Poetry Forum

like a sort of sky - the scudded clouds - a Gerard
Manley Hopkins custard pie
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .lavender
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .lemon
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .lime
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .pinkish and purple - marooned dark marooned am I
You see this is in fact the optic nerve
shadows shoals and reefs seen as if from the sky
the last Hopkin thing before you/we/I die

Hi Jules,

This poem moves along well with a central rhyme/sound of ‘i’, which I assume was chosen because the poem’s central theme seems to be about how we see or the ‘eye’.

I think you are using ‘pie’ in the poem as a pun to allude to ‘pied beauty’ (‘pied’ having a different meaning) and ‘custard pie’ as an image for the optic nerve in the eye. And of course Hopkin’s custard pie would contain many very various things. I like that you make Hopkin’s a type of god at the end, in the sense that everything we see is a Hopkins thing. It has a nice irony with the end of ‘pied beauty’.

That’s my take on it. I may be a million miles off though.

Either way I enjoyed thinking about it.

Cheers,

Tristan

bjondon wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 19, 2019 9:25 pm

like a sort of sky - the scudded clouds - a Gerard
Manley Hopkins custard pie
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .lavender
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .lemon
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .lime
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .pinkish and purple - marooned dark marooned am I
You see this is in fact the optic nerve
shadows shoals and reefs seen as if from the sky
the last Hopkin thing before you/we/I die

Hi Luke,

This is appropriately bouncy and jolly. Consider losing "as if" from penultimate line?

Made me smile.
Dylan