George Dance

Commuting


Bus crammed, I squeeze and fall into a seat,
Trapped by the heat, flesh, sweat, and noise, where I
Turn to stare at the deep cobalt sky
And miles of matching boxes on the street
Which break to a new picture suddenly --
Black velvet crossed by lines of red and white
Shining beads, like rosaries of light
Stretching out towards infinity.
So many lives are threaded to those beads,
Each one with its own hidden histories,
Its unknown thoughts, dreams, joys, and agonies,
Each one which lives and loves and laughs and bleeds --
It's past. I shift, relax into my seat,
And breathe in human life, so warm, so sweet.

OB

On Apr 11, 10:04 am, "George Dance" <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> wrote:
> Commuting
>
> Bus crammed, I squeeze and fall into a seat,
> Trapped by the heat, flesh, sweat, and noise, where I
> Turn to stare at the deep cobalt sky

If this was me I would fret over two things here: the dullness of the
verbs (squeeze, fall, turn, stare: at least two of these might be
replaced with something a bit more vivid: I'd be tempted to put "leer"
or "gawp" for "stare") and the enjambment. Here and in your previous
sonnet (which this is much better than), enjambment distracts from the
meaning rather than reinforcing it, as it should do. It just says
"oops. I need to start a new line".

> And miles of matching boxes on the street
> Which break to a new picture suddenly --
> Black velvet crossed by lines of red and white
> Shining beads, like rosaries of light
> Stretching out towards infinity.
> So many lives are threaded to those beads,
> Each one with its own hidden histories,
> Its unknown thoughts, dreams, joys, and agonies,

Does the reader really need to be told this?

> Each one which lives and loves and laughs and bleeds --

The syntax is clumsy here ("Each one" expects something outside the
relative clause, even if only a participle). Perhaps you meant "Each
one of which".

> It's past. I shift, relax into my seat,
> And breathe in human life, so warm, so sweet.

I think I have the idea, but you need to make your sweaty, noisy bus a
bit nastier at the beginning, and your road to Damascus vision a bit
more compelling, for the change in the speaker's attitude to really
come across. Nothing here really shows that human life is warm or
sweet. Did the vision of all those little lives frighten the speaker
("It's past" hints so), or inspire him with tender thoughts, or what?

This is worth working on, I think.

David

"George Dance" <georgedance04@yahoo.ca> wrote in message
news:1176303891.132204.135500@d57g2000hsg.googlegr oups.com...
> Commuting
>
>
> Bus crammed, I squeeze and fall into a seat,
> Trapped by the heat, flesh, sweat, and noise, where I
> Turn to stare at the deep cobalt sky
> And miles of matching boxes on the street
> Which break to a new picture suddenly --
> Black velvet crossed by lines of red and white
> Shining beads, like rosaries of light
> Stretching out towards infinity.
> So many lives are threaded to those beads,
> Each one with its own hidden histories,
> Its unknown thoughts, dreams, joys, and agonies,
> Each one which lives and loves and laughs and bleeds --
> It's past. I shift, relax into my seat,
> And breathe in human life, so warm, so sweet.

I can reiterate what OB has said...

In any poem all lines and words can be softened or sharpened
with revision, depending on the tone and intention...

eg. line 7, for example drop the word 'like'
for, for example: 'Shining beads, sweet rosaries of light"

is this was done the poem could be transformed...

words of cosmology like 'infinity', and for me; 'god'
are worse no-nos than 'like'. Any poet worth hir salt
has a strong grasp and interest in cosmology...

but the utterance of it must be fresh and incitefull...

-David.

Ps unlike OB I thought the enjambment was OK.

>

George Dance

On Apr 11, 10:34 pm, "OB" <nevilemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Apr 11, 10:04 am, "George Dance" <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> wrote:
>
> > Commuting
>
> > Bus crammed, I squeeze and fall into a seat,
> > Trapped by the heat, flesh, sweat, and noise, where I
> > Turn to stare at the deep cobalt sky
>
> If this was me I would fret over two things here: the dullness of the
> verbs (squeeze, fall, turn, stare: at least two of these might be
> replaced with something a bit more vivid: I'd be tempted to put "leer"
> or "gawp" for "stare") and the enjambment. Here and in your previous
> sonnet (which this is much better than), enjambment distracts from the
> meaning rather than reinforcing it, as it should do. It just says
> "oops. I need to start a new line".


I'd like to talk about enjambment in general, but I think I should put
that into the previous thread. Here I use it only once, and I'm happy
enough with it - it allowed me to get 'sky' in as an end-rhyme without
distorting the sentence, just using the rhyme "I" that was already
there.


What's more important is what you're telling me about the verbs. I
wanted to concentrate on language - verbs, symbols, metaphor and
simile - here, in reaction to my previous effort where those were
completely sacrificed to rhyme, meter, and plain narrative). So a
deficiency in that dept. does hurt this one in its area of
strength. .

I like 'squeeze' (it's actually a replacement for the original
'push'), but 'fall' does nothing much. What do you think of:

"Bus crammed, I squeeze and stumble to a seat,"

That's a nice alliteration. And losing 'into' is no geat loss, as I'm
not concerned with grammar.


The 'turn' and 'stare' line is weak. I don't want to lose 'stare'
here, though, as it's exactly the right word; unlike those you
suggested, one can 'stare' without looking. And that's what's
happening here - the speaker's not reallly looking at the landscape,
but just ignoring the other passengers. So my rewrites would be:

"Turn away, stare at the cobalt sky"
or
"Turn my back, stare at the cobalt sky"

(Hmm, maybe 'gaze' would work for 'stare'; it reinforces 'squeeze to
an extent. Maybe...)


(BTW, I'd prefer to use 'a cobalt sky' here, but I'm afraid it doesn't
work with 'the street' in the next line. I'd like your opinion, even
if that's only that that's a trivial consideration.)


