Poetry Forum

Gazelle was beautiful and shy.
I saw her moving in the woods
alone, elegance against
the roughened bark of lodge-pole pines,
graceful as Pavlova.

Dressed in transverse tiger stripes
alive before the mossy greens,
she stared with deep intent
at covert things I could not see;
her fey ear caught what I could not.

She rose upon her ballet toes,
dilated eyes ranged the woods,
twigs snapped and she was gone away
so suddenly—
I thought I heard the vacuum
............. clap.

.

I really like this, Robert - is "giselle" actually the French word for gazelle, or is it just a bit of clever wordplay? Nice Pavlova reference, although if you wanted to be really brave you could also try to incorporate the meringue dessert meaning of the word. To describe the movement of a gazelle. Good luck with that.

Lines I particularly like:

Dressed in transverse tiger stripes
alive before the mossy greens and

She rose upon her ballet toes.

However, her fey ear caught what I could not is possibly (only possibly) a little twee, and I don't get I thought I heard the vacuum / ............. clap at all.

The only serious problem, I think, is the metre you have used. You've overdone the old pa-dum pa-dum pa-dum, to my mind. It's not really appropriate to the gracefully erratic movements of a gazelle, although it would be perfect for a kangaroo.

Still, with that reservation, I liked, I liked.

Cheers

David

Robert,

I really like this - trust the French to spoil the conceit by refusing to call their gazelles "giselles"

Like David, I am struggling with the ending: is the "vacuum" the silence (presumably clapping with one hand)?

For some reason I am guessing that you are a fan of Robert Frost (it's partly the meter)

Nice one
Geoff

I think this is good - however, I don't think that the last verse is up to the same standard as the first two. The first line is fine, but lines 2 & 3 let it down in my opinion.

dilated eyes ranged the woods,
twigs snapped and she was gone away - it just seems little too predictable. I don't mean the deer's reaction, that's what they do - I mean the description.

The final phrase is quite clever - I take it that you were punning on clap - the 'thunder' clap and the appreciative applause for the performance.

Barrie

Liked this too...nice job

One thing I am unsure of - is the following line

¨at covert things I could not see;¨

I realize it kinda fits with the line that follows...(her fey ear caught what I could not.)

But to me its unecessary, not sure if it's a pleonasm or a tautology - whatever it is , it just don1t seem right...

Nice one though

Rob,

This is good. It feels very polished.

There are two little bits that might be worth thinking about though:

at covert things I could not see;
her fey ear caught what I could not.

to

her fey ear caught what mine did not.

Otherwise, you've got 'could not' being repeated. And I can't quite find the point of the repetition (if it is deliberate).

Secondly, I felt there was too much of 'an author' in this section:

twigs snapped and she was gone away
so suddenly—

The poem is brillianty self-sufficient throughout, but this was a bit of a laboured part in the narrative. I didn't feel the clap, I didn't feel the suddeness, I just felt a signifier that lead to not much more than the sort of technique employed by Stephen King. Suddenly is the most unsudden word. I think you need to try and make the body of the langauage here act as signifier and not the word 'suddenly' itself -- make the poetic experience more an experience, not a telling. And instead of my advice, here's Coleridge's:

The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone : and now the Wedding-Guest
Turned from the bridegroom's door.

Look at those brilliant tenses!

An idea of mine that you can throw away immediately (sorry, I hate rewriting people's poems):


twigs snapped —
I thought I heard the vacuum
............. clap
as she dissapeared.

Post more - I like your stuff
Dave

My 2p's worth.

Enjoyed, very accomplished, you chose your words and phrasing well.

Would you consider changing Pavlova? I'm sure there are plenty of graceful substitutes that don't have dessert connotations?

cheers
Kris

There is a hell of a lot of possible imagery to be used here, and whilst your command of imagery is well employed, I feel that there is still a bit of a lack of imagery, like wabz mentioned with Coleridges.

twigs snapped —
I thought I heard the vacuum
............. clap
as she dissapeared.

If I am correct in assuming that the vacuum is the woods and the clap is a gunshot? then something along these lines would possibly be appropriate, although I must admit, I do like the original also. It is somewhat ambiguous.

Gareth

I'll echo the general positive comments. I like the subtle but clear ballet theme - very appropriate - and in particular

She rose upon her ballet toes

Just a couple of points:

I actually quite like the ending so suddenly—/I thought I heard the vacuum/............. clap. It portrayed to me the speed of her movement like a jet fighter you hear overhead but look up and it has moved so quickly the noise appears to be coming from an empty space (a vacuum).

dilated eyes ranged the woods is a line I stumbled over. It may be as simple as some missing syllables e.g. through the woods but maybe also its the phrase dilated eyes. Its the pupils that dilate isn't it?

