All Comments on 'Gleaning'

I feel I am missing the core of the poem, seems to slip out of my grasp. (reader fault has to be)

what I do see, is simple men farming long into to twilight, taking what they can to feed themselves and a question as to wether god exists or not.

Tod,

Maybe if you looked up Gleaning" in Wikipedia? Unless, of course, you know what that is and others see it as you did in which case I'd have to go back to the drawing board.

maybe should have done that first.....

I respect the act of gleaning so much. And the way you wrote this work warmed my heart and brought tears to my eyes. The last two lines left me speechless. This one goes in my favorites.

You find poetry in places I don't think to look and I am truly envious that they are so 3 dimensional with so many facets to explore.

Is a wise and excellent farmer. You are a wise and excellent poet.

dons his bibs and hat to begin again anew and anew, TK U MLJ LV NV

From what this ignoramus could make out Sam is a soft hearted , generous Farmer who allows others to pick up left over vegetables'n crops after the reapin' is done : his noble policy is to live & let live ! 5-ed both for Poetry as well as Sam's big heart .

I am embarrassed to say this makes so much sense now! Will comment more later :) thanks for the poetry and the education!0

I like this most out of all your (recent) poems. Possibly because it is more accessible – which might reflect more on me the reader than on you the writer.

I very much like your device (I have seen in other poems of yours) of “or maybe they didn’t”. Emphasising by uncertainty and hesitation and creating a meaningful break in the flow.... or at least that is how it hits me.

Am always interested and pleased when I spot that you have entered a new poem.

Some places do have coupons for fresh vegetables, and coupons for free-many-other-things. But is it a good thing? Is it bad? And why is it even necessary? I can understand gleaning as a result of a primitive society where production is just barely enough. But in modern times, when food goes bad in supermarkets? What sort of madness makes it necessary?

For a different outlook on "gleaning", look up the short documentary "Ilha das Flores" (you can find it with English subtitles on Youtube or Vimeo).

GM basially explains what it is in the first stanza

Sam wouldn't harvest to the edge of fields

to monetize more fertile property

and profit his last will and testament.

his use of subtle internal rhyme sets a tonality that is engaging and leads you into the poem

for me the i's and e's are so prominent that it creates a good sonic impression

the whole first stanza seems to sets up a thought pattern regarding a farmers relationship with land, government and god.

(the first stanza your focus seems to be on the land itself, with the other thoughts as undercurrents)

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He looked outside at omnivorous men,

collecting snap peas and carrots at dusk,

taking perhaps what the government gave

before they took all they could from others

the straight forward explanatory narrative, seems to overlay the initial stanzas three dimensional thought pattern,

"omnivorous men"

seems to come from archaic speech to link with "testament"

snap peas and carrots the land

obviously government is the third but pointed out directly

is where my main focus was in this stanza everything else to me is set below the surface,

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"Or maybe they didn't," he said.

"There are no coupons for fresh vegetables,"

Sam was thinking maybe to God

he thought existed, maybe not.

He warmed his farm feet before the fire

and took off socks to darn tomorrow.

government seems to drop out of the narration here, and it turns to god and land,

"or maybe they didn't"

dismisses the government element to the narration as a secondary thought process,

"there are no coupons for fresh vegetables"

takes the land and places it as a tertiary thought process,

leaving

God, and the questioning of his existence,

the final line the use of darn with multiple definitions leave you wondering which interpretation is being used, is he going to "darn" them by fixing holes in them, is he going to darn them by putting them back on, or is it

he took of his socks to darn tomorrow

that his lack of faith in god means he will darn (be damned tomorrow)

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sorry to gm if I have made a total mess of meaning, interpretation and comments, but this is where my head went in depth to the piece.