>
> > And miles of matching boxes on the street
> > Which break to a new picture suddenly --
> > Black velvet crossed by lines of red and white
> > Shining beads, like rosaries of light
> > Stretching out towards infinity.
> > So many lives are threaded to those beads,
> > Each one with its own hidden histories,
> > Its unknown thoughts, dreams, joys, and agonies,
>
> Does the reader really need to be told this?
>


No, he doesn't have to be told this; he has to grok it; for that's the
epiphany. After all, he knows (abstractly) that the other passengers
are entire lives, too, but that's not how he experiences them; they're
merely obstacles, flesh, sources of heat and noise.

And L10 and 11 must stay. They're important to the poem's genesis.

While I dslike putting preludes on poems, I'll tell you about that.
At this point, I'm scrambling around looking for subjects and themes;
and in the process reading as many sonnets as I can find. On that
quest I came upon a sonnet by Archibald Lampman (a Canadian, so I'd
expect you've never heard of him), "The Railway Station," in which he
has a similar epiphany in the sestet - which inspired me enough to ask
myself, "When have I ever thought and felt that for myself?"

So there's a lot of borrowing from Lampman in those lines - 'hidden
histories,' 'unknown thoughts,' the end-rhyme 'agonies', the 'threads
of life' from L9 - which are meant to tie my sonnet to his.

The big problem here is the verb 'are', which does make it sound like
telling rather than experiencing. None of this should be in sentence
form.

I'll work on getting that out, without sacrificing the meter. So far
I've come up with:

"So many lives connected to those beads"
(not good, because it loses the 'threads of life' metaphor) and
"So many humans threaded to those beads"
(which sounds a bit grotesque).

That's a line I'll soncentrate on, as well as L12:

> > Each one which lives and loves and laughs and bleeds --
>
> The syntax is clumsy here ("Each one" expects something outside the
> relative clause, even if only a participle). Perhaps you meant "Each
> one of which".


'Each one who' reads better, but doesn't answer your objection. I
have no ideas right now, but I'll try some variants.


"A human being who lives and loves and bleeds"? (Maybe, if I can come
up with something more effetive than 'human being').

> > It's past. I shift, relax into my seat,
> > And breathe in human life, so warm, so sweet.
>
> I think I have the idea, but you need to make your sweaty, noisy bus a
> bit nastier at the beginning, and your road to Damascus vision a bit
> more compelling, for the change in the speaker's attitude to really
> come across. Nothing here really shows that human life is warm or
> sweet. Did the vision of all those little lives frighten the speaker
> ("It's past" hints so), or inspire him with tender thoughts, or what?
>

I've been vacillating between 'past' and 'passed', and your last
comment makes me want to go back to the latter. It's simply meant to
cut off the vision, as abruptly as it started (after all, that's how
it goes on a moving bus), but 'passed' implies some sort of graduation
to a better way of thinking).


The vision itself is meant to inspire empathy, solidarity, or
identification. I'll try to make that more explicit in the new L12.

> This is worth working on, I think.


You're too kind. 8) Seriously, I appreciate your criticisms snd hope
that you continue them. One thng I've already found is a correlation
between the quality of my poem, and the specificity of your
criticisms. Even if you hadn't said you found this poem an
improvement over my last one, I'd have caught that from the tone of
your criticism. In turn, of course, the more specific your criticisms
are, the more chance I have to improve the poem itself. And you've
given me the lines to concentrate on, in order to do that here.

OB

On Apr 11, 11:29 pm, "David" <gosn...@es.co.nz> wrote:
> "George Dance" <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> wrote in message
>
> news:1176303891.132204.135500@d57g2000hsg.googlegr oups.com...
>
>
>
>
>
> > Commuting
>
> > Bus crammed, I squeeze and fall into a seat,
> > Trapped by the heat, flesh, sweat, and noise, where I
> > Turn to stare at the deep cobalt sky
> > And miles of matching boxes on the street
> > Which break to a new picture suddenly --
> > Black velvet crossed by lines of red and white
> > Shining beads, like rosaries of light
> > Stretching out towards infinity.
> > So many lives are threaded to those beads,
> > Each one with its own hidden histories,
> > Its unknown thoughts, dreams, joys, and agonies,
> > Each one which lives and loves and laughs and bleeds --
> > It's past. I shift, relax into my seat,
> > And breathe in human life, so warm, so sweet.
>
> I can reiterate what OB has said...

Nihil OBstat, then?

>
> In any poem all lines and words can be softened or sharpened
> with revision, depending on the tone and intention...
>
> eg. line 7, for example drop the word 'like'
> for, for example: 'Shining beads, sweet rosaries of light"
>
> is this was done the poem could be transformed...

edulcorated...

> words of cosmology like 'infinity', and for me; 'god'
> are worse no-nos than 'like'. Any poet worth hir salt
> has a strong grasp and interest in cosmology...

Cosmology = mathematics + theology. Ex cathedra.


> but the utterance of it must be fresh and incitefull...

and not a machete incite

>
> -David.
>
> Ps unlike OB I thought the enjambment was OK.


"...have smaller fleas to bite 'em"
will travel

George Dance

On Apr 12, 12:29 am, "David" <gosn...@es.co.nz> wrote:
> "George Dance" <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> wrote in message
>
> news:1176303891.132204.135500@d57g2000hsg.googlegr oups.com...
>
> > Commuting
>
> > Bus crammed, I squeeze and fall into a seat,
> > Trapped by the heat, flesh, sweat, and noise, where I
> > Turn to stare at the deep cobalt sky
> > And miles of matching boxes on the street
> > Which break to a new picture suddenly --
> > Black velvet crossed by lines of red and white
> > Shining beads, like rosaries of light
> > Stretching out towards infinity.
> > So many lives are threaded to those beads,
> > Each one with its own hidden histories,
> > Its unknown thoughts, dreams, joys, and agonies,
> > Each one which lives and loves and laughs and bleeds --
> > It's past. I shift, relax into my seat,
> > And breathe in human life, so warm, so sweet.
>
> I can reiterate what OB has said...
>
> In any poem all lines and words can be softened or sharpened
> with revision, depending on the tone and intention...
>
> eg. line 7, for example drop the word 'like'
> for, for example: 'Shining beads, sweet rosaries of light"
>
> is this was done the poem could be transformed...
>
> words of cosmology like 'infinity', and for me; 'god'
> are worse no-nos than 'like'. Any poet worth hir salt
> has a strong grasp and interest in cosmology...


