Poetry Forum

Stay — Revision 2 (6 September 2015, title was 'September Song')

What passed for conversation while we drank,
sounds of turned pages, steps of passers by,
punctuated pauses deep and dank.
Good humour gave up last attempts to fly.
Tin-caged canaries fell but we ignored
their clatter, being in ourselves engrossed
in separate heavy silences. I’m bored.
Some Stay a Little Longer sounds get tossed

from memory to ear and out of mind.
Black beetles eating dark things in the night
tune up for dirges live canaries find
abhorrent. Nothing going on goes right.

Stay, but where? A mystery to me.
I wonder when life happens where I’ll be.
---

September Song - notes on revising from original to revision 1

Ros, ablackfoot, and JJ,

Thank you all for your help seeing where this poem needs improvement. Here is the revised version together with some notes trying to answer your questions.

I gave this poem the title ‘September Song’ because it was September when I drafted it, and also because I was reflecting on how a year compares to a person’s life span. Kurt Weil’s famous song of the same title uses that metaphor. Imagine Frank Sinatra singing: ‘… May to December…’

Here in Holland, the first of September brought rain and a drop in temperature, a warning of early, hard winter both literally and figuratively? When canaries in their tin cages fell dead from their perches, miners knew to evacuate the mine, and I am alluding to that, but ‘we’ in the poem — busy with ‘ourselves’ — ignored the warnings.

Another song: Through the magic of Google I today learned that the Brothers Osborne’s ‘Stay a Little Longer’ is one of ‘country music’s hottest new acts’. I didn’t know that. Wishing for summer to stay a little longer, I was not referring to that song, nor to the earlier ‘Stay All Night, Stay a Little Longer’ sung by Willy Nelson. What I was half remembering was ‘Stay Just A Little Bit Longer' or 'Stay' — the doo-wop song recorded by Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs. Like, especially like, Rosemary Butler sings beginning at minute 6:15 on YouTube https://youtu.be/EJgKNHYqVoc

Thanks to your comments I have changed the poem’s ‘from Spotify to us and overboard’ line to ‘from memory to ear and out of mind’. This not only avoids over-topically mentioning Spotify (a digital music service providing access to millions of songs) but lets me correct the overboard/wears rhyming error.

I had removed and reinserted ‘and’ in line 10 ‘and I wonder when life happens where I’ll be’ five or six times before posting the earlier version here. It’s out again in this revision. I can’t find a reason for it either except that sometimes it sounds good

JJ, I too would like to see my scan on line 6, but thanks to you I see that making it scan the way it was written requires squealing the ‘we' — Does the revised line scan properly now?

Black beetles are creepy/ominous if you watch them and imagine them getting big or militant. Common Black Ground Beetles in America live in dark places and hunt nocturnally, running to catch aphids, caterpillars and other soft-bodied prey. The black beetles I was remembering seeing in France (les petits coléoptères, au corps arrondi et noir avec des reflets métallisés) feed on droppings and decaying organic matter. The bored ‘I’ figure listens in the silence and hears or imagines them vibrating, threatening to come out from cover.

September Song - revision 1 (6 September 2015)
They passed for conversation while we drank:
the sounds of pages turning, passers by.
We acted peacefully but something shrank
and, when I dropped my glass, it tried to fly.
Tin-caged canaries fell but we ignored
their clatter, being at that time engrossed
inside each other’s silences. I’m bored.
Some Stay a Little Longer sounds get tossed
from memory to ear and out of mind.
I wonder when life happens where I’ll be.
Leaf-decked black beetles eat dark things they find
I hear, in our new silence, how they key
their vibrations to a volume I can hear
enough that boredom yields that bit to fear.

September Song - original
They passed for conversation while we drank:
the sounds of pages turning, passers by.
We acted peacefully but something shrank
and, when I dropped my glass, it tried to fly.
Tin-caged canaries fell but we ignored
their clatter as if we were too engrossed
inside each other’s silences. I’m bored.
Some Stay a Little Longer sounds get tossed
from Spotify to us and overboard,
and I wonder when life happens where I’ll be.
In autumn grass, black beetles hawk new wares.
I hear, in our new silence, how they key
vibrations to a volume I can hear
enough that boredom yields that bit to fear.