Good stuff - look forward to more.

Elphin

David wrote:I really like this, Robert - is "giselle" actually the French word for gazelle, or is it just a bit of clever wordplay? Nice Pavlova reference, although if you wanted to be really brave you could also try to incorporate the meringue dessert meaning of the word. To describe the movement of a gazelle. Good luck with that.

Lines I particularly like:

Dressed in transverse tiger stripes
alive before the mossy greens and

She rose upon her ballet toes.

However, her fey ear caught what I could not is possibly (only possibly) a little twee, and I don't get I thought I heard the vacuum / ............. clap at all.

The only serious problem, I think, is the metre you have used. You've overdone the old pa-dum pa-dum pa-dum, to my mind. It's not really appropriate to the gracefully erratic movements of a gazelle, although it would be perfect for a kangaroo.

Still, with that reservation, I liked, I liked.

Cheers

David

Aha! The trick is to google Anna Pavlova. I think that the Wikipedia
entry on her will explain the references in the poem.

She was an extremely graceful ballet dancer, who became world
famous after her triumph in "Giselle."

You'll also, in that article, and in others, find that she had a problem;
she could not go en pointe with standard ballet slippers, her toes
wouldn't allow it. She had to invent special inserts in order to get
up there. It was said that she would have been the perfect dancer
if it weren't for the slight awkwardness that the shoes produced.

The meter, now, that's a different story. You didn't like it, but
I had different intentions. This 'gazelle' was, remember, motionless
on her feet until the very last. While she was standing, looking,
sniffing and listening, she was undoubtedly darting her head about.

I liken this to Pavolva's problem with total grace.

And since this gazelle, like all of them in the forest, are in
a nearly constant state of high awareness, I thought the rhythm
appropriate.

But of course, not being a real poet, I could easily have missed the
mark.

Thank you for the careful analysis, that's the most important thing,
I think, for a poor poet to get, in order to even have the hope
of improving. I see I need to take more things into consideration...

twoleftfeet wrote:Robert,

I really like this - trust the French to spoil the conceit by refusing to call their gazelles "giselles"

Like David, I am struggling with the ending: is the "vacuum" the silence (presumably clapping with one hand)?

For some reason I am guessing that you are a fan of Robert Frost (it's partly the meter)

Nice one
Geoff

Well, she hears or sees things that the speaker could not, and
she evidently sensed danger and took off so suddenly that it was
as if she'd disappeared.

That's an hyperbole, and it's marked off by the speaker's saying
not that he heard the vacuum clap, but he "thought" he'd heard
the vacuum clap. It was as if she had disappered so fact
that the space her body took up became a vaccum until the
air rushed in all at once and made a clap, which is exactly what
causes thunder after a lighting bolt.

Thanks for the valuable reply!

twoleftfeet wrote:Robert,

I really like this - trust the French to spoil the conceit by refusing to call their gazelles "giselles"

Like David, I am struggling with the ending: is the "vacuum" the silence (presumably clapping with one hand)?

For some reason I am guessing that you are a fan of Robert Frost (it's partly the meter)

Nice one
Geoff

I forgot to say, "damn!" Yes, I'm a fan of Robert Frost!

barrie wrote:I think this is good - however, I don't think that the last verse is up to the same standard as the first two. The first line is fine, but lines 2 & 3 let it down in my opinion.

dilated eyes ranged the woods,
twigs snapped and she was gone away - it just seems little too predictable. I don't mean the deer's reaction, that's what they do - I mean the description.

The final phrase is quite clever - I take it that you were punning on clap - the 'thunder' clap and the appreciative applause for the performance.

Barrie

Thank you, Barrie.

You got the reference! The thunder clap and the applause, and it's
about both a gazelle and Anna Pavlova in Giselle.

Well, perhaps those lines were predictable.

The truth is that I am not much of a poet, although I do try to
improve and I will most certainly revisit the piece and see what
I can do. My problem is that I have no real talent for this kind of
thing, but I love it so much that I cannot keep my hands away
from it.

Thank you so very much for being specific in your analysis; it enables
me to concentrate on the offending member rather than to waste
my time trying to figure out why and where I'm unsatisfied....

Merlin wrote:Liked this too...nice job

One thing I am unsure of - is the following line

¨at covert things I could not see;¨

I realize it kinda fits with the line that follows...(her fey ear caught what I could not.)

But to me its unecessary, not sure if it's a pleonasm or a tautology - whatever it is , it just don1t seem right...

Nice one though

What is says is that she could see and hear things that the speaker
couldn't. They not only kinda fit each-other, they are both part
and parcel of the advisory that such prey animals are in an
almost constant state of high alert, which is what explains why
she suddenly took off at such a high speed that the speaker
imagined that he'd almost heard a vacuum clap.