I'm glad you replied, as well as OB; you're a second poet here whose
criticisms I've been finding valuable in my education process. (I
know that Dennis and Gary are trying - sometimes, very trying - too,
of course.)


'll look into trying variants for 'like'. I don't mind the word - it
simply turns a metaphor into a simile - but I realize that the word
has been, like, beaten into the ground in like the last 25 years or
so. What I don't want to do is cram another metaphor in, like
'sweet.' The 'rosaries of light' is so powerful (to me) that I don't
want to distract from it in any way. So far, the best I've been able
to come up with is:

"Shining beads, frail rosaries of light"

I'm ambivalent enough about that line to ask for your comments.


But I definitely want to keep 'infinity' in L8. In this case, it's
meant to be a physical infinity; the thought here being (in plain
speech)

"Stretching out as far as eyes can see"

And it's a pretty word, infinity. As well, it's a 4 syllable one that
everyone knows, and (you've probably noticed) I use mostly one-and two-
syllable words. I'm trying to write poetry for the average reader,
aiming squarely at IQ 100, so I'm using a limited vocabulary; and when
I can extend it, by bringing yet another familiar but normally unused
word into a poem, I consider that a little victory.


> but the utterance of it must be fresh and incitefull...
>


Got it.


> -David.
>
> Ps unlike OB I thought the enjambment was OK.
>


Well, I'm leaving that in. There's plenty enough to work on, without
finding a new rhyme for that one instance. As well, as a reader I
like a bit of enjambment, to counter what I'd call the 'metronome
effect' that my (and some other poets') sonnets tend to fall into.

OB

On Apr 12, 8:35 am, "George Dance" <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> wrote:
> On Apr 11, 10:34 pm, "OB" <nevilemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > On Apr 11, 10:04 am, "George Dance" <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> wrote:
>
> > > Commuting
>
> > > Bus crammed, I squeeze and fall into a seat,
> > > Trapped by the heat, flesh, sweat, and noise, where I
> > > Turn to stare at the deep cobalt sky
>
> > If this was me I would fret over two things here: the dullness of the
> > verbs (squeeze, fall, turn, stare: at least two of these might be
> > replaced with something a bit more vivid: I'd be tempted to put "leer"
> > or "gawp" for "stare") and the enjambment. Here and in your previous
> > sonnet (which this is much better than), enjambment distracts from the
> > meaning rather than reinforcing it, as it should do. It just says
> > "oops. I need to start a new line".
>
> I'd like to talk about enjambment in general, but I think I should put
> that into the previous thread. Here I use it only once, and I'm happy
> enough with it - it allowed me to get 'sky' in as an end-rhyme without
> distorting the sentence, just using the rhyme "I" that was already
> there.

Well, that's exactly my point. The only reason this reader can see for
the enjambment is it happens to provide a convenient rhyme. Breaking a
subject pronoun from its verb is /distracting/: I wouldn't do it
unless there was a good reason unconnected with rhyme or metrics.

> What's more important is what you're telling me about the verbs. I
> wanted to concentrate on language - verbs, symbols, metaphor and
> simile - here, in reaction to my previous effort where those were
> completely sacrificed to rhyme, meter, and plain narrative). So a
> deficiency in that dept. does hurt this one in its area of
> strength. .
>
> I like 'squeeze' (it's actually a replacement for the original
> 'push'), but 'fall' does nothing much. What do you think of:
>
> "Bus crammed, I squeeze and stumble to a seat,"
>
> That's a nice alliteration. And losing 'into' is no geat loss, as I'm
> not concerned with grammar.

That's an improvement.


> The 'turn' and 'stare' line is weak. I don't want to lose 'stare'
> here, though, as it's exactly the right word; unlike those you
> suggested, one can 'stare' without looking. And that's what's
> happening here - the speaker's not reallly looking at the landscape,

Turn and stare /past/ the deep cobalt sky (?)


> but just ignoring the other passengers. So my rewrites would be:
>
> "Turn away, stare at the cobalt sky"
> or
> "Turn my back, stare at the cobalt sky"
>
> (Hmm, maybe 'gaze' would work for 'stare'; it reinforces 'squeeze to
> an extent. Maybe...)
>
> (BTW, I'd prefer to use 'a cobalt sky' here, but I'm afraid it doesn't
> work with 'the street' in the next line. I'd like your opinion, even
> if that's only that that's a trivial consideration.)

nice word, exact colour.


> > > And miles of matching boxes on the street
> > > Which break to a new picture suddenly --
> > > Black velvet crossed by lines of red and white
> > > Shining beads, like rosaries of light
> > > Stretching out towards infinity.
> > > So many lives are threaded to those beads,
> > > Each one with its own hidden histories,
> > > Its unknown thoughts, dreams, joys, and agonies,
>
> > Does the reader really need to be told this?
>
> No, he doesn't have to be told this; he has to grok it; for that's the
> epiphany. After all, he knows (abstractly) that the other passengers
> are entire lives, too, but that's not how he experiences them; they're
> merely obstacles, flesh, sources of heat and noise.

Well, there you are, This is the bit to work on. Maybe try extending
the rosary metaphor a bit further.


