The Slither

[Lia]

Thinking about what you said, Phil, I've made a revision with slither. It's something about the tone of the word, I think.


Revision 2

The Slither

What is it that rolls out of the sunlight
To find a place among the leaves if not
An apple and the white worm that left it
A brown tunnel leading back to the pip?

If I were to find my way back to the pip
Would I recognise the loss of sunlight
Or the rot found browning inside it
As food for a life whether my life or not?

How the tree tangles with it into a knot
Unpicking self from sky back to the pip
All the small thoughts of leaf, fruit and sunlight
Made brown by the appetite so needing it.

I've caught my head on the idea of it
This worm that strives for its own life or not
But lives nonetheless with some form of light
From the earth to the shoot and out of the pip.

Here is the pip and what slithers from it.
Will we meet or not when I trade this light?



Revision 1

Ravel

What is it that rolls out of the sunlight
To find a place among the leaves if not
An apple with a white worm when, behind it
A brown tunnel burrows back to the pip?

If I were to find my way back to the pip
Would I not know the loss of sunlight
Or the rot found browning inside it
As food for a life when my own life is not?

How the tree tangles with it into a knot
Unpicking self from sky, back to the pip
All the small thoughts of leaf, branch and sunlight
Brown from the appetite so needing it.

I've caught my head on the idea of it
This worm that strives for its own life or not
But lives nonetheless with some form of light
From the earth to the shoot and out of the pip.

Here is the pip and the worm that crawls from it.
Will we meet or not when I trade this light?


Alternative:

S3
How the tree tangles with it into a knot
Unpicking self from sky, back to the pip
All the small thoughts of leafing in sunlight
Browned by the appetite so needing it.



Original

The Slither

What is it that rolls out of the sunlight
To find a place among the leaves if not
An apple with a white worm when, behind it
A brown tunnel burrows back to the pips?

If I were to find my way back to the pip
Would I not know the loss of sunlight
Or the rot found browning inside it
As food for a life when my own life is not?

How the tree tangles with it into a knot
Collapsing self from sky, back to the pip
All the small thoughts of leaf, branch and sunlight
Brown in the worm's stomach so needing it.

I've caught my head on the idea of it
This worm that strives with its own life or not
But lives nonetheless with some form of light
From the earth, to the shoot and out of the pips.

Here is the pip, and that which slithers from it.
Will we meet or not in this trade of light?



(variation on a sestina... so maybe quartina, as John says.)

[jisbell00]

Sestina is from the Italian sesto, sixth, so quartina if you like.
More to follow!

Cheers,
John

[Lia]

Ah okay, thank you John. So quartina it is!

Lia

[jisbell00]

Hi Lia,

I'd keep pip singular throughout - I don't think you need the plural. Beyond that, I think this is splendid stuff, with four nicely chosen repetends. The lexicon is rich and anchored, the syntax is worth the price of admission, there is a somewhat unexpected philosophy to the whole. And there are moments of joy for the reader, like "if I could find my way back to the pip."

Cheers,
John

[Lia]

Hi John,

I'd keep pip singular throughout - I don't think you need the plural.

Okay, I'll sort that out in a tick.

I'm happy to hear that the poem's behaving as it should. When it comes to rhyming poems, I 'play by ear', if you see what I mean. This one came from looking at a windfall apple in the garden which had a brown hole and the tail of a worm showing (a codling moth larva, apparently).

Many thanks,

Lia

[jisbell00]

And as you say, the codling moth is living its life as well.

I find myself thinking of Blake a bit: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/ ... -sick-rose

Cheers,
John

[Lia]

The infamous worm! I can see just why your mind went to Blake, John.

I was just thinking about 'collapsing' in S3. Do you think 'unpicking' would be better?

Lia

[jisbell00]

Collapsing is kind of a macrocosm-microcosm thing, which I like. And also, the apple collapses as it rots.
Unpicking is a clever pun - picking! - and alliterates neatly with pip (as does collapsing, lesso bviously). My reluctance is the proximity unpicking-pip, which feels to me as if it might be a bit heavy handed. Unpipping, now, that would be interesting, if the word existed.

Bottom line: I don't really have a strong opinion. Just these thoughts.

