One in Forty Thousand

[bobvincent]

ONE IN FORTY THOUSAND

Taut morning of misery wracked with fear,
stifling, pounding tension, numb flesh walking
in tight circles of prayer till the sentence
stammered by the doctor, “It’s not good news”.
Cancer nurse, undertaker-black, on hand.
“I know why you’re here” my daughter’s first words,
brave, not fooled, folded us in a huddle
around our “woman” barely fully grown.
We touch her tender flesh and I return
to a softer time of smuggling presents,
drying pouty tears with magic plasters-
Oh God, why did you let it come to this?

I should have known, from letters in the haze
between sleep and waking that grey morning:
ONCOLOGY YES JUDGEMENT,
abstract but
true enough to let me believe in dreams.

We shall wrap her in our love and swathe her
like the innocent babe she was and is,
caught by the crab’s cold claw at her soft age.
Our warm love will smother him, starve his rage;
she will be ours again, and never his.

[David]

Very affecting, Bob. Further comment seems not only unnecessary but, somehow, uncalled for. The final stanza, in particular, is very good.

Cheers

David

[barrie]

I'm going to live up to my name of Barrie the Butcher now.

I thought the first verse was a bit overdone and too 'telly'. I know it was very emotive, but it doesn't have the effect of the other two verses. It's the embedded suggestion in the last two verses that renders V1 comparatively ineffective.

I should have known, from letters in the haze
between sleep and waking that grey morning: - This would make a great start to the poem - an initial mystery.

The last two verses say it all for me.

Barrie

Nearly forgot - Why not drop 'babe' and just say like the innocent she was.

[bobvincent]

I disagree, barrie. If you had lived through the tension of a morning before going to hospital with your 20-year-old daughter to find out if she had lymphoma, then you would not have thought the first verse was "overdone and "telly". ", for it is as near to capturing a feeling as I have ever managed . It was not Holby City but real life. Leaving out the first verse would leave little at all.

[stuartryder]

I wouldn't go as far as Barrie, Bob, but I do think there are too many abstract emotions in the first two lines, somewhich I agree with Barrie on.

I think it would be better to start with "The sentence, stammered by the doctor" - then it suggests the custodial nuance of the word "sentence" too.

As far as whether or not readers have experienced the same events as you, of course the law of probability proves otherwise - as your title states. If you want to get across those feelings you have to portray them and evoke them, and that isn't the same as just saying "I was wracked with tension". It is unlikely to be the reader's problem if the point doesn't come across well.

Cheers

Stuart

[bobvincent]

Thanks, David.

stuartryder,
I think there are only two emotions in the first stanza/section, tension and fear, and I think I was being quite succinct about what we felt by expressing the desperate helplessness in two and a half lines. I don't share the English dread of expressing emotions, which must always be kept to a minimum, hinted at rather than explicit. I think there is a cultural difference here. I am not English by background and would rather say what I feel than hint at it by playing at subtleties.

[stuartryder]

Thanks, David.

stuartryder,
I think there are only two emotions in the first stanza/section, tension and fear, and I think I was being quite succinct about what we felt by expressing the desperate helplessness in two and a half lines. I don't share the English dread of expressing emotions, which must always be kept to a minimum, hinted at rather than explicit. I think there is a cultural difference here. I am not English by background and would rather say what I feel than hint at it by playing at subtleties.

Bob

No doubt you were being very succinct in that passage, that isn't an issue here. But the mode of expression is abstract, like it or not. That's got nothing to do with any supposed "English dread" of emotions. Go to an American workshop and they'll say the same thing. Words that describe feelings are flat; words that evoke feelings by describing actions are alive. It's also more believable that way. Funnily enough your statement that using abstracts is saying what you feel rather than hinting at it, is the complete opposite to plain English - that modern campaign aimed at getting straight to the heart of the matter, without using abstraction.

Stuart

[barrie]

When you put a poem up for comment then expect a reader's response as to what the poem means to them, what it actually says to them. After all, it is other people's responses that you want, isn't it?
What's the point in trying to justify everything? If you're trying to reach a wider audience with this then maybe you should be pushing for empathy and not overdoing the emotional bit. Most of us have had our tragedies, our highly emotional times, so we know what it feels like - so what's the point in telling us something that's all too familiar. No-ones trying to deny what you felt, but the poem's not about you, it's about your daughter and the last two verses put that across.
If the poem was an exercise in catharsis then fine, but that makes it too personal to reach a wider audience. Like I said, you should be trying for empathy, not sympathy. All I'm doing is giving you an honest take on what I've read - All I have to go on, all anyone has to go on, are the words that you've presented, and it's the presentation of these words that I'm commenting on. I don't really want you to justify this, or justify that - I'm just giving you my honest opinion, and my opinion is that verse one doesn't work for me. If you want to dismiss my opinion, then that's OK with me.

Barrie

[bobvincent]

Thanks, boys for the masterclass in stiff-upper-lip minimal English poetry, but I'll choose to ignore your advice this time, because that's Ok with you.

[barrie]

Thanks, boys for the masterclass in stiff-upper-lip minimal English poetry, but I'll choose to ignore your advice this time, because that's Ok with you.

-

You can't resist the snide comment, can you? You're not worth bothering with - better add me to your ever growing list of people you choose to avoid.