> And L10 and 11 must stay. They're important to the poem's genesis.
>
> While I dslike putting preludes on poems, I'll tell you about that.
> At this point, I'm scrambling around looking for subjects and themes;
> and in the process reading as many sonnets as I can find. On that
> quest I came upon a sonnet by Archibald Lampman (a Canadian, so I'd
> expect you've never heard of him), "The Railway Station," in which he
> has a similar epiphany in the sestet - which inspired me enough to ask
> myself, "When have I ever thought and felt that for myself?"
>
> So there's a lot of borrowing from Lampman in those lines - 'hidden
> histories,' 'unknown thoughts,' the end-rhyme 'agonies', the 'threads
> of life' from L9 - which are meant to tie my sonnet to his.
>
> The big problem here is the verb 'are', which does make it sound like
> telling rather than experiencing. None of this should be in sentence
> form.
>
> I'll work on getting that out, without sacrificing the meter. So far
> I've come up with:
>
> "So many lives connected to those beads"
> (not good, because it loses the 'threads of life' metaphor) and
> "So many humans threaded to those beads"
> (which sounds a bit grotesque).

it certainly does


> That's a line I'll soncentrate on, as well as L12:
>
> > > Each one which lives and loves and laughs and bleeds --
>
> > The syntax is clumsy here ("Each one" expects something outside the
> > relative clause, even if only a participle). Perhaps you meant "Each
> > one of which".
>
> 'Each one who' reads better, but doesn't answer your objection. I
> have no ideas right now, but I'll try some variants.
>
> "A human being who lives and loves and bleeds"? (Maybe, if I can come
> up with something more effetive than 'human being').
>
> > > It's past. I shift, relax into my seat,
> > > And breathe in human life, so warm, so sweet.
>
> > I think I have the idea, but you need to make your sweaty, noisy bus a
> > bit nastier at the beginning, and your road to Damascus vision a bit
> > more compelling, for the change in the speaker's attitude to really
> > come across. Nothing here really shows that human life is warm or
> > sweet. Did the vision of all those little lives frighten the speaker
> > ("It's past" hints so), or inspire him with tender thoughts, or what?
>
> I've been vacillating between 'past' and 'passed', and your last
> comment makes me want to go back to the latter. It's simply meant to
> cut off the vision, as abruptly as it started (after all, that's how
> it goes on a moving bus), but 'passed' implies some sort of graduation
> to a better way of thinking).
>
> The vision itself is meant to inspire empathy, solidarity, or
> identification. I'll try to make that more explicit in the new L12.
>
> > This is worth working on, I think.
>
> You're too kind. 8) Seriously, I appreciate your criticisms snd hope
> that you continue them. One thng I've already found is a correlation
> between the quality of my poem, and the specificity of your
> criticisms. Even if you hadn't said you found this poem an
> improvement over my last one, I'd have caught that from the tone of
> your criticism. In turn, of course, the more specific your criticisms
> are, the more chance I have to improve the poem itself. And you've
> given me the lines to concentrate on, in order to do that here.

George Dance

A Busride on a Summer Night


Bus crammed, I squeeze and stumble to a seat,
Loathing the heat, rank sweat, and noise, so I
Turn my head, to stare at a cobalt sky
And miles of matching boxes on the street,
Which cuts to a new picture suddenly --
Black velvet crossed by lines of red and white
Shining beads, frail rosaries of light
Stretching out towards infinity.
So many lives, threaded to those beads,
Each one with its own hidden history,
Its unknown thoughts, dreams, joy, and agony,
One more of us who loves and laughs and bleeds... --
It's passed. I shift, relax into my seat,
And breathe in human life, so warm, so sweet.

OB

On Apr 12, 10:41 am, "George Dance" <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> wrote:
> A Busride on a Summer Night
>
> Bus crammed, I squeeze and stumble to a seat,
> Loathing the heat, rank sweat, and noise, so I
> Turn my head, to stare at a cobalt sky
> And miles of matching boxes on the street,
> Which cuts to a new picture suddenly --
> Black velvet crossed by lines of red and white
> Shining beads, frail rosaries of light
> Stretching out towards infinity.
> So many lives, threaded to those beads,
> Each one with its own hidden history,
> Its unknown thoughts, dreams, joy, and agony,
> One more of us who loves and laughs and bleeds... --
> It's passed. I shift, relax into my seat,
> And breathe in human life, so warm, so sweet.

Much better. L2 still sounds a bit unnatural (perhaps it's the "so",
which isn't adequately prepared for, since the participle clause
doesn't count), and L8 trips too lightly off the tongue, speeding up
when "stretching" makes you want it to slow down (I'd put a two- or
even three-syllable adverb in place of "out"). I don't like "One more
of us", as it doesn't connect to "each one" very smoothly. I still
think you could do more with 10-12, generally: "beads" promises a
flight of metaphor, and we get prose statement with a lot of
abstractions. But the feet-substitutions make this smooth and pleasant
rhythmically.

Dennis M. Hammes

George Dance wrote:

>
> losing 'into' is no geat loss, as I'm
> not concerned with grammar.
>

Who needs grammar; it's only poetry.
Hell, Dockery leaves /piles/ of poetry without any grammar.

--
-------(m+
~/)_|
I do not "negotiate" for half my baby back, Solomon.
http://scrawlmark.org

George Dance

On Apr 13, 5:50 am, "Dennis M. Hammes" <scrawlm...@arvig.net> wrote:
> George Dance wrote:
>
> > losing 'into' is no geat loss, as I'm
> > not concerned with grammar.
>
> Who needs grammar; it's only poetry.


I hope that I don't have to spell out for the reader that, after the
passenger stumbles to a seat, he proceeds to sit down in it.


> Hell, Dockery leaves /piles/ of poetry without any grammar.
>

Peter J Ross

On Thu, 12 Apr 2007 16:29:58 +1200, David <gosnell@es.co.nz> wrote in
rec.arts.poems:

>
> "George Dance" <georgedance04@yahoo.ca> wrote in message
> news:1176303891.132204.135500@d57g2000hsg.googlegr oups.com...
>> Commuting
>>
>>
>> Bus crammed, I squeeze and fall into a seat,
>> Trapped by the heat, flesh, sweat, and noise, where I
>> Turn to stare at the deep cobalt sky
>> And miles of matching boxes on the street
>> Which break to a new picture suddenly --
>> Black velvet crossed by lines of red and white
>> Shining beads, like rosaries of light
>> Stretching out towards infinity.
>> So many lives are threaded to those beads,
>> Each one with its own hidden histories,
>> Its unknown thoughts, dreams, joys, and agonies,
>> Each one which lives and loves and laughs and bleeds --
>> It's past. I shift, relax into my seat,
>> And breathe in human life, so warm, so sweet.
>
> I can reiterate what OB has said...
>
> In any poem all lines and words can be softened or sharpened
> with revision, depending on the tone and intention...
>
> eg. line 7, for example drop the word 'like'
> for, for example: 'Shining beads, sweet rosaries of light"
>
> is this was done the poem could be transformed...

