[Jan Iwaszkiewicz]

I also felt Eliot as I read.

[Carl Copeland]

I like this, Nemo, probably a lot. Like David and Joe, I love the choral interludes.

Like Jan, I balk at the dense opening lines of S2. I guess despairing awe is meant to be deeper than crushing wonder, but the two seem so similar that it’s hard to make sense of one being on the “clearest edge” of the other.

Later, I thought “not while the dark is held at bay” would sound less affected.

Like everyone else, I’ll be returning to this—if not to comment, then to savor and learn.

A lovely elegy, Nemo. My sympathy.

[Mark McDonnell]

As so often with your poems, Nemo, the simplest phrase can be reconfigured and lent depth of meaning. Here, it's the title phrase "No More", as you employ it in this astonishing line

No face, no voice. No mind. No more—.

which hit me with huge force. Every day that we are alive, every second, we are adding more, however paltry, to our sum of experience. And there will come a day, a moment, where there is no "more" to be added.

This is a stunning poem, I think. It is a beautiful elegy but it also captures the messy, heart-stopping panic on the day of a death, the waiting for news, the heavy lines of communication and the slow, sinking realisation. It does the work of both things seamlessly.

I understand Jan's point, but I do think the commas, which force a careful slowing down for the reader on this line, work well to create that sense of realisation.

where what was, once, is no more there

Mark

[Jim Moonan]

.
To hold this intense sense of something no longer there, this sense of something so elusive, now in the form of absence; to hold it by the throat but gently so, is a miraculous feat of language, I think. That is nothing new coming from you, though, imho.

I absorbed this very much like Cameron did: in waves that took my breath away. At first, I overlooked the dedication and read the poem as if it was revealing a vision of the self. (Which it is, but is not). Then I realized that it is a meditation on a friend's passing, and it took my breath away again knowing how sorrow can be so suffocating.

It may not be the right time to mention this (it should really go without saying); it's just that I can't help but marvel at the miracle that is the poem's meter and rhyme and how they are virtually invisible except for what they leave behind for one to feel: a ringing and an aching echo of words that are placed in perfect position.

Equally as potentially inappropriate, I wondered why the italicized lines were so short and whether they would fit more neatly in the poem if they were made into couplets. But I don't doubt for a moment that you've carefully considered every syllable, every image, every word, every aspect of this before posting it. I've no doubt that it is how you want it to be. This one needs no workshopping. Thanks for the opportunity to see beyond my imagination

Yes to what Jan says is "awe as having an attendant despair."
Yes to how absence is both teacher and thief.
Yes to how "No face, no voice. No mind. No more—." lays on the page. The way it ends with the brusqueness of an em dash and a period. I felt the palpable absence.
Yes to the truth that cold hard facts can dissolve into doubt.
Yes to how starting and ending are twined, and how the two twined can be a start to writing poems like this.
Yes to the density of this poem.


I've only read it twice.

.

[Cally Conan-Davies]

Nemo

Very few poems leave me gobsmacked. This one does. I echo everything already said about it.

The second stanza struck me instantly as a poetic description of a black hole— "absence simply swallows thunder / where what was, once, is no more there". The syntax, and the total absence of slack here, and all the way through the poem, is what makes looking at this poem inescapable. It's part of the reason why one is compelled to read it again and again. The line has to end with "there". It's a presence in absence. It's the most powerful ambiguity we experience.: the continued presence, or feltness, of something that is absolutely gone.

The italicised bits are the genius of the poem, I think. It is another voice, another arrangement. They are essentially haiku. That's how I read and hear them.

The whole thing is a re-creation of the moment of shock, and the waves of shock that keep coming as one forces the thing to be understood.

On a very personal level, as an elegy for Michelle, it's absolutely right.

Bravo!

Cally

[David Callin]

Originally Posted by Carl Copeland

Like David and Joe, I love the choral interludes.

That's brilliantly put, Carl. I am now reading this almost as the text to one of Bach's Passions. Somehow that adds something to a poem that already had a lot.

[Jan Iwaszkiewicz]

All the praises here are so completely deserved. I am thoroughly enjoying what re-reading this poem calls up in me.

The echoes of Eliot are here but Eliot could never have written this. Here, beyond the technical competency and experimentation, is emotion and empathetic understanding of humanity.

[R. Nemo Hill]

Aww shucks, folks.
I think I shall remain uncharacteristically tight-lipped in my response here, and just say thank-you to all.

Nemo