Cheers,
John

[Lia]

hmm... I see your point, John. I was thinking about the 'knot' in the previous line and how 'unpicking' might work in that context. As if the tree were picking apart the threads it had previously weaved in/on the sky.

Lia

[jisbell00]

Ah, unpicking the knot. I'd missed that. Yes, i suppose the tree has fingers for that sort of work.

Cheers,
John

[NotQuiteSure]

Hi Lia.

Not keen on the title, or that every line begins with a capital (it made it harder to follow that it needed to be, for me.) And the lack of punctuation didn't help.

S1 - are you missing a comma after 'behind it' (it takes a while to figure out the 'it' of 'behind it' refers to the worm not the apple.) Seems to me that 'burrows' should be past-tense.

S3 - 'collapsing' felt like it came from a different lexicon (so did 'stomach', but it turns out earth worms have stomachs, so fine. But still ... )

didn't understand 'so needing it'

S4 - 'But'? Not 'And'?

Will we meet or not in this trade of light?
It rather ends flatly for me with this line. (And why wasn't the worm wriggling?)


Regards, Not

.

[jisbell00]

Hi Lia,

Yes, like Not, I'm not that keen on the title. Might something like Dissolution work?

Cheers,
John

[Lia]

Hi John,

Well, I suppose I could try 'unpicking' and if it doesn't sit right in a few days, I can just change it back. To come to your other comment, I'll have a think about the title. I like the feeling of it or, I should say, I don't like it! The other possibility is The Trade, but that seems a bit boring to me.



Hello Not.

I'm sorry you had a bit of trouble with the capitals and the punctuation. I'm relying on line-breaks for the punctuation and also I thought that using capitals would help to emphasise the start of each line. It's a taste thing probably, but I can see that the lack of comma after 'behind it' might cause a pause.

"Seems to me that 'burrows' should be past-tense."

That's a tricky one. I'm not certain, but I do see what you're seeing. With 'collapsing' I'm going to try 'unpicking'.

"S4 - 'But'? Not 'And'?"

I'm in two minds. If an 'and' can be got rid of then it's useful to do so, but 'and' would work in the line. The 'but' was because it follows 'or not'.

Will we meet or not in this trade of light?
"It rather ends flatly for me with this line. (And why wasn't the worm wriggling?)"

Ah, okay. The previous version had this:

Will we meet or not when I trade this light?

Better or worse?

The worm wasn't wriggling, because it doesn't feel like the right kind of word for this. If I used wriggle, I'd have to call the poem The Wriggle!

Many thanks,

Lia

[NotQuiteSure]

Hi Lia.

I'm relying on line-breaks for the punctuation
Not exclusively, and so not consistently.

'collapsing' I'm going to try 'unpicking'.
One thought

How the tree ravels with it into a knot
Untangling self from sky, back to the pip

I'm in two minds. If an 'and' can be got rid of then it's useful to do so, but 'and' would work in the line. The 'but' was because it follows 'or not'.
Then start punctuating.

Better or worse?
The same. For me it's the 'will we meet or not' that is the uninteresting aspect.
You either will or you won't, and I didn't need the preceding lines to get to that conclusion.

If I used wriggle, I'd have to call the poem The Wriggle!
That doesn't follow - you could have called it Trading Light - aAnd 'slither' sets up all sorts of expectations that aren't met.
So, for me, the final question isn't '... trade of light?' but, 'why slither?'

Still got no idea what 'so needing it' means.

Regards, Not

.

[Macavity]

Haunting poem Lia. You have more courage than I to tunnel into the knowledge of such matter! I cling to innocence I like the unpicking and prefer the personalised I in the concluding line. Brown in the appetite so needing it. Just a thought for the driving force.

Bw

Phil

[ton321]

Hi Lia,

I enjoyed this a lot- it has a slightly Garden of Eden /Sick-Rose vibe to it, and the title's verb surely points in that direction, but do worms or grubs slither? I'm not sure about the phrase "caught my head", but that does tie in with the knotty interconnectedness theme going on and can't think of anything better. Also using repeated end of line words gives it that feeling of something being chewed over again and again.

T

[Lia]

Hi Not.

It may depend on the style of poem whether the lack of punc needs to be fully consistent. A loose, 'ethereal' free-verse poem would need to be as consistent as possible (if the writer is wanting to write without punctuation to create the feeling of one single breath).

