” for? Are the songs offered as a comfort? If so, despite the reference in the first stanza to “motley … apples and wooden toys”, the thing that has already arrived but not yet been observed sounds not at all comfortable.

It is not hard – it is perhaps tempting – to begin to imagine a biographical (an autobiographical) back-story for the poem – for example, a story concerning an absent and intermittently returning parent, one that would handily go some way towards “explaining” the poem’s shifts and ambiguities. Indeed, at some level, it may be that a “back-story” of this kind is what the poem is “really about”. But, as it stands, such a naturalistic approach is at every turn defeated by the poem’s skilfully in-built evasions and misdirections – which is one of the main things that makes it so intriguing and worthwhile.

I would add, more briefly, that it also seems to me beautifully cadenced in its interweaving of line and syntax, and a rhythm that swerves towards and away from strict metre in a most expressive manner.

Fine poem, Mark!

Clive

[Mark McDonnell]

Thanks folks. I apologise for the lateness of reply.

Hi Matt

I’m glad you like this, on the whole. I think, for what reason I’m not entirely sure, that I found myself wanting to change gear with this one and to write something that felt somehow quieter than my poems sometimes do, perhaps. And that manifested in a lack of rhyme and alliterative techniques, a looser metre, and yes a purposeful simplicity to some of the language. In the lines you point out (L5 and 6) I like the contrast between the precision of image for the joyful possibility and the more vague language that follows, which I hoped contained an ominous quality in its vagueness. I get your point about the last two lines and “sing/songs/songs”. I had experimented with possibilities before posting, with alternatives like “hum”, “lull” etc but I kept ending up where I started with the simplest option. But your pickiness is genuinely always useful and appreciated, just as much as the less critical crits.

Thank you Nemo, I don’t know what to say to your last sentence but I’ll take it happily. I think if one person ever thinks that about even one poem we have written, that’s a success. That connection is why we do this, surely.

And yes, the expectation to fill every space of a poem with phrases and images that surprise, that are fresh and charged, to “load every rift with ore”, is one that I often feel a self-inflicted pressure to meet. It is hard and can sometimes block a poem from getting going. I feel like I allowed myself more of the leeway of simplicity here and it took me to an unexpected place where the overall mood became as important as any individual image or line. Thanks, as always, for your delicate reading of this.

Thanks Joe. Yes, similar to what I said to Nemo, as I was writing the opening three lines I was aware of feeling that this was probably the quietest opening to a poem I had written. I tried to get rid of the worry of not providing any attempt at any kind of linguistic fireworks or surprise and to trust the simple description, and trust that the poem would go somewhere interesting. Which hopefully it does.

Thanks John. Yes, “news of some dreadful struggle” in its way is as consciously “poetic” a line as the preceding one, in that it sounds like something one has read many times before (but not something one would ever say in casual conversation). It sound old and somewhat literary. So flirting with that sense of familiarity was a risk I was happy to take here.

Thanks Jan. I’m glad you enjoyed it and for the reasons you give. I’m pleased the voice has an authenticity to it.

Hi Jim,

I’m very pleased that you pick up on the poem’s quietness as a prevailing mood. And also that you like the title, titles usually being something I am horrible at. I’m happy that people seem to have felt that the poem’s ambiguity strikes the right balance too. I love “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” btw.

Clive, your close analysis of the poem is so generous and enlightening, as has been your wonderfully incisive readings of other poems of mine. I’m genuinely very grateful for them.

Thanks all.

[David Callin]

Late to the party as usual, I too like this a lot, Mark. I seem to find a lot of Edward Thomas in it, especially the last line (and even Hardy and Stevenson).

Anyway, that's enough name-dropping. L5 is indeed a cracker, redolent of Christmas gifts of yore. (I remember getting this sort of thing, in the early 60s, before we all became consumers. And it's definitely what my dad would have got, which me thinks that your dad is probably in here too - "smiling, walking backwards", possibly - and that's no bad thing.)

Really good.

Cheers

David