[Turner Cassity]

Bed-time Story


The sun has smouldered low. Its flaxen light
drizzles through the birches to the snow
where sheep stand still as haybales, beige on white.
A shepherd with a shoulderful of straw,
brindled by the shadows, softly walks.
The sheep flock round; he swings his load to strew
the strands on pillowed drifts like yellow locks,
then hastens homeward bearing sustenance
against the ghostly dark. He holds small hands
and spins his children tales of happenstance
and golden fleeces in enchanted lands.
Their minds woolgather. Snuggled down in bed,
they drift on snowy pillows; yellow strands
of hair glow like the hay their father spread.




Comments:

Small children are a notoriously difficult subject. It is so hard to avoid ten-little-fingers-and-ten-little-toes. This handles that problem beautifully, but may be too literary for its own good. “Their minds woolgather” is perfect.

[Catherine Chandler]

Bed-time Story

In “Bed-time Story” imagery and imagination superbly complement one another. I particularly admire its musicality, near perfect enjambment, interesting rhyme scheme and exquisite discourse.

My own poor spirit, constantly trying to put its “chaos into fourteen lines”, found in this sonnet that “brief solace” so eloquently described by Wordsworth. “Bed-time Story” will bathe you in its “flaxen light” from L1 to L14.

[A. E. Stallings]

This is very attractive, rather like a beautifully illustrated picture book. It is rather rich in modifiers and "poetic" words (such as "brindled", "flaxen," "happenstance,"), which could be a weakness; but this seems deliberate and to contribute to the golden glow of this. "Minds woolgather" is delightful. The very end seems to refer also to spinning straw into gold, yet another tale--perhaps the suggestion is enough. Hmmm. A fairytale within a fairytale.

[Tim Murphy]

I like this enormously, recalls to mind The Sheves by EAR.

[Cally Conan-Davies]

This is magic.

Cally

[Janet Kenny]

This is very lovely. Like a Samuel Palmer painting. A bit too sentimental for my taste but undeniably rich and rewarding. Expertly fashioned.
Janet

[Janice D. Soderling]

I don't know if it is because I am presently so into Chas. Dickens, but this pastoral sonnet opened to a perfect mood of nostalgia as winter slowly releases its grip where I live (not England, though mentally I am transported to that noble small island).

I admire the idea that light drizzles, and the poem slowly drizzles through my mind like a lovely late winter mist sliding down a snowy hill, brief and nearly tangible.

I admire that the author uses "flaxen light" to circumvent "flaxen strands" while cleverly making us aware of the latter term. Possibly there are many city-dwellers who have no idea what flax looks like, but it is very much like blond hair, of a subdued yellow a little less bright than straw. The nuances of color (flaxen, snow, birches, beige on white, straw, yellow locks, brindled by shadows, ghostly dark, golden fleece, snowy pillows, yellow strands, glow, hay) are important here in a small-scale setting appropriate to small children. It makes me want to hold my breath so as not to disturb the shifting nuances of color.

My heart warms at the idea of sheep standing "still as haybales". I have to praise the sounds of "shepherd with a shoulderful of straw", and "then hastens homeward", and "strew/straw. I am admiring of children's minds woolgathering, "tales of happenstance". The snow drifts, the children drift in dreams, their hair drifts on the pillows.

Admittedly this sonnet is hard to title, and I find the title bland and wish the poet had not used a hyphen, but these are worldly things and easily fixed, should the poet care to do so.

Apart from the title, not a single word is awry, or dips into banality, though it easily could in the hands of someone less aware of what they were doing.

All this emanating from the idea of a man tossing out straw onto snow and his children snug on their pillows. Behold! This is how a Poet sees the world.

[Kate Benedict]

This sonnet has a wonderful flow and there's no doubt it achieves its author's goals. I find the saccahrine tone alienating and don't believe that childhood or parenthood was ever like this. Nothing but light here while even fairy tales are rife with shadows and darkness. So I weave back to the beginning and say, yes, it is a fine bed-time story, one to calm a child's fears before dropping off.

[Roger Slater]

What everyone said. The dense sounds and the enjambment and alliteration give this a lush Anglo-Saxon feel, though with a warmth and tender emotion not usually associated with Old English. The ultimate impact of the sonnet is perhaps less powerful than the textre and cadence of the words along the way, but not by much. I think less modern picture book than old fashioned etchings or engravings, maybe Durer. Anyway, this may very well have my vote.

[R. Nemo Hill]

I think Kate has put her finger on the heart of this one: it is a bedtime story and not a fairytale. The two narrative forms do overlap, and so the poem will attract the attention of those interested in both or either. However, those whose fascination tends more toward fairytale will probably be the poem's most vocal detractors due to the darkness that has been omitted entirely from the picture. For this very reason I think the title is necessary. For someone can very well set out to write a Bedtime Story even though they know quite well how to write a Fairytale, and thus the present title broadcasts this intention quite clearly. The argument could be made that a lullaby must needs be simple. Yet as a poem, this could certainly be made more satisfyingly complex if some hint of that darkness which is being kept at bay were to be implied somewhere in the sonnet (whose turn seems made-to-order for such a shadow), some trace of those childhood fears whose urgency might more fully justify the poem's choice of strategy, it's Field of Light. This suggested, of course, by one with (even as a child) a predilection for the Dark Forest of Fairytale.

All those alliterative s's and h's are quite impressive in context.

Nemo