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Post by job on Jul 9, 2009 11:10:07 GMT -5
Groundwork
Poking out like smooth white mushroom caps From your cockle-burred skirt, your knees plant you Firmly in springtime’s grass-root government. You kneel in still-yellow grass, the winter- Scrapped works of last year’s garden growth, waiting For soil to reveal its green agenda.
After poring over gardening magazines And seed catalogs, “Sweet Joe Pie Plant, Joystick, Roman Shield, Love-Lies-Bleeding, Pygmy Torch, Soulmate...” – flower-names that part your petaled lips As if fleshing out beauty’s sacred laws. You chant them, reclaim them, spade to groundwork.
For spring turns root of commandment under Fruit of prayer; - and for you, it has always been A pure thrill to just sit and name like Eve did On her first look through Eden’s glossy pages Where her blooms born from soil’s soft crevasses Lay the patient groundwork for eternity.
JOB
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max
Junior Member
Posts: 19
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Post by max on Aug 5, 2010 9:51:39 GMT -5
It’s unfortunate that this one lingered so long with so little attention.
Mushroom cap knees for the groundworker is a little stroke of genius. It does exactly what I’d guess you wanted it to do (followed by the firm planting).
“Government” and “green agenda” are jarring, which often is a good thing but in this case feels at quite a variance with the tonal agenda of the poem itself. I think I understand the point about the nature of “true” government and what a true “green agenda” ought to look like. The poem doesn’t appear, however, to otherwise develop the concepts in terms that form such a full-frontal argument with conventional usages of “government” and “green agenda.” They don’t fit. Similarly, I’m not sure that “reclaim,” with its implication of ownership, is the word that the poem wants at the end of stanza two. It tinges the humility, contrition, participation, awe and Glory at the heart of the poem.
Organizationally, the word “After” at the head of stanza two partly suggests some sort of narrative relationship between the three stanzas that the poem overall does not support. Within the stanza itself, “After” does not ring true to the image of the groundworker, whom I at least cannot picture as waiting till AFTER finishing the magazines and catalogs to start chanting those luxurious names.
“Eden’s glossy pages” is a three word masterpiece. I can’t quickly think of a better instance of Imagist virtuosity that also so well shows the contemporaneity of the sacred past and present and the parallel and relevance of scripture to lived experience. Indeed, the last stanza overall is a well-wrought urn with all the words working together and no word wasted. I also like the boldness of naming Eve as the namer (or, at least, as co-namer).
More radically, I’ll say that the second and third stanzas work so well together (the pages of the magazines and Eden’s glossy pages, the sacred laws of beauty tied to commandments, the murmuring of floral names and fruitful prayer) that the first stanza feels orphaned and, perhaps, may usefully be deleted. Although I’d like to see the mushroom cap knees salvaged. In the third stanza, for example, mushroom cap knees can not only plant but can supplicate in fruitful prayer. I know you had a formal structure in mind for the poem that, if necessary, perhaps could be approximated, say, through a sonnet made of the last two stanzas and mushroom knees?
For what it’s worth.
Respectfully yours, -MS
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Post by estiel on Aug 11, 2010 7:50:02 GMT -5
Golly. Lovely poem and wonderful criticism. Everything Max said. Beginning with the second stanza is an excellent suggestion. I agree that the political suggestions in stanza one are out of place altogether. I love the flower names themselves (though I also don't know how/why they are "reclaimed") but "chants" that "part your petaled lips" is so lovely.
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Post by job on Sept 29, 2010 13:22:10 GMT -5
Max, Estiel,
Thank you for your thorough reading of Groundwork - and forgive me for getting so late back to you on your kind and instructive comments.
I have included my thoughts on your criticism - all judicious and fairly well thought out - as interpolations in Max's original post. I can't figure out how to italicize or otherwise highlight my comments, but I thought this might be the best way to respond.
My apologies if I've made more work for you than necessary.
And thank you again for the reading!
JOB
It’s unfortunate that this one lingered so long with so little attention.
Mushroom cap knees for the groundworker is a little stroke of genius. It does exactly what I’d guess you wanted it to do (followed by the firm planting).
“Government” and “green agenda” are jarring, which often is a good thing but in this case feels at quite a variance with the tonal agenda of the poem itself. I think I understand the point about the nature of “true” government and what a true “green agenda” ought to look like. The poem doesn’t appear, however, to otherwise develop the concepts in terms that form such a full-frontal argument with conventional usages of “government” and “green agenda.” They don’t fit. [The imagery is borrowed, slantwise, from the garden scene – equally out of place, or seemingly so, I might add – in Richard II, in which the gardener is implicitly compared to the ruler of a kingdom.
Go thou, and like an executioner Cut off the heads of too fast growing sprays, That look too lofty in our commonwealth: All must be even in our government. (33-36)
Eden was the ultimate – and as far as I can tell – only perfect kingdom on earth, so it is to its “rulers” – Adam and Eve – that we would best find an example of “grass-roots government.” The green agenda I will leave to your own judgment whether it fits what spring unfolds each year around April.] Similarly, I’m not sure that “reclaim,” with its implication of ownership, is the word that the poem wants at the end of stanza two. It tinges the humility, contrition, participation, awe and Glory at the heart of the poem. [Again, the creation is God’s, but we as “naming animals” were given the province of words – and it is that which the poem encourages – the claiming of words as our own and the claiming of words as having meaning.]
