[Alexandra Baez]

I like the new sharpness of L3, complete with your apt shift at the colon. I hope your sleep blesses it.

"Battle" seems fine, although I think I might prefer "struggle." It's true that the pleasant sound of the original passage initially beguiled me into overlooking the unconventional "grapple" usage. And I actually think it would be great if English could embrace the construction "grapple to." It doesn't even fly in the face of "grapple"'s definition, after all. (But how do such linguistic innovations become accepted? Does some brave writer or speaker always initially have to offer himself up to the hounds of misunderstanding and protest?)

[Michael Cantor]

Alexandra - I think I choked on a thesaurus. "Struggle" is much better, I indicated I was going with "struggle", and then I typed in "battle". Go figure. I changed it to "struggle".

[Alexandra Baez]

😃Michael, yes, I'd been primed first by my own idea and then by yours for "struggle," which left me feeling muddled by bias when it came to "battle," a bias that I was grappling with and which left me voicing lenience for "battle." But after a good sleep, I can confidently agree with you that "struggle" is much better.

[Matt Q]

Hi Michael,

I preferred the couplets of the first two stanzas in the order you had them originally.

For me, the first couplet didn't tip your hand. I'd say the poem can be read either way until the very last line. Basically we get an embattled N who's at the mercy of worsening storms and seas, who correctly sees that something's deeply wrong here. But it's not until the final line that poem that we see what he's not seeing.

We might gather from the Fox/rocks couplet that building a wall is ultimately an futile measure, but that doesn't give away the poem's turn/resolution: even if you fully accept climate change and it's man-made causes, you'd still likely build a sea wall higher if that would protect your house for longer.

Also that N names Fox may mean he watches it uncritically and is a climate denier, but it might not. Maybe he names for Fox for the irony (a climate-denying channel reporting on the result of it), or he may be saying "we" to indicate his community without sharing their views. Basically, he may be saying "Fox" knowingly, or not. He may be being self-critical, or not.

Anyway, I think in the original order or couplets there's a deepening that suits the progression of the poem. Or maybe another way to say it is that S1 is more specific (this cottage being taken by the sea), which seems to fit the more specific watching this on TV couplet. S2 seems more general (a summary of changes that have taken place over time) and hence better supports for the more encompassing "our universe" couplet.

Matt

[Michael Cantor]

Alexandra - "struggle" it is.

Matt - thanks for coming back on this - you make some good points, but on balance I think I'll stay with the current placement of the closing couplets of S1 and S2. I like separating the neighbors cottage from the interview on Fox - in actual fact, it was Fox that was broadcasting from a relatively new beachfront
home (securely anchored to pilings extending halfway to China) more than ten years ago when a series of less formidable houses slid into the sea - but I also (internally) link Fox to the ignorance at the end of S3. It's a close call, but I prefer the present structure.