I could call the poem Trading Light, but really, I wanted to call it the name of the 'other party' in the trade. The problem with 'ravels' is that the verb means to unravel. A messy word. A nice name for a poem though... Hmm what if I called the poem Ravel or The Ravel (the verb is unravel, the noun is tangle or knot)?

Then start punctuating.
Well then, in a fit of rebellion I will remove two more commas.

You either will or you won't, and I didn't need the preceding lines to get to that conclusion.
Alright. And if the question is so particularly uninteresting then tell me what it is that the narrator will or won't do?

Still got no idea what 'so needing it' means.

It's means; 'I'm so needing an ice-cream right now.' It's some sort of conversational expression, I guess. ie: I'm desperately needing an ice-cream/ I'm very much needing an ice-cream/I'm particularly needing an ice-cream. (Just to be clear, I'm not actually needing an ice-cream.)

Thanks for coming back to have another look.

Brown in the appetite so needing it.

That's smashing, Phil. It keeps with the idea and adds to the 'Ps' and 'Ts' in the stanza. I'll take it. Thank you. And thank you for your opinion on unpicking and the personalised I.

I cling to innocence

I was complacent and wandered from the path

Many thanks as always.



Hi T,

I'm glad you enjoyed it. Worms and grubs probably don't slither, but what the worm represents probably does. Actually, an earthworm has been seen to slither like a snake, but I guess that's neither here nor there. I have eleven syllables in the penultimate line so I suppose I could swap 'slithers' to 'crawls' (as this is what they actually do). But do you think the word 'crawls' sounds as effective?

Also using repeated end of line words gives it that feeling of something being chewed over again and again.

I like that thought. It's an interesting form to play with.

Thank you.

Lia

[David]

Hi Lia. I'm not sure I fully followed your thought process here, but I admire the skill with which you've dealt with the restraints of the form.

For some reason, I found "pip" quite a challenging word in the context. That seems an embarrassing admission to make. Maybe it's been a long hard week.

Very nicely done, though.

David

[jisbell00]

Pip is a challenging word but Philip Pirrip would have taken half the line!

Cheers,
John

[Lia]

Pip is a challenging word but Philip Pirrip would have taken half the line!

Cheers,
John

hahaha... That's quite true, John!


Hello David,

I had to answer John first because I'm about to divulge the information you require! But first of all, it's certainly been a long hard week down here in the south, plus I have a sore throat, a runny nose and my eyes are watering, but I won't whinge on. Apart from being Philip Pirrip, the pip is ... well, it's a pip - the aspect of nature before germination. The light is the spark, and the worm is continuation. I was just chewing over the idea of the trade that might take place so that nature can continue, but I wanted the poem to feel like a messy tangle of life and death that arrives at a simple conclusion.

Does that make sense or should I have stuck with Philip Pirrip?

Many thanks,

Lia

[David]

I was just chewing over the idea of the trade that might take place so that nature can continue, but I wanted the poem to feel like a messy tangle of life and death that arrives at a simple conclusion.

Ah okay. Yes, I see that now - but only now.

I do very much like your closing couplet, though.

Cheers

David

[Morpheus]

Hi Lia, I like what you're trying to do here. I've never heard of a sestina (or quartina) so this was a new one on me. It's engaging in a puzzling kind of way. I had a bit of trouble with this stanza until I took the liberty of removing caps (as per Not's comment) and even then it's a very long complicated question:

If I were to find my way back to the pip
would I not know the loss of sunlight
or the rot found browning inside it
as food for a life when my own life is not? (the last line in particular was awkward)

I want to make it more natural but I'm not sure if my attempt captures the question you were looking for?

If I were to find my way back to the pip
wouldn't I know of the loss of sunlight
or the rot found browning inside it
as food for a life whether my life or not?

[NotQuiteSure]

Hi Lia.

Still not keen on the capitals. Not least because the cause me to read Brown (L12) as a noun rather than a verb (unhelpful when you have brown as an adjective earlier (L4.))

An apple with a white worm when, behind it
A brown tunnel burrows back to the pip?

Surely 'where' can replace the clunky 'when, behind it ?

S5-L1 - not the alternative.