It would be transformed into something much less interesting, not only
by the weakness of both modifiers in "sweet rosaries of light" itself
but by the anticipation of the last last line.

The big problem here are the lists in lines 2, 11 and 12, each of
which is less interesting than the one before. The cumulative effect,
taken with the pairs in lines 1, 6 and 14, is of rather vague padding
in which the individual adjectives and nouns are deprived of
individual significance.

<...>

> Ps unlike OB I thought the enjambment was OK.

"I" is overemphasised in line 2.


--
PJR :-)

George Dance

On Apr 13, 7:53 am, Peter J Ross <p...@example.invalid> wrote:
> On Thu, 12 Apr 2007 16:29:58 +1200, David <gosn...@es.co.nz> wrote in
> rec.arts.poems:
>
> > "George Dance" <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> wrote in message
> >news:1176303891.132204.135500@d57g2000hsg.googleg roups.com...
> >> Commuting
>
> >> Bus crammed, I squeeze and fall into a seat,
> >> Trapped by the heat, flesh, sweat, and noise, where I
> >> Turn to stare at the deep cobalt sky
> >> And miles of matching boxes on the street
> >> Which break to a new picture suddenly --
> >> Black velvet crossed by lines of red and white
> >> Shining beads, like rosaries of light
> >> Stretching out towards infinity.
> >> So many lives are threaded to those beads,
> >> Each one with its own hidden histories,
> >> Its unknown thoughts, dreams, joys, and agonies,
> >> Each one which lives and loves and laughs and bleeds --
> >> It's past. I shift, relax into my seat,
> >> And breathe in human life, so warm, so sweet.
>
> > I can reiterate what OB has said...
>
> > In any poem all lines and words can be softened or sharpened
> > with revision, depending on the tone and intention...
>
> > eg. line 7, for example drop the word 'like'
> > for, for example: 'Shining beads, sweet rosaries of light"
>
> > is this was done the poem could be transformed...
>
> It would be transformed into something much less interesting, not only
> by the weakness of both modifiers in "sweet rosaries of light" itself
> but by the anticipation of the last last line.
>


Oh, you're right; 'sweet' would have been entirely the wrong word to
use there. The word I have there right now is 'frail'.


> The big problem here are the lists in lines 2, 11 and 12, each of
> which is less interesting than the one before. The cumulative effect,
> taken with the pairs in lines 1, 6 and 14, is of rather vague padding
> in which the individual adjectives and nouns are deprived of
> individual significance.


I have a weakness for lists like that, but you're right; three in one
sonnet is a bit too much. During the revision process, I've toned
that down a bit by cutting two of them back. Here's the latest
revision:



A Busride on a Summer Night

Bus crammed, I squeeze and stumble to a seat,
Loathing the heat, rank sweat, and noise, so I
Turn my head, to stare at a cobalt sky
And miles of matching boxes on the street,
Which cuts to a new picture suddenly --
Black velvet crossed by lines of red and white
Shining beads, frail rosaries of light
Stretching out in the distance towards infinity ...
So many lives, threaded to those beads,
Each one with its own hidden history,
Its unknown thoughts, dreams, joy, and agony,
One more of us who loves and laughs and bleeds --
It's passed; I shift, relax into my seat,
And breathe in human life, so warm, so sweet.


>
> <...>
>
> > Ps unlike OB I thought the enjambment was OK.
>
> "I" is overemphasised in line 2.
>

Colin Ward

On 11 Apr 2007 08:04:51 -0700, "George Dance" <georgedance04@yahoo.ca>
wrote:

>Commuting

This might work better as a curgina (i.e. verse with free verse
linebreaks); that, at least, would avoid highlighting the perfect
endrhymes (including the overstressed "I" that PJR mentioned).

>Bus crammed, I squeeze and fall into a seat,
>Trapped by the heat, flesh, sweat, and noise, where I

I'm not crazy about the capitalization of each line or with
the internal rhyme of "heat", but no biggie.

>Turn to stare at the deep cobalt sky
>And miles of matching boxes on the street
>Which break to a new picture suddenly --
>Black velvet crossed by lines of red and white
>Shining beads, like rosaries of light
>Stretching out towards infinity.
>So many lives are threaded to those beads,

While most of this is familiar territory, I thought
"rosaries of light" was promising.

Unfortunately, the volta "so many lives" is a turn for the
worse. Keep the "threaded to those beads" motif but toss the rest;
it is nothing but abstractions and vague plurals culminating in a
mawkish, almost-literally-sappy finale that is more intrusion than
conclusion. These next three lines are a cringefest:

>Each one with its own hidden histories,
>Its unknown thoughts, dreams, joys, and agonies,
>Each one which lives and loves and laughs and bleeds --
>It's past. I shift, relax into my seat,
>And breathe in human life, so warm, so sweet.

I think that if you rewrite the sestet entirely and look
for more interesting language throughout you might have something
here. Good luck with it, George.


HTH,

Colin

Dennis M. Hammes

George Dance wrote:

> On Apr 13, 5:50 am, "Dennis M. Hammes" <scrawlm...@arvig.net> wrote:
>
>>George Dance wrote:
>>
>>
>>>losing 'into' is no geat loss, as I'm
>>>not concerned with grammar.
>>
>>Who needs grammar; it's only poetry.
>
>
>
> I hope that I don't have to spell out for the reader that, after the
> passenger stumbles to a seat, he proceeds to sit down in it.
>

Let us pray that, should he stagger to a toilet, he would sit down
/on/ it.

