Poetry Forum

Breathing discarded long ago,
my heart has slowed; still beating?
Attention rapt, fixed and focused,
the world has narrowed, faded fast -
there’s just the arête in view.

Checking knots, tugging at gear -
searching for each new excuse.

Dipping for chalk, a flex and shake;
even clouds are long since departed!

Butterflies rage. All senses on edge,
tense fingers caress for the hold.
Applying pressure, balance forming,[tab][/tab][tab][/tab][tab][/tab][tab][/tab][tab][/tab] [Persuasive pressure?]
fluid moves dance through my head -
somehow I ascend.

First foot, now hand, synchronous
precision; no jugs to guide the way.

A smear, a jam, in steady fashion
I struggle past cracks and flakes.

Nerves, mixed with worry, pulse
down the line, I yank for slack
on the rope. An unhurried second,
then the belay runs free -
gravity releases its grasp.

The top is near; a new best grade,
just an airy high mantle to go…

Finished! No more how's or why's,
what am I doing's -

First-rate, a worthwhile climb!





------------------------------- PREVIOUSLY -------------------------------

Breathing discarded long ago,
my heart has slowed; still beating?
Attention rapt, fixed and focused, [tab][/tab][tab][/tab] [edit: sp - 'rapped' for 'rapt']
the world has narrowed, faded fast -
there’s just the arête in view.

One more check, another tug,
there’s nothing to stop me now.

But wait… What was I thinking?
Pause, chalk, and ease my mind.

This is it, I reach out slowly,
tense fingers caress for a hold.
Applying pressure, balance forming,[tab][/tab][tab][/tab][edit: inserted comma at line end]
dancing those first fluid moves -
somehow I transcend. [tab][/tab][tab][/tab][tab][/tab][tab][/tab][tab][/tab][tab][/tab][edit: replaced 'begin to ascend' with 'transcend']

A foot, now hand, synchronous
precision; each one could spell a fall.

A smear, a jam, in steady fashion
I ascend past cracks and flakes.

The top is near; a new best grade,
just one last mantle to go.
Finished! A sigh escapes
I top out and secure my line -
what next is a worthy climb?

I very much like s1 - good rhythm, a sense of tension, a hint of things to come. Yes, good.

After that, it tends to become a competently-expressed, but - perhaps - overly literal account of the climb. A little unidimensional, if you see what I mean.

Still, it could be a taste thing.

A couple of hints, just in case they're useful:

1. Use consecutive participles like "forming dancing" with care - they can sound clumsy
2. The technique of repeating words can be deliberately used for effect, but here (ascend) it looks like an accident. And it jars a bit.

Overall, some promise here, I'd say. S1 was worth the entrance money and the rest could be worked on.

Cheers
peter

Thanks Peter,

Though I must admit I am a little suprised as I had in my mind that S1 was in fact the stanza that flowed least well! Thankfully I obviously struck lucky

You're right about 'ascend', I previously had 'climb' and replaced that to avoid repetition but obviously missed the fact I'd already used ascend too! Does the comma inserted after 'forming' help at all with point 1? I think I intended one there at any rate...

Thanks again for reading it though and for your constructive / encouraging feedback

Alucinary.

I think there are some problems early on.

Breathing discarded long ago,
my heart has slowed; still beating?
Attention rapped

That 1st sentence soundy iffy, as if the heart were breathing. Maybe punctuation could be tweaked. And should "rapped" be "rapt"?

Tim Love wrote: And should "rapped" be "rapt"?

Good spot! Thanks

Seems the jury may still be out on S1 then... I'd be interested to hear if anyone else thinks the punctuation confuses that first line - I'm not sure it does myself, I just didn't think it flowed so well.

No problem with S1 for me. I read it clean and it flowed.
I'm with Peter on the literalness of this though, I'd like a bit more reflection by the climber or emotion or... something.

I've done this kind of climb once in Montana, what a rush...

Suzanne

Alucinary,

I used to climb a lot so this caught my eye. Like the others I quite liked S1, it had a certain tension, but after that you lost me a bit.

One more check, another tug,
there’s nothing to stop me now.

But wait… What was I thinking?
Pause, chalk, and ease my mind.

I see what you're doing here, I know that feeling, standing on a hold, looking for reasons not to move off it, then realising there are no more reasons to stay - nothing to stop you. I just think it could be enunciated more effectively, something along the lines of...
Another tug on the gear, another dip in the chalk bag, pause, looking for reasons to stay, wait for a cloud to pass, just one more tug, one more dip, this is it -

this isn't great i know, but you want the reader to feel that emotion, the knowing you have to go, can't go down, got to go up.

I reach out slowly,
tense fingers caress for a hold.
Applying pressure, balance forming, [edit: inserted comma at line end]
dancing those first fluid moves -
somehow I transcend. [edit: replaced 'begin to ascend' with 'transcend']

I prefer "somehow i ascend", and like the "somehow" very much. But how does the hold feel? A jug? Or a sloper? Firm in your grasp or sketchy and chossy? At E1 I'd guess it's "the" hold not "a" hold? And perhaps using the word hold is a bit exclusive to non-climbers? I'm not much for dancing, but that maybe more a reflection on my climbing

A foot, now hand, synchronous
precision; each one could spell a fall.

Not sure about this. The risk of falling is really key to the poem. You have that tension from S1 and somehow explicitly stating it here sounds a bit flat.

