Poetry Forum

Potter no potter

Observe the Potter at her wheel
A delicate craft is this
The clay moulded precise
Exquisitely tender

Observe the potter at her wheel
Exquisitely tender

Observe

Watch how she glides her hand
In slight magical moves
Reshaping the clay to life
With graceful ease

Watch how she glides her hand
With graceful ease

Watch

Witness her gentle expertise
Her fixed lovingly eyes
Upon her new design
Expressing her mind

Witness her gentle expertise
Expressing her mind

Witness

'poet'

This has a hypnotic, magical air to it. I half expected a rabbit to pop up at the end. The language is simple yet alluring. Would it work as effectively without the repetitive pieces? I don't understand the title nor why Potter is capitalised. Please don't let it be anything to do with Harry Potter!

I quite like this - I like the form, but, showing ignorance, I don't recognize it. I take it that the 'potter' is really a poet and that the poem an exercise in ekphrasis(?). Then again, I could be wrong - it wouldn't be the first time.

BTW - Welcome to PG, hope you find it helpful. Don't forget to aquaint yourself with the forum rules etc. You are expected to comment on at least two other poems for each one you post.

nice one

Barrie

Ha ha... nothing to do with Harry and no rabbits.

Thanks for your comments. The capitalisation of Potter is merely to distinguish it from the meaning of the other potter in the title meaning to 'dabble'. The Potter, being an artist, is taking her work seriously and attentively, and the gist of the poem is to bring to the attention of any so-called 'poet' how a true artist approaches their work. They don't potter. The Potter is merely an example of how a true poet creates, or should create a work of art.

As for the form I have no idea. I've only just started reading poetry a couple of months ago and have never studied the subject... I just wrote this how I felt it should be written: a hypnotic, magical air to it.

Thanks again.

So I was wrong.......now I'm left with ek on my phrasis.

Ah well...

ekphrasis - a whole new phrase to me Barrie and well worth hunting up.

Salaam, I really like this piece and despite not knowing or following verse forms I think you have created a pretty effective one here. The repetition of the first and last lines works well, at least with the lines you have chosen. There is a feel a bit like a villanelle or Hebrew poetry with the end effect.

The single words highlighted work well for me too.

Slight niggles, I've got to have them haven't I

Witness her gentle expertise
Her fixed lovingly eyes

For me this would read better as

Witness her gentle expertise
Her eyes lovingly fixed

The mixed up grammer doesn't flow for me there, and I don't think there is a ryhme scheme to make this word ordering necessary.

The only other thing is do you need the 'poet' at the end? For me this would work well for any form of creative art and I feel the reader would sub consciously already relate it to the act of creation in their medium of choice.

But as ever they are my niggles and over all I enjoyed this a lot.

Thanks Ben. I've gone over your suggestion a few times, but it seems to lose something. I think it emphasises her fixation more when putting fixed before lovingly. I'd put comma's there if it would read better, but I'm not sure I should.

As for 'poet' at the end, it's the end of a hidden stanza... the individual italicised words. And that's me taking liberty with my license.

Well, I hope that assuages the niggles.

I like these verses Salaam. Yes I like 'em.

I don't think the "poet" at the end works though. Why spoil a nice image by dumping it into the realms of a clumsy wordsmith?!

Cheers

Stuart

SalaamPoetic wrote:Potter no potter

Observe the Potter at her wheel
A delicate craft is this
The clay moulded precise
Exquisitely tender

Observe the potter at her wheel
Exquisitely tender

Observe

Watch how she glides her hand
In slight magical moves
Reshaping the clay to life
With graceful ease

Watch how she glides her hand
With graceful ease

Watch

Witness her gentle expertise
Her fixed lovingly eyes
Upon her new design
Expressing her mind

Witness her gentle expertise
Expressing her mind

Witness

'poet'

Thanks Stuart.

Why spoil a nice image by dumping it into the realms of a clumsy wordsmith?!

Ha ha... because other than clumsy they're stubborn fellows.

I wanted to express how I feel about poetry. Like Ben I have niggles and my niggle is the potter... as opposed to the Potter.

Well... it's been nagging me ever since and in the end I chose to omit the 'poet' at the end. So thanks for all the feedback. Everytime I read it after posting on here, when I got to the end it just poked my brain... had to get rid of it.

Hi Salaam, welcome aboard!

This is sinuous magic, man ... it is really really good! I love the way you do the repeats: Observe ... Watch ... Witness. There is only one spot which Ben has already picked up on where you use the line her fixed lovingly eyes which doesn't fit because of the grammar (i.e you can't have an Adverb (-ly) after an Adjective) which BJ suggests you amend to Her eyes lovingly fixed. You could do that, but you could get a better balance -- and equality -- with two adjectives: Her fixed and loving eyes.

Very nice indeed,
Dedalus

Thanks Dedalus. I'm going to be pondering the fixed lovingly suggestions some more. I'm pretty much ignorant of grammar rules and am mainly led by instinct; what looks, sounds right etc. so thanks for that. What if it were written fixed, lovingly, eyes? Or is even that to boldly go where no man has gone before? (that's another thing that puzzles the hell out of me). I might get myself to college or something.

And what of poetic license? or is that a myth?

Or maybe I'm just being a mule.

Nay.

Every now and then we all get caught in the barbed wire fences of grammar ... stuck in the spotlights, no room to move. A lot of it can be shuffled off ... word order, tenses, singulars & plurals, the lining up of adjectives (there are rules of precedence: you can have an old-red-German car but you can't have a German-red-old car, although it amounts to the same thing) but the one thing you CANNOT mess around with is the position of adverbs (the ones that end with -ly) before adjectives (the ones that don't) without sending up a red flare. Poetic licence is more in the line of pushing outlandish metaphors ("her pale white tits were like rounded snowy mountains with red radar stations winking on the peaks") but you learn how to evade and move around all this nonsense. Poetry is often the ultimate exploration and challenge of the limits of language so it's not the easiest thing when the language you choose to write in is not the one you grew up with. Fair warning!

Slán anois (and that's Irish)
Dedalus