Room With a View

Thank you very much!

Boo

Ang

I enjoyed the movement of this work. The first stanza set the mood... the division of nature and man. (the word demarcate I felt was important due to the largeness of the word and the hint of intellect hence once again dividing man and nature.)

Safety vibrated with the use of small comforts that materialized within the site of the reader. Wild abandon of nature calls to me when you describe the simplicity of outdoor life. Primal vs. intelligence. Both world examined in the complex simplicity of what they are.

Lost in the moment laced with in the two world only the unpredictable nature can break the spell.

Thank you for the lesson.

Du Lac~

That winter window one, or the one of the photo of a window? I can't remember what exactly but this piece brings echoes back to my memory.

Thanks, Ang, for another lovely poem.

Carrie.

I thought the last 8 lines were excellent but much of the rest seemed detatched - sort of observation rather than involvement.With your work I often feel I would like to see earlier drafts because I suspect your editorial and intellectual discipline ensures that you never produce anthing second rate but does it occasionally set limits?

sticks a little but I think it's a good thing.

it draws a line, makes you stop and divide this view, this is the boundary.

As for the rest , to me, it speaks of self control, how you must act in the house, the memories you must carry inside, careful not to let it seep into the outside.

the " everything is contained" doesn't just speak of the house, it speaks of the people in it and their emotions.

The " outside sequences" speak of perhaps a funeral on a winter day, that the woman is recalling, while outside all is white and bright and yet lifeless, inside is warm and safe, and we watch the ghosts and crows from the window.

Spirits, specters, appear ,disappear etc.

I can't tell if people were trying to read too much into this or maybe the simple language threw them off.

To me it was full of possibility, full of imagery and sensory triggers, and maybe a few of the phrases were " cliché'" but sometimes cliché's are what you feel and see.

And if you try to alter them or improve on them you sometimes lose the feeling in being " clever".

You could rewrite it in time, all poems could be rewritten,

over and over, but if you don't I'll still like it.

I really enjoyed this poem, and the warmth of its imagery with the window and the knitting/sewing/weaving theme. My favorite part is:

Life is constructed

around cans of soup,

dishes and a hairbrush

hope spun on filaments

of fragile web silk.

Thank you for sharing this piece.

Reading through the poem several times I longed to enter this room with a view, longed to feel the warmth inside while watching the snowdrifts on decks, but all I seemed to read was someone trying to write a poem. I saw the candle on the sill... but "demarcate" slapped me.

Wrapped in your sweater you held your thoughts... but twisting them thread to bone, woven in knots of memory...

Later you spoke of "...hope spun on filaments fo fragile web silk."

"...foggy specters / that rise only to dematerialize /

in ice dust, only to disappear."

"...the crows animated my frame / of reference / and flew away."

I read all this and instead of being drawn to your room with a view I read the words of a poet writing poetry... not a poem, but the words of a poet writing poetry. While I could get simplistic and suggest perhaps you are over modifying and that is distracting me, but it seems beyond that. It is also something more than trimming the fat away... in fact it seemed fairly well trimmed, just over-embellished.

"This morning four crows

were wrought in pine branches

like sleek iron weathervanes."

This stanza worked, it seemed to lack ulterior motive, pure and clean, without the forced poetics. Everything thing else seemed fabricated.

Angeline, you are of the best among us, but it was almost like you tried too hard, packing too much poesy into the poem, making your room less a room and more just an excuse for poetic phrasing.

Maybe I'm the odd one out here, but I wanted to enter your room...

jim : )

all these great comments...fine work ange...blue

I'm not sure I understand why the "hero" is watching from the window at the end and not actively participating. Otherwise, the images evoked are very palpable and believable.

if one overlooks the lavendar candle and patchouli incense (just personal distaste) one finds imagery like

"...hairbrush

hope spun on filaments

of fragile web silk."

"while the river rolls sluggish

on a winter white

wedding day."

even the crows as weathervanes is beyond the standard here.

I know you will get back to editing this, as possible suggestions - the inside and the ouside look slighly unbalanced. Otherwise very consistent. I would prefer a better opening, something of the quality of the rest, some of which is outstanding. Just my humble opionion.

100 not high enough here.