A smear, a jam, in steady fashion
moving past cracks and flakes.

I like this - just changed ascend to avoid repetition.

The top is near; a new best grade,
just one last mantle to go.
Finished! A sigh escapes
I top out and secure my line -
what next is a worthy climb?

Somehow this doesn't work for me. I always think the fascinating thing about climbing is the juxtaposition of how horrific it can be during the climb (why I am here, why I am here, why am I here), but how fabulous it is in retrospect, you really believe that you had a nice time. I think I would be tempted to instill a bit more fear in the main part of the poem, and a bit more relief, then happiness, then it was fine really, no problems, really enjoyed it, and then what next.

I hope that's ok - it's a really interesting idea, with lots of good bits, I just hope that's some help, of course feel free to ignore if not.

Nicky B

Suzanne - thanks, I'm with you and Peter (and Nicky), I think it would benefit from a few line tweaks and have some forming to swap out the television event stream for a more emotional reader-poet connection (I hope!!)

Nicky - soo many thanks! The climb in mind is actually listed as E4 5c so quite a mean feat, but that didn't sound as nice so I picked the grade of a variant route to the side - rightly guessed tho "a hold" is a bit strong - makes it sound like there is more than a single half raised pebble to poke at from every direction in the hope it'll get a bit bigger! with just a dodgey cam halfway and a small loose side nut if your taking the variant route its really quite nervy! As I said above, I'm planning to work in some stronger thought processes and emotions rather than sequences and your post has given me some great pointers - just what I needed! Something I didn't want to do was throw in too much that would disconnect non-climbers but I think some of your ideas work well without doing that. Thanks for taking so much time to go through it so acutely and give advice on each bit in turn

There are certain lines I wrote and didn't much love but they allowed me to place the ones I did such as "But wait [...] and ease my mind", "This is it", "spell a fall", "Finished! A sigh escapes" and others but I think those are my worst offenders and are likely to be first against the wall... One question I do have to anyone - is it worth keeping to 5,2,2,...,5,2,2? could this help add anything or would another arrangement / seeing what happens be just as good as anything?

A new version

bit worried by the length and opted to stick with it on the stanza patterning but I've tried to incorporate the comments and personally think / hope that I have made a bit of progress towards a better poem through doing so...

To me - the first 2 lines in S1 seem such a clunky way to start - by contrast the subsequent 3 lines positively fizz and skip along - I would have made them the first 3 lines and followed with a reworded version of the first 2 lines & I'd try and match the style of those 2 lines to the easy, unforced style of the next 2 lines
"One more check, another tug,
there’s nothing to stop me now."

Not convinced by authenticity of the language when you say "But wait..." - sounds like you are giving a talk to an audience to me and want a dramatic pause - if you're on a rockface (on your own) and just checking yourself, shaking yourself up to make sure you're not being too hasty, I imagine your thoughts would be more internally directed "Hold on a minute/sec..."

I like the reaI language used here "yank for slack on the rope" and "then the belay runs free - " but I'm not keen on the way "An unhurried second" sounds - again it just sounds a little bit more forced/poetic than it needs to be - keep the language of ordinary things ordinary here.

Two general thoughts -
1) I'm not a climber (my sister & husband are) but I've been out quite a few times with them - on the climb you described you are very focussed! I would often meta-think about how strange it was that I would momentarily think about some completely random, trivial and unrelated thing like "did I put the cat out?" or "damn, I've left wet washing in the washing machine, it'll stink by the time I get home", etc.. You don't get that?
2) It's a very practical description. Climbing can be/should be/is! such a sensory and spiritual thing - the kinaesthetic qualities of feeling the rock in your hand, the heat on your back, the airflows on your body - you don't make much of this. You get away from the mundanity of everyday life -that's left behind in an unpaid bill in the glovebox of your car - you get to ride on the back of a mountain - surely thre's something spiritual and uplifting that should be shared with the reader/gained by climbing? The aerial advantage seems to have been overlooked - it's amazing what you can see in the distance - you get access to opportunities your regular ground dweller never gets. I think you could make more of those.

HTH
Neil

I like the climbing topic and the title - it's a good choice. The title made me think momentarily of a chess move but it's probably a reference to the grade and route of the climb - that was the thing that surprised me about climbing - I'm a mathematician with a passion for puzzles (and games like chess) and climbing appealed to that part of me that likes to solve puzzles; where's the next hand hold, shall I swap feet, etc.

Neil,

Thanks ever so much for taking the time to comment - unfortunately though I think I hadn't made it clear enough that the part in italics following -----------------Previously--------------- is an old version which I have subsequently reworked and replaced with the part above so the sections where you talk about "one more check, another tug" and "but wait..." have already been removed! (Sorry!) Your comments regarding the opening lines are still most appropriate though so thanks!

You're right the title E1 5a is a climbing grade but I hadn't noticed that it could be interpretted as a chess move - very similar in some respects as you alluded to as both require problem solving and skill

With regards to your general thoughts it is interesting to see the persepective of a casual climber - to answer your question I never get those fleeting thoughts whilst climbing, at other times certainly, but whilst climbing I am definitely very focused as you would describe it... I like your suggestion in point 2 and definitely agree with you that it can be more than just a practical experience; I don't think I want to extend what I have by too much so this is probably something that I would rather bear in mind for the future as I think it is valuable advice

All the best,

Alucinary