Sense of Place challenge - poems

[legerdemer]

Some comments, etc.

On 1- Face to Face

I really enjoyed this poem's imagery and evocation of its setting - it made me want to visit the place. It is extremely ambitious, as someone else, can't quite recall who, already mentioned. I also enjoyed the poet using several different forms - I think it made the poem more interesting and more flowing, easier to read, whereas a single form may not have been sustainable through the entire piece.

The twiddling with the form bothered me not a bit; in fact, it made me smile - I thought it was a bit of a poetic "wink wink, nudge nudge," a deviation from the form that was entirely consistent with the form. I bet it was not an accident at all, but I hope we'll hear from the poet.

On 2- Castle Ashby

I now feel I've been to this estate. Well done.

On 3- Epistolary in the Church of Baseball

The turn from baseball to the father's hospital bed is so very poignant.
I like poems as letters.

On 4- Dark House

I like the rap rhythm this one beats in my head as I read it.

On 5- A Village Childhood

A gentle recollection of childhood - lovely, and another one where the form worked hand in hand with the theme of the poem.

On 6- To the Albert Hall with Albert Small

This one resonated with my own family's story and the gentle "brainwashing" they did. I first enjoyed, then rebelled, then enjoyed again when I had made my point that yes the Beatles would last more than 20 years. So thanks for the smiles.

On 7-

Nice little acrostic there - if I turn my tablet on its side, it even illlustrates its topic.

On 8- The River of Life

Extremely romantic and sweet.

On 9- Sunset Cliffs

The imagery is very vivid in places but occasionally the word choices are too formal and distance me from the action: as an example, "potent waves" doesn't quite describe the scene viscerally for me, whereas "churning turmoil" and especially "liquid motion" take me to the place and in the moment. Also, the poem's end is a bit anti-climactic (no pun intended).

On 11-
Like AH, this poem also put me in the mind of those uncomfortable middle of the nights when I keep hoping I can beat back the urge to go to the bathroom in the cold, but finally have to give in. Minus the shake, of course. I loved the pair of loons surfacing and the sun cresting - beautiful setting.

-------
About 10- See into Stone

A blitz, with each line a cliche or, where I couldn't find the right cliche, a fragment of a line from Shakespeare. The sense of place is more psychological than physical, and more of a journey than any static place, but there are hints to geography (as far as the eye can see, sky high....) and hinting to events and the narrator's psychology (high hopes, etc). It was a stretch, but I'd written it so heck.


Thanks to all who submitted poems - I enjoyed reading them and hope you enjoyed writing them. On to the next challenge.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Thank you Mer for hosting this challenge, it was great fun and lovely to see so many forms!

 

[Piscator]

Thanks Mer for both the contest and your comments.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Thanks for hosting this, Mer.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

After the authors are revealed, can people put up which form they used please?

 

[legerdemer]

After the authors are revealed, can people put up which form they used please?

I revealed the authors last night (my night) and for those who told me, I listed the form - did you notice the post titles? One of the few poets who did not give me that information is... you!

You can either post the form yourself in a reply, or you can send me the form by PM and I'll add in the title. The first will be faster. Up to you.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

I revealed the authors last night (my night) and for those who told me, I listed the form - did you notice the post titles? One of the few poets who did not give me that information is... you!

You can either post the form yourself in a reply, or you can send me the form by PM and I'll add in the title. The first will be faster. Up to you.

I've done the 3rd option, I've edited the forms into the title myself.

 

[legerdemer]

I've done the 3rd option, I've edited the forms into the title myself.

Prerogative of a Mod!

 

[legerdemer]

9- Sunset Cliffs, revised by AlwaysHungry

Sunset Cliffs (revision)

Heedless of the gulls and tourists,
Near the precipice we lingered,
Conscious of the churning turmoil,
Liquid motion interrupted.

Pulsing crests were rolling toward us,
Yet their elemental vigor
Came to naught against the sandstone,
Those unyielding cliffs below us.

I have heard about the jumpers,
Flirting with the whims of nature,
Hurtling out into the sea-breeze,
Plummeting into the water.

You and I stayed circumspectly
Back, and though my fingers wandered
As we tarried by the ocean,
Neither men nor sea-birds noticed.

Sunset Cliffs

Heedless of the gulls and tourists,
Near the precipice we lingered,
Conscious of the churning turmoil,
Liquid motion interrupted.

Potent waves were rolling toward us,
Yet their elemental vigor
Came to naught against the sandstone,
Those unyielding cliffs below us.

I have heard about the jumpers,
Flirting with the whims of nature,
Hurtling out into the sea-breeze,
Plummeting into the water.

You and I stayed circumspectly
Back, and though my fingers wandered
As we tarried by the ocean,
Neither men nor sea-birds noticed.

 

[Ashesh9]

Thank you, Mer for organizing this Challenge !!

 

[AlwaysHungry]

I wimped out on the form. For some reason, the bunny scowled defiantly when I approached it with the snares of conventional forms. The only form of captivity it would deign to accept was quatrains of trochaic tetrameter, a device that has been used in epic poems (the famous one in English is "The Song of Hiawatha.")