--
-------(m+
~/)_|
I do not "negotiate" for half my baby back, Solomon.
http://scrawlmark.org

David

"George Dance" <georgedance04@yahoo.ca> wrote in message
news:1176466754.708631.227390@e65g2000hsc.googlegr oups.com...


> On Apr 13, 7:53 am, Peter J Ross <p...@example.invalid> wrote:

>> It would be transformed into something much less interesting, not only
>> by the weakness of both modifiers in "sweet rosaries of light" itself
>> but by the anticipation of the last last line.

>>
>> > "George Dance" <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> wrote in message
>> >news:1176303891.132204.135500@d57g2000hsg.googleg roups.com...

> Oh, you're right; 'sweet' would have been entirely the wrong word to
> use there. The word I have there right now is 'frail'.

Well, at least you have discovered the value of this meduim for critiquing
poetry...

you have a multiple editorship.

I am chary of 'writing' someone elses work... and I am glad you took my
word,
as it was, as an example..

I once tried overworking and revising extensively. used David Jones ("In
Parenthesis")
as a working model. In the end though I found the interminable revision
wrecked
the poem. So as you will have seen extemporising has been my thing. Still
not the bees knees, but one day- who knows...?

-David.

Vera

"Colin Ward" <kaltica@mts.net> wrote in message
news:krdv13l0jj184hul4dndpju2rpb1rgcahd@4ax.com...
> On 11 Apr 2007 08:04:51 -0700, "George Dance" <georgedance04@yahoo.ca>
> wrote:
>
> >Commuting
>
> This might work better as a curgina (i.e. verse with free verse
> linebreaks); that, at least, would avoid highlighting the perfect
> endrhymes (including the overstressed "I" that PJR mentioned).
>
> >Bus crammed, I squeeze and fall into a seat,
> >Trapped by the heat, flesh, sweat, and noise, where I
>
> I'm not crazy about the capitalization of each line or with
> the internal rhyme of "heat", but no biggie.
>
> >Turn to stare at the deep cobalt sky
> >And miles of matching boxes on the street
> >Which break to a new picture suddenly --
> >Black velvet crossed by lines of red and white
> >Shining beads, like rosaries of light
> >Stretching out towards infinity.
> >So many lives are threaded to those beads,
>
> While most of this is familiar territory, I thought
> "rosaries of light" was promising.
>
> Unfortunately, the volta "so many lives" is a turn for the
> worse. Keep the "threaded to those beads" motif but toss the rest;
> it is nothing but abstractions and vague plurals culminating in a
> mawkish, almost-literally-sappy finale that is more intrusion than
> conclusion. These next three lines are a cringefest:
>
> >Each one with its own hidden histories,
> >Its unknown thoughts, dreams, joys, and agonies,
> >Each one which lives and loves and laughs and bleeds --
> >It's past. I shift, relax into my seat,
> >And breathe in human life, so warm, so sweet.
>
> I think that if you rewrite the sestet entirely and look
> for more interesting language throughout you might have something
> here. Good luck with it, George.
>
>
> HTH,
>
> Colin


And after you comply with all the advice, you'll end up with something
you, yourself, won't understand after a couple of years!

My head spins, George. . .

Vera

George Dance

On Apr 14, 3:38 pm, "David" <gosn...@es.co.nz> wrote:
> "George Dance" <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> wrote in message
>
> news:1176466754.708631.227390@e65g2000hsc.googlegr oups.com...
>
> > On Apr 13, 7:53 am, Peter J Ross <p...@example.invalid> wrote:
> >> It would be transformed into something much less interesting, not only
> >> by the weakness of both modifiers in "sweet rosaries of light" itself
> >> but by the anticipation of the last last line.
>
> >> > "George Dance" <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> wrote in message
> >> >news:1176303891.132204.135500@d57g2000hsg.googleg roups.com...
> > Oh, you're right; 'sweet' would have been entirely the wrong word to
> > use there. The word I have there right now is 'frail'.
>
> Well, at least you have discovered the value of this meduim for critiquing
> poetry...
>
> you have a multiple editorship.


I'm quite impressed by how it's working out here. In a couple of
other threads it's gotten silly (eg, the debate over 'Our dog died'),
but this time around I'm seeing good, constructive riticism, and a
better poem resulting.

>
> I am chary of 'writing' someone elses work... and I am glad you took my
> word,
> as it was, as an example..
>


I'm still working on that word, BTW. My current choice is 'bright';
not only is it low-key description, but it connects well with 'beads'
and 'light.'


> I once tried overworking and revising extensively. used David Jones ("In
> Parenthesis")
> as a working model. In the end though I found the interminable revision
> wrecked
> the poem. So as you will have seen extemporising has been my thing.


I saw one poem spoiled through revision since I've been here, which
made me a bit chary of the whole process. But I'm quite happy with,
and quite grateful for, all the help I've received this time around.



Still
> not the bees knees, but one day- who knows...?
>
> -David.

George Dance

On Apr 13, 1:12 pm, Colin Ward <kalt...@mts.net> wrote:
> On 11 Apr 2007 08:04:51 -0700, "George Dance" <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca>
> wrote:
>
> >Commuting
>
> This might work better as a curgina (i.e. verse with free verse
> linebreaks); that, at least, would avoid highlighting the perfect
> endrhymes (including the overstressed "I" that PJR mentioned).
>
> >Bus crammed, I squeeze and fall into a seat,
> >Trapped by the heat, flesh, sweat, and noise, where I
>
> I'm not crazy about the capitalization of each line or with
> the internal rhyme of "heat", but no biggie.
>
> >Turn to stare at the deep cobalt sky
> >And miles of matching boxes on the street
> >Which break to a new picture suddenly --
> >Black velvet crossed by lines of red and white
> >Shining beads, like rosaries of light
> >Stretching out towards infinity.
> >So many lives are threaded to those beads,
>
> While most of this is familiar territory, I thought
> "rosaries of light" was promising.
>
> Unfortunately, the volta "so many lives" is a turn for the
> worse. Keep the "threaded to those beads" motif but toss the rest;
> it is nothing but abstractions and vague plurals culminating in a
> mawkish, almost-literally-sappy finale that is more intrusion than
> conclusion.