Organizationally, the word “After” at the head of stanza two partly suggests some sort of narrative relationship between the three stanzas that the poem overall does not support. Within the stanza itself, “After” does not ring true to the image of the groundworker, whom I at least cannot picture as waiting till AFTER finishing the magazines and catalogs to start chanting those luxurious names. [The gardener’s chanting of the names after reading them is the act of reclaiming, in a way – they’re not dead words on a page, but a living poem, a botanical litany whose vowels have been given life by the gardener’s informing breath. That’s how the Jews look at the Hebrew language – the vowels are only supplied when read out loud. – Estiel these remarks should answer your query, too.]
“Eden’s glossy pages” is a three word masterpiece. I can’t quickly think of a better instance of Imagist virtuosity that also so well shows the contemporaneity of the sacred past and present and the parallel and relevance of scripture to lived experience. Indeed, the last stanza overall is a well-wrought urn with all the words working together and no word wasted. I also like the boldness of naming Eve as the namer (or, at least, as co-namer).
More radically, I’ll say that the second and third stanzas work so well together (the pages of the magazines and Eden’s glossy pages, the sacred laws of beauty tied to commandments, the murmuring of floral names and fruitful prayer) that the first stanza feels orphaned and, perhaps, may usefully be deleted. [The first stanza is necessary to set the trajectory of the poem and establish the character of my subject – in this case a woman. It is important, as you note, that it is a woman doing the work. The first stanza fills this out as nicely as her skirt reveals her knees.] Although I’d like to see the mushroom cap knees salvaged. In the third stanza, for example, mushroom cap knees can not only plant but can supplicate in fruitful prayer. I know you had a formal structure in mind for the poem that, if necessary, perhaps could be approximated, say, through a sonnet made of the last two stanzas and mushroom knees?
For what it’s worth.
Respectfully yours, -MS
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max
Junior Member
Posts: 19
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Post by max on Oct 4, 2010 16:56:01 GMT -5
JOB--No forgiveness for delay is appropriate. I'd be disappointed if you didn't have far more pressing things to do than checking in on message boards.
The explanation of the reference to Richard II clarifies your intent, but I'm still having trouble seeing it as working. The use of the word "government" in a gardening scene I don't think is enough to trigger the allusion, especially considering that "government" conjures a far more immediate contemporary inference that easily overpowers a thin allusion and particularly when combined with "green agenda." If I'm correct that the allusion as employed here and the context your poem furnishes do not adequately support one another, then a reader who is not the writer will be more likely jarred by the familiar (and currently ubiquitous) meaning of the terms "government" and "green agenda (although, I am hardly one on whom nothing is lost). Certainly language stolen from another source can work in a poem in its own way apart from (or in addition to) knowledge of the referent, but here, again, "government" and "green agenda" are too overstuffed with connotations that I think are damaging to your poem.
It is clear to me now in light of your intention with the first stanza that to delete or reorganize it would be to write a poem different from the one you wanted, which obviously is beyond the purview of any would-be critic to advise (or at least should be). That said, I do think that the poem as currently presented is better without the first stanza, and that the poem as you intended it would benefit from greater clarity in the opening.
My mention of the order of chanting the flowers' names amounts to nothing more than a stylistic preference that may be safely ignored. Or, MORE safely ignored than the rest of it.
Respectfully, -MS
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Post by job on Oct 5, 2010 11:00:40 GMT -5
Max,
Let me clarify "slantwise" in my earlier clarification. It is not an allusion (which would be too thin, anyway, as you note, for anyone to be expected to discern) but a "borrowing." The word itself has marvellously suggestive parallels in horticulture. I brought up Shakespeare as the exemplary use of it in my own reading memory.
Put another way, I feel strongly about the line because it forces the reader to examine the more basic meaning of the word - which is an echo of the overall theme, after all. If that means I have to chance waiting out the current politcal hub-bub before it gets a fair hearing, so be it.
Here's one possibly change (in caps to highlight). It may or mayn't better build the bridge between the first stanza and its sequel, but it is about as far from my Parnassian guns as I'm willing to budge.
Poking out like smooth white mushroom caps From your cockle-burred skirt, your knees plant you Firmly in springtime’s grass-root government. You kneel in still-yellow grass, the winter- Scrapped works of last year’s KINGDOM waiting For soil to reveal its green agenda.
Best,
JOB
p.s. And thanks again for your attention to this! I am much obliged and take your suggestions for better, not worse.
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max
Junior Member
Posts: 19
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Post by max on Oct 5, 2010 12:32:21 GMT -5
Well I think that little change is about perfect. The chief connotation of "kingdom" for nearly any of your likely readers perfectly provides the context you're looking for. Moreover, I think it reorganizes the concepts of government and green agenda in a way that ironically draws power from the very ways those two terms are commonly used now, i.e., the juxtaposition thickens the meaning of those terms as well as the meaning of kingdom, Eden, garden, gardening, etc.
Yours, -MS
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