 

[pelegrino]

Thank you, Mer, for hosting what was for me a very interesting challenge. It helped me improve and complete some parts of longer works that I am involved with. Always Hungry has also allowed me to use some of his verses (outside this challenge) for the same work, which I have already started working on, and I thank him also.
It is very observing on your part that the flow of the suite as a whole is more enhanced by using different form/metre in its various items (if it was in the same form and metre it could not really be called a suite, anyway, to differentiate it from long poetic forms like canto etc.), plus it would be a hell of a job to getting to musical grips with it, where more melodic variety would be harder to achieve.

Item no.2 Acrostic, has already been discussed in some length and with apt references. I want to add the following observations:
It was not conceived by chance but very deliberately, just as you observed, as the last line of the previous poem ends with the words that form the acrostic.
This acrostic is one of both words and letters and in my definition of the form (the Greek one) an acrostic can start its every line with a word, letter, or other abstract item, something like a symbol, hieroglyph or music notation sign, or the entire alphabet, and it can also include acronyms.
I did not use an acronym as such in this instance because acronymic words like NATO, CIA, IMF, WYSIWYG, etc, from the technical parlance of the disciplines of politics, economics, sciences and arts, have already become words of human parlance, for a long time, for those of us who live in the 21st century. But even if I had used one acronym, it would still be legitimate for the form. The fact that there is vertical and horizontal tautology between the initial letter and the first word of its line makes it more of an acrostic rather than less in this case.
Having made the above remarks and talked of definitions, this is the one I used:

άκρον (acron) = the edge of something (material or abstract), its beginning or ending, or both.

στίχος (stichos) = a row of the same or similar things. In poetry's case these "things" are words forming verses (arranged according to poetic choice), but we can have "stichoi" of 12 apples, for example, the first of which in each stichos is a red apple and the following 11 are green apples. If we achieve a minimum of two such rows of apples we have formed an acrostic in technical terms.

Ακροστιχίς (acrostic), therefore, is a compound form of meaning, both horizontal and vertical, but not two-dimensional as the word could be taken to suggest, because its other two dimensions (depth and time) are hidden in its content,(like good counterpoint combining with good harmony, as is the case with all good music), in which both aspects (horizontal and vertical) retain their own meaning, idependently in their content, and give also a satisfying total sum meaning in a pleasing structure. This sum is in my opinion, in most cases of artistic expression, greater than the aggregate value of its constituent parts.
In other words, an acrostic must have a vertical and a horizontal meaningful aspect. (Acrostics having only diagonal aspects, are not in my opinion proper acrostics, as the concept of the "acron-edge" is abused in them).

So, unless I make a very conscious effort to forget my mother tongue first, I completely reject any other definition of an acrostic, coming from whatever authority (let us not forget that in many cases of translating original Greek terminology, poetic or otherwise, many concepts were lost, abused, deliberately distorted, etc., by ignorant or half-learnt Latin monks in the middle ages, and the Anglophone world has based its understanding of the said terminology, only in second hand English translations of said ignorant Latin monks.

Last but not least, since the suite of the "Libyan Sea Tale" made you to want to visit the place, here is a link to preview it.
It is indeed magical and I have spent many a happy summer there. (there doesn’t seem to be a lot of photos of the "Face to Face" locality, maybe because it's used mainly by fishermen and rarely by tourists, but anyway, it is the part of the island facing East and slightly South).

CHRYSSI ISLAND

To finish on a less serious note, I am sure, that if no one else, at least Turco would appreciate these two:

1. An early Christian acrostic in Greek:

Ιησούς (Jesus)
Χριστός (Christ)
Θεού (of God)
Υιός (Son)
Σωτήρ (Saviour)

I respect the zeal of the early Christians to prove something unprovable (horizontally), but vertically the Greek word "Ichthys" is formed which means "fish", so I reckon there is definitely something fishy about their theology.

2. and one of my own:

Tour de force,
Ultimate source,
Rules endorse,
Couldn't do worse,
Of course!

Thanks again, all the best!

 

[AlwaysHungry]

On 9- Sunset Cliffs

The imagery is very vivid in places but occasionally the word choices are too formal and distance me from the action: as an example, "potent waves" doesn't quite describe the scene viscerally for me, whereas "churning turmoil" and especially "liquid motion" take me to the place and in the moment. Also, the poem's end is a bit anti-climactic (no pun intended).

I changed the wording on the phrase you mentioned. I was attempting to use the setting as a metaphor for an irresistible force of passion meeting an immovable object of circumstance. The narrator and his lover choose not to follow the example of the jumpers. At the outset, they are heedless of the gulls and humans around them, whereas at the end the gulls and humans are heedless of them, so the intended effect is indeed anti-climactic. I'm not certain whether the role of the jumpers is clear; hopefully they are like Chekhov's gun.

 

[Piscator]

I respect the zeal of the early Christians to prove something unprovable (horizontally), but vertically the Greek word "Ichthys" is formed which means "fish", so I reckon there is definitely something fishy about their theology.

ain`t nothing wrong with fish in bluesology

 

[pelegrino]

can't argue with that one.