Besides keeping the sonnet form, I'd like to keep the sappiness.
After all, it was the experience; without it, with only the image of
the car lights, I'd have probably have only enough here for a haiku -

traffic jam at night:
bright shining beads, red and white
rosaries of light.



These next three lines are a cringefest:
>
> >Each one with its own hidden histories,
> >Its unknown thoughts, dreams, joys, and agonies,
> >Each one which lives and loves and laughs and bleeds --


I have done a rewrite of those three lines, to get rid of the plurals
and a bit of the abstraction ('lives' is out), and extend the thread
metaphor a bit:

I see the threads that run through every bead,
Each prayer and fear, each joy and agony,
Entangling into one humanity:
One flesh, one blood, from one uncommon seed.


I'm not completely happy with that ("I see" sounds a bit eager-
beaverish), but it's a vast improvement, both in losing the expository
tone and in making clearer just what I felt at the time. So, while I
suspect you'll still cringe, I see it as a vast improvement.



> >It's past. I shift, relax into my seat,
> >And breathe in human life, so warm, so sweet.
>
> I think that if you rewrite the sestet entirely and look
> for more interesting language throughout you might have something
> here. Good luck with it, George.
>


Thank you; IMO, your criticism has helped improve it. The new sestet
is better, and (I hope you'll see) the language is now a bit more
interesting, thanks also to OB's criticism.


I'll post a current (and, I'd say, final) version right after this.



> HTH,
>
> Colin

George Dance

A Busride on a Summer Night


Bus crammed, I squeeze and stumble to a seat,
Loathing the heat, rank sweat, and noise, so I
Turn my head, to stare at a cobalt sky
And miles of matching boxes on the street,
Which cuts to a new picture suddenly --
Black velvet crossed by lines of red and white
Shining beads, bright rosaries of light
Stretching past the horizon towards infinity ...
I see the threads that run through every bead,
Each prayer and fear, each joy and agony,
Entangling into one humanity:
One flesh, one blood, from one uncommon seed --
It's passed; I shift, relax into my seat,
And breathe in human life, so warm, so sweet.

OB

On Apr 15, 6:09 pm, "George Dance" <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> wrote:
> A Busride on a Summer Night
>
> Bus crammed, I squeeze and stumble to a seat,
> Loathing the heat, rank sweat, and noise, so I
> Turn my head, to stare at a cobalt sky
> And miles of matching boxes on the street,
> Which cuts to a new picture suddenly --
> Black velvet crossed by lines of red and white
> Shining beads, bright rosaries of light
> Stretching past the horizon towards infinity ...
> I see the threads that run through every bead,
> Each prayer and fear, each joy and agony,
> Entangling into one humanity:
> One flesh, one blood, from one uncommon seed --
> It's passed; I shift, relax into my seat,
> And breathe in human life, so warm, so sweet.

Better still than the last. I like "uncommon seed" and the way you've
stretched L8. I know you don't want to fiddle with this any more but
if you did, I'd suggest deleting "so I" from L2, change "Turn" in 3 to
"turning" or "I turn" or something more unexpected, and rewrite the
end of L2 and poss L3 if you can find another rhyme (though "cobalt
sky" is fine, so a rhyme with "sky" is first choice). I'd also replace
the ellipsis at the end of L8 with a period (the ellipsis is too
portentous), I'd fret over the repetition of "each" in L10 (too
declamatory) without perhaps doing anything about it, I'd fret
similarly over "one flesh, one blood" which bristles with various
unwanted liturgical or even Hitlerian overtones, and I'd wonder about
"human" in L14 for about seven minutes, only to finally leave it be.
But that's just me.

Dennis M. Hammes

George Dance wrote:

> A Busride on a Summer Night
>
>
> Bus crammed, I squeeze and stumble to a seat,
> Loathing the heat, rank sweat, and noise, so I
> Turn my head, to stare at a cobalt sky
> And miles of matching boxes on the street,
> Which cuts to a new picture suddenly --
> Black velvet crossed by lines of red and white
> Shining beads, bright rosaries of light
> Stretching past the horizon towards infinity ...
> I see the threads that run through every bead,
> Each prayer and fear, each joy and agony,
> Entangling into one humanity:
> One flesh, one blood, from one uncommon seed --
> It's passed; I shift, relax into my seat,
> And breathe in human life, so warm, so sweet.
>

Hunh. Definite improvements all over and overall.
It still isn't anything I'd say mostly, but it has managed not to
/sound/ sappy or cliche (they're there) however it's still more'n a
tad trite. But you wanted the speaker to go for that, IIRC.
I wouldn't have put so much of it in the last line, though; people
remember that almost as well as first lines.

--
-------(m+
~/)_|
I do not "negotiate" for half my baby back, Solomon.
http://scrawlmark.org

George Dance

On Apr 15, 10:32 pm, "OB" <nevilemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Apr 15, 6:09 pm, "George Dance" <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > A Busride on a Summer Night
>
> > Bus crammed, I squeeze and stumble to a seat,
> > Loathing the heat, rank sweat, and noise, so I
> > Turn my head, to stare at a cobalt sky
> > And miles of matching boxes on the street,
> > Which cuts to a new picture suddenly --
> > Black velvet crossed by lines of red and white
> > Shining beads, bright rosaries of light
> > Stretching past the horizon towards infinity ...
> > I see the threads that run through every bead,
> > Each prayer and fear, each joy and agony,
> > Entangling into one humanity:
> > One flesh, one blood, from one uncommon seed --
> > It's passed; I shift, relax into my seat,
> > And breathe in human life, so warm, so sweet.
>
> Better still than the last. I like "uncommon seed" and the way you've
> stretched L8. I know you don't want to fiddle with this any more but
> if you did, I'd suggest deleting "so I" from L2, change "Turn" in 3 to
> "turning" or "I turn" or something more unexpected, and rewrite the
> end of L2 and poss L3 if you can find another rhyme (though "cobalt
> sky" is fine, so a rhyme with "sky" is first choice). I'd also replace
> the ellipsis at the end of L8 with a period (the ellipsis is too
> portentous),


I don't plan any more rewriting, but I'll keep reading the poem
critically, with those things in mind.