S3 - the alternative seems to be saying something quite different. Not keen on it.

As to interpretation: I've decided to read it as a (n ambivalent) meditation on pregnancy/childbirth/motherhood.


Regards, Not

.

[ray miller]

I'm no great fan of these kind of forms that involve repetition, villanelles and all that. It's an interesting read, though. Knotty, I suppose.

What is it that rolls out of the sunlight
To find a place among the leaves if not
An apple with a white worm when, behind it
A brown tunnel burrows back to the pip?

It seems like you're saying that only an apple could find this place... maybe it needs rephrasing. But then you might mess up the whole pattern. Who'd be a poet, eh?
a white worm, as behind it....?

If I were to find my way back to the pip
Would I not know the loss of sunlight
Or the rot found browning inside it
As food for a life when my own life is not?

Enjoyed this stanza. Maybe "feel the loss"

How the tree tangles with it into a knot
Unpicking self from sky, back to the pip
All the small thoughts of leaf, branch and sunlight
Brown from the appetite so needing it.

The "it" of the first line is the apple? The apple that is on the ground?

I've caught my head on the idea of it
This worm that strives with its own life or not
But lives nonetheless with some form of light
From the earth to the shoot and out of the pip.

Love the first line. Should it be "strives for"?

Here is the pip and the worm that crawls from it.
Will we meet or not when I trade this light?

Not sure who the "we" are.

[Lia]

Hello David,

I was delayed a wee bit, but I'm glad (very) that you like the closing couplet. It's hard to know whether it's right or not to explain the intention behind any poem. With songs, it's sometimes frowned upon when the singer/band explains what they meant simply because people connect in different ways to lyrics. A poem is very close to a lyric.


Hi Morpheus,

I took the liberty of removing caps

The cheek of it!

I don't think a quartina exists. It's just a possible name for the thing as I based it on a sestina. I do very much appreciate you having a look at the awkward lines and wrestling with them (and those capitals!). I suppose it depends on what we read and maybe how we speak. You see, I rarely use capitals in this way but when I do, I only see the strengthening of the first word in each line, if I notice them at all.

wouldn't I know of the loss of sunlight

It's a strange thing but I find the 'wouldn't' and the two 'ofs' harder to say. You've given me an idea, though. I don't have to say 'wouldn't' or 'would I not'. I could say 'would' and the question remains the same. For instance,

Would I recognise the loss of sunlight

I very much like your idea for the last line. It says the same thing in a different way, and I must admit 'whether' is just my kind of word! I only hesitate a little bit because I already have 'or not' a couple of times in the poem.... hmm I think whether is worth it. Thank you for your close eye.


Hello Not,

Those blasted capitals.

Surely 'where' can replace the clunky 'when, behind it ?

I can't see why not. Thank you.

"S5-L1 - not the alternative."
Okay.
"S3 - the alternative seems to be saying something quite different. Not keen on it."
Yep. I've gone off it, too. It doesn't roll along like the current one.

As to interpretation: I've decided to read it as a (n ambivalent) meditation on pregnancy/childbirth/motherhood.

That's fascinating. I think I can see what you mean.

Many thanks.


Hi Ray,

Who'd be a poet, eh?

Fools!

'as' might work. I like Not's 'where', too. I think both make a bit more sense out of the line. I'll try them both. Thank you.

If I were to find my way back to the pip
Would I not know the loss of sunlight
Or the rot found browning inside it
As food for a life when my own life is not?

Enjoyed this stanza. Maybe "feel the loss"

I'm glad you enjoyed it. 'feel' is a nice alternative. I've suggested a line to Morpheus: Would I recognise the loss of sunlight. Do you think 'would I' or 'would I not' sounds better?

How the tree tangles with it into a knot
Unpicking self from sky, back to the pip
All the small thoughts of leaf, branch and sunlight
Brown from the appetite so needing it.

The "it" of the first line is the apple? The apple that is on the ground?

Yes, it could be the apple. I was thinking the 'idea', but both are the same thing really, aren't they?

Love the first line. Should it be "strives for"?

Well, that's good news. And you're dead right about 'for'. I'll sort that out in jiffy.

In the last couplet, I think the 'we' is the narrator and the worm.

Thank you.

Lia