Doesn't that justify its existence?

Elphin wrote:I'll echo the general positive comments. I like the subtle but clear ballet theme - very appropriate - and in particular

She rose upon her ballet toes

Just a couple of points:

I actually quite like the ending so suddenly—/I thought I heard the vacuum/............. clap. It portrayed to me the speed of her movement like a jet fighter you hear overhead but look up and it has moved so quickly the noise appears to be coming from an empty space (a vacuum).

dilated eyes ranged the woods is a line I stumbled over. It may be as simple as some missing syllables e.g. through the woods but maybe also its the phrase dilated eyes. Its the pupils that dilate isn't it?

Good stuff - look forward to more.

Elphin

Thank you, Elphin!

When one goes to the optometrist to get a new prescription, he
says he's going to 'dilate your eyes'.

Taking a cue from one of the critiques I got here, I googled
"dilated eyes" and got 21,700 English pages, so it can't be
an uncommon usage, although I agree that the eyes aren't
dilated, anymore than I have blue eyes. I have blue irises,
but we say such things as 'brown eyed girl', don't we?
(Well, at least the Rolling Stones do!)

I love it that you 'got' the ending and thought it was good.

Wabznasm wrote:Rob,

This is good. It feels very polished.

There are two little bits that might be worth thinking about though:

at covert things I could not see;
her fey ear caught what I could not.

to

her fey ear caught what mine did not.

Otherwise, you've got 'could not' being repeated. And I can't quite find the point of the repetition (if it is deliberate).

Secondly, I felt there was too much of 'an author' in this section:

twigs snapped and she was gone away
so suddenly—

The poem is brillianty self-sufficient throughout, but this was a bit of a laboured part in the narrative. I didn't feel the clap, I didn't feel the suddeness, I just felt a signifier that lead to not much more than the sort of technique employed by Stephen King. Suddenly is the most unsudden word. I think you need to try and make the body of the langauage here act as signifier and not the word 'suddenly' itself -- make the poetic experience more an experience, not a telling. And instead of my advice, here's Coleridge's:

The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone : and now the Wedding-Guest
Turned from the bridegroom's door.

Look at those brilliant tenses!

An idea of mine that you can throw away immediately (sorry, I hate rewriting people's poems):


twigs snapped —
I thought I heard the vacuum
............. clap
as she dissapeared.

Post more - I like your stuff
Dave

Very good on the repetition, and the suggested replacement.
I've replaced it my version at home.

I need the end to be sudden. If I add that line on the end I'm
afraid that the power of mystery would be diluted.

Now,

Original:
She rose upon her ballet toes,
dilated eyes ranged the woods,
twigs snapped and she was gone away
so suddenly—
I thought I heard the vacuum
……….
clap.


She rose upon her ballet toes,
dilated eyes ranged the woods,
twigs snapped and she was gone
so suddenly—
I thought I heard the vacuum
……….
clap.

Does that change help?

the roughened bark of lodge-pole pines,
graceful as Pavlova.

Dear Robert,
I never thought of a dessert (although that sounds good!) but my mind went completely to Anna. Nice alliterations throughout--an example being, 'lodge-pole pines/Pavlova.' I think without the 'Pavlova' that the preceding would not have flowed as well.

Most of what has been said has been right on--I concur with what Wab (Dave) said about the last two lines of stanza two having a bit of a change. But I think overall an excellent poem--well thought out.

She rose upon her ballet toes,
dilated eyes ranged the woods,
twigs snapped and she was gone away
so suddenly—
I thought I heard the vacuum
............. clap.

As for 'I thought I heard the vaccum...I had a different take on it. I was thinking of the stillness of the moment for the poet. The absolute quiet when you see a thing of beauty and are meditating on it. It leaves a roar behind when it is gone. So the vacuum for me wasn't so much the one that she created by leaving but the moment felt by the viewer.

Cheers,
Kim

Robert you are a poet.

This work has been well commented on. I'll add my bit:

Dressed in transverse tiger stripes
alive before the mossy greens,
she stared [with deep intent]
at [covert] things I could not see;
her fey ear caught what I could not.

I think the modification here detracts from the visual. It's almost like an arrow pointing down with a big sign that says "look here." We can imagine a gazelle lookinging intently at something the reader cannot see so I believe that less is more here, to match the delicate nature of the author's rendering.

She rose upon her ballet toes,
[dilated] (her) eyes ranged the woods,
twigs snapped and she was gone [away]
so suddenly—
I thought I heard the vacuum
............. clap.

I think dilated is too clinical and pops the reader out of the mood. Just my views on this. I'd tiptoe on my descriptive phrases here, just to match the fragility of the moment.

Lovely work indeed.

e