Fifteenth century fervour

[Ros]

The storm clouds thunderhead down river,
immerse the peddler as he hawks
his moveable type around the town.
Few now have need of him,
where print shops plant
their leaden feet on every lane.

Ten years on from Caxton,
a new Myrrour of the Worlde
would shine back a disparate view;
peasants desperate for make-up hints,
cart manuals, verruca cures,
skim warty digits down still-damp folios.

Thin-scrubbed washing lines the alleys,
deposed from privileged position
in the hovels of the poor;
ousted by inked-in darkness,
the crinkle of hand-made paper
as it desiccates on home-made racks.

Behind the press of wealthy men
the peddler shrugs off his pack;
a vagrant craves a begging note,
but simple words do not suffice;
prologue and postscript, lettered and lined,
print spates across the page.

[David]

Really good, Ros.

In S1, you could drop Few now have need of him, which is a bit clunky, and just have

Print shops plant
their leaden feet
on every lane.

Or some jazzed up version of it.

I wouldnt change S2 at all. Lovely.

Cheers

David

[R. Broath]

Inky revolution, Ros. I love this

peasants desperate for make-up hints,
cart manuals, verruca cures,
skim warty digits down still-damp folios.

it hints at nowt changing while everything did.
An imaginative and wry write.
Love it.

Jimmy

[bodkin]

The storm clouds thunderhead down [river], line feels a tiny bit long with "river" + would the straight end-rhyme be good?
immerse the peddler as he hawks
his moveable type around the town.
Few now have need of him,
where print shops plant
their leaden feet on every lane.

Ten years on from Caxton,
a new Myrrour of the Worlde
would shine back a disparate view; Is "would" right tense? Are we at the same time as S1?
peasants desperate for make-up hints,
cart manuals, verruca cures, semi-colon?
skim warty digits down still-damp folios.

Thin-scrubbed washing lines the alleys,
deposed from privileged position
in the hovels of the poor;
ousted by inked-in darkness,
the crinkle of hand-made paper
as it desiccates on home-made racks.

Behind the press of wealthy men
the peddler shrugs off his pack; could you get away without the "off", I think it would flow more fluidly...
a vagrant craves a begging note,
but simple words do not suffice;
prologue and postscript, lettered and lined,
print spates across the page.

Generally lovely this though, and original...

[BenJohnson]

I keep comingback to this looking for something to critique, I give up A lovely piece of writing, great images and a feeling of the period. The only word I questioned was spates in the last line, can it be used in that context? If not I guess you have used it anyway which is kind of an answer in itself

Very impressed as usual.

[Ros]

Thanks, all, for the kind comments. This was written in response to an exercise, which may explain some of its oddities.

[Sharra]

I really enjoyed reading this and had to really nit pick to find anything to crit.
S1 - I wasn't sure about 'thunderhead' and wondered if you could just replace it with thunder? I especially liked 'print shops plant /their leaden feet'
The rest is just bits I especially liked, e.g. 'inked-in darkness, the crinkle of hand-made paper /as it desiccates '. I thought the last stanza finished it off really well.
I'd be interested to know what the exercise was, they do often trigger unusually poems
Sharra
xx

[Ros]

Sharra, the exercise was from the Wild forum:

write a free verse poem in which the following four words, normally thought of as nouns, are used somewhere in the piece as verbs:

thunderhead
letter
hawk
clothesline

I removed the clothesline later

[BenJohnson]

How thw heck did those 4 words end up as this? There must have been some other influence

[OwenEdwards]

Ros

The language and flow here is fantastic; I must, however, query the IDEA. Unless we're going for magical realism here, I'm not sure how far I can accept the idea of every other serf having a bookshelf of the classics...

[Nigel]

The storm clouds thunderhead down river, clouds can't 'immerse' the peddlar can they ? That's not quite the right meaning.
immerse the peddler as he hawks
his moveable type around the town. if you're hawking something it must be moveable so you don't need the word
Few now have need of him,
where print shops plant I can't quite see the personification of shops somehow. It doesn't quite work for me.
their leaden feet on every lane.

Ten years on from Caxton,
a new Myrrour of the Worlde
would shine back a disparate view; shouldn't this be a colon indicating something's to follow
peasants desperate for make-up hints, disparate rhyming with desperate ? heavy on the ear I thought
cart manuals, verruca cures,
skim warty digits down still-damp folios. ' warty' is weak

Generally there are two many hyphened adjectives from here on in -
they become a foot on the brake. I find Adjectives are not a good idea in verse.

Thin-scrubbed washing lines the alleys,
deposed from privileged position
in the hovels of the poor; I don't think you need 'poor' and 'hovels' - they are saying the same thing.
ousted by inked-in darkness,
the crinkle of hand-made paper
as it desiccates on home-made racks.

Behind the press of wealthy men
the peddler shrugs off his pack;
a vagrant craves a begging note,
but simple words do not suffice;
prologue and postscript, lettered and lined,
print spates across the page.


I thought your last posted poem was of a different calibre altogether to this one which I found ponderous and frankly uninteresting.
Sorry, Ros, I AM trying to be kind.

[Ros]

A strange imagination is the only other influence needed, Ben
Sharra, Owen, thanks for the kind words. I may have stretched the truth a little - more a sort of excursion into what life might have been like if the peasants had taken to the written word in the same manner as today's peasants take to mobile phones

Nigel - yes, I know it's sort of ponderous, that's the style it is - partly forced by the exercise it came from, involving verbing nouns (Calvin & Hobbs: "Verbing weirds language").

You miss the point about moveable type - I'm not saying you can carry the type, I'm saying this was the new type of printing just spreading across Europe. It's absolutely necessary to the story! Thanks for the close look, even if it's not really your type of thing.