I've got to say that I generally don't like ellipses, though the word
for I'd use in most cases is pretentious. I always read them as
saying, "There's so much more to tell, but you'll have to imagine it
for yourself." I'd like to leave this one in, though, as it's a bit
of a mathematical pun on 'infinity': an ellipsis at the end of a set
{a,b,c,...} indicates that it's infinite; that the pattern repeats
indefinitely ... <g>


The other thing I liked was that that left only one period (besides
the one at the end) in the whole 14 lines; which I took out as well
and replaced with a semi-colon. The result is there's no paragraph
structure left in it at all - it's just subject-redicate clauses
following each other chronologically rather than grammatically, in a
nice semi-stream-of consciousness way. (The ungrammatical 'so' in L2
suddenly turns out to be a plus, as it reinforces that.) I like the
effect, as IMO it helps to dispel the effect, which both you and Colin
Ward found so painfully evident in my first draft, of telling the
reader what to think rather than showing him what I felt and thought.


Once again I have to thank you, and everyone else who responded with
specific criticisms, because everything you said resulted in a better
poem. And I'm not ruling out that what you add here won't do the same
later.

> I'd fret over the repetition of "each" in L10 (too
> declamatory) without perhaps doing anything about it, I'd fret
> similarly over "one flesh, one blood" which bristles with various
> unwanted liturgical or even Hitlerian overtones, and I'd wonder about
> "human" in L14 for about seven minutes, only to finally leave it be.
> But that's just me.-

George Dance

On Apr 12, 10:44 am, "OB" <nevilemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Apr 12, 8:35 am, "George Dance" <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> wrote:
> > On Apr 11, 10:34 pm, "OB" <nevilemo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > On Apr 11, 10:04 am, "George Dance" <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> wrote:
>
> > > >Commuting
[first draft]
> > > > Bus crammed, I squeeze and fall into a seat,
> > > > Trapped by the heat, flesh, sweat, and noise, where I
> > > > Turn to stare at the deep cobalt sky
>
> > > If this was me I would fret over two things here: the dullness of the
> > > verbs (squeeze, fall, turn, stare: at least two of these might be
> > > replaced with something a bit more vivid: I'd be tempted to put "leer"
> > > or "gawp" for "stare") and the enjambment. Here and in your previous
> > > sonnet (which this is much better than), enjambment distracts from the
> > > meaning rather than reinforcing it, as it should do. It just says
> > > "oops. I need to start a new line".
>
> > I'd like to talk about enjambment in general, but I think I should put
> > that into the previous thread. Here I use it only once, and I'm happy
> > enough with it - it allowed me to get 'sky' in as an end-rhyme without
> > distorting the sentence, just using the rhyme "I" that was already
> > there.
>
> Well, that's exactly my point. The only reason this reader can see for
> the enjambment is it happens to provide a convenient rhyme.



Well, a month later, I've finally thought of a reason. The break at
the end of L2 emphasizes "I" (arguably unduly, as the poet Peter Ross
once said of it), which underlines the essential *selfishness* and
*egocentricity* of the persona at the beginning of the poem.

How's that one, eh?



Breaking a
> subject pronoun from its verb is /distracting/: I wouldn't do it
> unless there was a good reason unconnected with rhyme or metrics.
>
> > What's more important is what you're telling me about the verbs. I
> > wanted to concentrate on language - verbs, symbols, metaphor and
> > simile - here, in reaction to my previous effort where those were
> > completely sacrificed to rhyme, meter, and plain narrative). So a
> > deficiency in that dept. does hurt this one in its area of
> > strength. .
>
> > I like 'squeeze' (it's actually a replacement for the original
> > 'push'), but 'fall' does nothing much. What do you think of:
>
> > "Bus crammed, I squeeze and stumble to a seat,"
>
> > That's a nice alliteration. And losing 'into' is no geat loss, as I'm
> > not concerned with grammar.
>
> That's an improvement.
>
> > The 'turn' and 'stare' line is weak. I don't want to lose 'stare'
> > here, though, as it's exactly the right word; unlike those you
> > suggested, one can 'stare' without looking. And that's what's
> > happening here - the speaker's not reallly looking at the landscape,
>
> Turn and stare /past/ the deep cobalt sky (?)
>
> > but just ignoring the other passengers. So my rewrites would be:
>
> > "Turn away, stare at the cobalt sky"
> > or
> > "Turn my back, stare at the cobalt sky"
>
> > (Hmm, maybe 'gaze' would work for 'stare'; it reinforces 'squeeze to
> > an extent. Maybe...)
>
> > (BTW, I'd prefer to use 'a cobalt sky' here, but I'm afraid it doesn't
> > work with 'the street' in the next line. I'd like your opinion, even
> > if that's only that that's a trivial consideration.)
>
> nice word, exact colour.
>
> > > > And miles of matching boxes on the street
> > > > Which break to a new picture suddenly --
> > > > Black velvet crossed by lines of red and white
> > > > Shining beads, like rosaries of light
> > > > Stretching out towards infinity.
> > > > So many lives are threaded to those beads,
> > > > Each one with its own hidden histories,
> > > > Its unknown thoughts, dreams, joys, and agonies,
>
> > > Does the reader really need to be told this?
>
> > No, he doesn't have to be told this; he has to grok it; for that's the
> > epiphany. After all, h