I like this. I'm not sure, though, about black beetles instilling fear.

and I wonder when life happens where I’ll be.

is a great line. The drank/shrank rhyme struck me rather forcefully.

Ros

Its really beautiful to me - I feel for some reason I can relate - but it is creepy too. I know mystery may make poetry here but I can't feeling some of the action is too obscure. What are the canaries? Just a metaphor? What are the black beetles hawking wares? Is that a British thing? Spotify stand out in diction and style from the rest, not sure I like that. The description of the vibration becoming frightening is great.

Hi Alan

An interesting sonnet that follows the Shakespearean form.
The meter is fine to my ear, L's 1 to 5 are written in perfect iambic pentameter.
I'd like to see your scan on line 6. "/their clatt/er as/ if we /were too /engrossed/" iamb/double iamb/iamb/iamb/
L 10 made me stumble. See below. The other lines are perfect IP.

You've used perfect rhyme and near rhyme all the way through then rhyme 'overboard' with hawk new wares. I wouldn't mention it if it wasn't a stand alone incongruity. Is there a reason for this departure?

AlanReynolds wrote:They passed for conversation while we drank:
the sounds of pages turning, passers by.
We acted peacefully but something shrank
and, when I dropped my glass, it tried to fly.
Tin-caged canaries fell but we ignored
their clatter as if we were too engrossed
inside each other’s silences. I’m bored.
Some Stay a Little Longer sounds get tossed
from Spotify to us and overboard,
and I wonder when life happens where I’ll be. ...you could drop 'and' and still maintain the meter. It works as is but I can't find a reason for the substitution in the first foot. Perhaps a semi after 'overboard'.
In autumn grass, black beetles hawk new wares.
I hear, in our new silence, how they key
vibrations to a volume I can hear
enough that boredom yields that bit to fear.

I've struggled to understand the imagery and how it relates to the title. I'm probably missing something. 'Spotify' carries a capital letter so I'm assuming its a product relating to sound, like hi-fi. That moves the poem into the contemporary.
You have some fine imagery and hints of autumn but I'm struggling to tie it all together. I want to like the 'black beetles' line. They are hawking/selling something or new products. Is this an IN phrase? Again, I can't quite connect.

I'm looking forward to your replies because I'm certain I'm stifled by my own limitations.

Best

JJ

Thank you for your very useful critique, JJ.

It helped me see where revisions are necessary. I have had a happy time this morning working on emendations. What is the procedure for posting revisions, post them in the same thread?

I shall include my detailed replies with the revision.

Best regards,
Alan

Ros wrote:I like this. I'm not sure, though, about black beetles instilling fear.

and I wonder when life happens where I’ll be.

is a great line. The drank/shrank rhyme struck me rather forcefully.

Ros

Thank you for your read and helpful comments, Ros. I am taking them on board in the revision where I will also answer about the beetles.

ablackfoot wrote:Its really beautiful to me - I feel for some reason I can relate - but it is creepy too. I know mystery may make poetry here but I can't feeling some of the action is too obscure. What are the canaries? Just a metaphor? What are the black beetles hawking wares? Is that a British thing? Spotify stand out in diction and style from the rest, not sure I like that. The description of the vibration becoming frightening is great.

Thank you, ablackfoot,

I'm glad to hear you found it beautiful. Spotify is now out of the poem; thanks for commenting on that. I shall try to answer your questions when I post the revision.

Hi again, Alan

Just press the edit button on your poem and paste/write the revision above the original. Label the first version "Original" then write (Revision 1) next to the title in the subject box. This should keep the original and the revision together for comparison. Press submit. That's what I do anyway. The poem can be returned to the top of the page by replying to your own poem. EG 'Revision posted' or 'Revision 1, thanks to all.' etc

I think that should be ok.

Best

JJ

JJWilliamson wrote:I think that should be ok.

Thanks, JJ.

The notes would be better in a separate comment at the foot of the thread, Alan, but we can leave them where they are now. Interesting notes they are too.

AlanReynolds wrote:Here in Holland

Rather off-topic, that's particularly interesting to me, as I have lived in Holland too. (But do you mean Holland in the specialised - and compartmentalised - Dutch sense or in the lazier English sense?)

