An English Summer

[spencer_broughton]

English Summer

Gaggles of shop-girls
gather, in mini-circles
to chitter-chatter
their hour away.

Skater-kids dump
their patched back-packs
slump, sharing ear-phones
and whiling their time.

Middle-aged men,
with their shirt-sleeves rolled
and newspapers rising
to rhythmic respirations.

Fountains rise and fall,
whilst nymphs madly dance
the parents wait patiently
with towels in arms out-stretched.

Dark clouds threaten
pushing away the sunshine,
the parents roll their eyes
and the summer-time pauses.

Once again.




Admittedly I haven't spent too much time on this, but what do you think?

[Jester]

I like it as it is. Some really good imagery here -

"Gaggles of shop-girls
Gather, in mini-circles "

"Skater-kids dump
Their patched back-packs
Slump,"

"newspapers rising
To rhythmic respirations"

Could do with a brush up on punctuation and the upper case starts to the lines removed.

Nice one.

Mick

[David]

Could do with a brush up on punctuation - definitely. Check your commas, Spencer Broughton. (I am assuming that is your name and not an obsure hamlet in Warwickshire.)

Some good observations although, unlike Mick, I didn't like newspapers rising / To rhythmic respirations at all.

And that verse has no verb. (My verse has no verb. How does it read? Dreadful.)

I was about to say that the "nymphs" are a bit obscure but, having just realised that it works for both the fountains and the immature creatures, I think it's an excellent choice. Good verse, although I think the last line's a little long. How do you like The parents wait patiently / With towels and sighs?

Pretty good in all. Worth the effort.

Cheers

David

[spencer_broughton]

Thanks very much.

Punctuation and grammar - yup that's a big thing with me. I use it, and I think 80% of the time it's correct but I know it's far from perfect if anyone could be a little more specific as to which bits are wrong that would be a great help. The capitals are actually due to microsoft word and I forgot to ammend it when I copied and pasted but I shall address that. Ta.

Rhythmic respirations - Hmm, I've ummed and ahhhed over this line, but at the end of the day I like it too much to get rid of. The fact that opinion is divided on it suggests it might be worth while leaving it in. And am I wrong in thinking 'rolled' and 'rising' are verbs?

I might take up your suggestion with the towel line. I wanted to keep in a hyphenated word to match the other verses but it might not be possible.

By the way Spencer Broughton is not my real name. He was a highwayman.

http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/archive ... -2865.html

[Asphodel]

I thought this was a very good effort. I actually quite liked the lines -

"newspapers rising
To rhythmic respirations"

(and the following)

"Fountains rise and fall,
whilst nymphs madly dance
the parents wait patiently
with towels in arms out-stretched."

[Robert]

I like it Spencer. I got the image that it was a snapshop of a lunchtime break. I so wanted you to add a line about the shop girls stubbing out cigarettes.

Good images and in clear language.

[David]

OK, things are getting a bit grammatical here, and that's where it gets technical.

And am I wrong in thinking 'rolled' and 'rising' are verbs?

I would welcome a more expert opinion here, but to me "roll" and "rise" are verbs. However, "rolled", in this context, is (I think) an adjective. "Rising" - well. Not sure. Is it a present participle? Or is that a gerund I see before me?

Put it another way Spencer (good name, by the way, now I get it) - you don't have a subject - verb - object construction (e.g. "I see the cat", "I kick the cat" or "I bury the cat") in the third verse.

I still like the poem.

Cheers

David

[k-j]

I like the poem. It feels slightly timeless; or perhaps temporally confused. The "shop-girls" are an image I'd associate more with the 50's through 80's than the present day, I'm not sure why. Shop workers seem to be almost as often boys as girls these days; I suppose it depends on the shop in question.

Obviously the skater-kids are modern, and I like the sounds in S2 ("slump" / "dump", "patched back-packs").

The "middle-aged men, / with their shirt-sleeves rolled" also strike me as a little old-fashioned. Whether I'm right or not to feel this way, I get the sense that the poem is describing something out of time, something both real and imagined. If this wasn't what you were trying to do, and you understand what I mean, why not delve further? "Rhythmic respirations" is perhaps redundant: we'd expect respirations to be rhythmic unless there was something wrong. You could use the extra space here for some fresh image or description.

I think "once again" looks silly on its own. Either pull it back to the end of the previous stanza or scrub it.

Small changes / suggestions:

- delete comma in line 2
- add comma after "back-packs"
- change "sharing" and "whiling" to "share" and "while" (consistency of tense)
- delete "with" in line 10, add comma after "rolled"
- delete "and" in line 11
- change "whilst" to "while" (I think)
- delete comma after "fall", add semi-colon after "dance"
- "out-stretched arms" instead of "arms out-stretched"
- change "pushing" to "to push"
- change comma after "sunshine" to semi-colon

n.b. Rolled = adjective, I think. Rising = gerund (verbal noun). But I don't think it matters, does it, in poetry, whether or not you have a verb. There must be lots of examples of verbless (purely descriptive) modern verse.

[spencer_broughton]

Thanks that's all really helpful. I didn't attempt to make the poem sound timeless, but I'm quite glad it happened like that.

I'm going to get rid of once again, I agree it doesn't work.

[Macavity]

Lots to enjoy in this picture of time spent - Gaggles of shop-girls /rhythmic respirations/nymphs around the fountains - no crit to add, though 'Once again' worked for me, pointing to the cyclical nature of events.

cheers

mac

[CRM]

Spencer. It felt like i was walking along southsea beach on a summers day listening to the sounds and watching people. I also like the rythmic respirations line..because it set quite a specific image for me.

[spencer_broughton]

Really? It's meant to be a park in Sheffield. Not quite the beach! But I get what you mean, thanks.