Anyway, to the poem ...

AlanReynolds wrote:They passed for conversation while we drank

I wonder whether "It" would be better than "they", and not just because the sense gets slightly mixed up with that of the passers by in the next line.

AlanReynolds wrote:We acted peacefully but something shrank
and, when I dropped my glass, it tried to fly.

Now that doesn't sound quite right. If you follow it through the "it" dangles confusingly, despite the cleverly placed commas, and the first line doesn't sound right at all. We acted peacefully? Something shrank? Hmm.

I think you can have either September Song or Stay (that's what it's called, in fact, isn't it?), but using both just over-eggs things a bit.

AlanReynolds wrote:I wonder when life happens where I’ll be.

That is, as Ros says, a great line. In fact I very much like what the poem nearly does, but it's all - or nearly all - a bit stilted at present. There are quite large chunks that don't really sound like idiomatic English at all, but have been manhandled into shape to fit the poem, which can't be the effect you're going for. If you can make it a little more conversational, you'll have something very nice.

And that line that both Ros and I like should be your last one. A humdinger finish.

Still, even now it's a good challenging read, and that's always welcome round these parts.

Cheers

David

Hi,

I really enjoyed the meter. I think you've done a splendid job.
I've bedn watching the replies and think the edit is better than the first.

The last two lines are the hardest to tie together.
But they are not bad, just not as naturally smooth as the previous.

"Bit of fear" doesnt seem right and though i have thought about it, i can not say why!
A bit of fear, i guess i'd use a more descriptive modifier.



Overall, nice poem. Thanks.
Suzanne

Suzanne wrote:I've bedn watching the replies and think the edit is better than the first. ... The last two lines are the hardest to tie together. ... "Bit of fear" doesnt seem right and though i have thought about it, i can not say why!

Many thanks, Suzanne. Hopefully revision 2 will be better again and solve the bit of fear awkwardness. Probably by taking it out.

David,
Many thanks for your response here. Industrial strength critiques are what I was looking forward to in the Poets' Graves Workshop, and yours and the others here help me learn how to improve.

David wrote:The notes would be better in a separate comment at the foot of the thread, Alan, but we can leave them where they are now. Interesting notes they are too.

Glad you like them. Of course when the poem gets up to standard it needs to be good without any footnotes at all.

David wrote:Rather off-topic, that's particularly interesting to me, as I have lived in Holland too. (But do you mean Holland in the specialised - and compartmentalised - Dutch sense or in the lazier English sense?)

Both actually. I live in Monnickendam (15 minutes north of the centre of Amsterdam) in the province Noord-Holland, Netherlands. Where did you live?

David wrote:Anyway, to the poem ...

Your comments and insights have really helped. The result is that I have tossed the entire poem into prose and back into a rather different sonnet which I hope makes more sense, Something a bit more conversational. And the title is now 'Stay'. I shall put it up as revision 2.

Hello Alan. You've a good poem here, but I'm afraid I've got the phrase every poet dreads - I much prefer the original, except perhaps that the line singled out, I wonder when life happens.... would make a very nice final line. But for me, the original flows much better, and is clearer, I think.

What passed for conversation while we drank, - I believe They is better than What
sounds of turned pages, steps of passers by, - the sounds of turning pages flows much better

Tin-caged canaries fell but we ignored - nice image
their clatter, being in ourselves engrossed - doesn't engrossed rhyme with toast, rather than tossed?
in separate heavy silences. I’m bored. - again, inside each other's silences flows better
Some Stay a Little Longer sounds get tossed

I like the original Spotify reference. I'm kind of agnostic on which final 6 lines I prefer, though I don't really see a case for dividing the poem into 3 stanzas.

ray miller wrote:Hello Alan. You've a good poem here, but I'm afraid I've got the phrase every poet dreads - I much prefer the original,

Hello Ray,

It's good to hear this from you and I appreciate your comments. This poem is really getting a workout. Pretty soon I shall be sorting it by phoneme trying for the right sequence

Actually, I'm very glad to be getting this critique and all the others. They make me reflect on what the poem should be trying to do and how to get it to do that. Will keep you posted on the next revision(s).