Opinions sought on a poem sequence

[fridayam]

Dear Poets,

I wrote a poem a while ago called "Orion", which some of you may have read. It lead to me thinking back to my love of Astronomy and the sequence of the stars. Two more poems have just popped out and seem to form a sequence. I would love your opinions of a work in progress.

The Region of the Spring Stars


Orion

Needing to escape,
needing to smoke,
I crashed into the garden,
eyes blurred, flint catching,
and ran straight into
immense Orion
caught in his cartwheel
across the sky.

He looked so mighty and forlorn
pinned between buildings,
the stars of spring
surprised in winter,
bejewelled scabbard flapping
on frozen thigh,
reminding me
how late it was.

Hunter looked on hunted:
who pitied whom?
We both were cold,
essentially alone,
though I had a house behind me,
warm but disquiet.
Flint caught, smoke rose,
keeping him company.

Leo

Leo’s great inverted question is
will there be Summer,
will there be rain?

Will the south wind blow and warm us,
or will sand-edged easterlies
etch our forlorn faces?

It matters to us, our weather:
we are trapped here, after all,
Summer after Summer.

So what will this year bring, this year
of sundered friendships and
untender love?

And will I feel warmth from a sun
dimmed by clouds
of unknowing?

Maybe Leo’s inverted question is
who do you love,
why do you love,

for what purpose?

Virgo

Virgo’s cup ever threatens to spill over
but never does, save once.
Or maybe its not a cup but the arms
of a slender virgin
raised in supplication
or to ward off a blow.
The only virgin I had was
nude in a fake fur coat,
begging me to,
begging me not to,
cute and coy and secretly
enjoying the tender hooks she had in me.
She fed both ends of that strange male beast—
the Should-I-Shouldn’t-I,
knowing all along that
“the bleating of the kid excites the tiger”.
At least one us knew what we
wanted, expected, desired.
She skinned me after,
stuffed and mounted me:
ravisher ravished, a fitting memento
of the only, unique, unrepeatable time
her cup ran over.

 

[Angeline]

Hi.

I think this is a fabulous idea, writing these poems connected to a theme that you know and love. And I like a lot of what you've written. Your love of the subject comes through and there are phrases I think are so good ("immense Orion caught in his cartwheel," "the stars of spring surprised in winter"). However some parts are clearly more thought out and developed than others (like "Orion" is more developed than "Leo," and it shows). This is not a disaster. You just need to work on editing to make the pieces equally vibrant.

A very good poet who sometimes posts here (his name is Senna Jawa) often tells me to write the same thing over and over, but find a different way to say it each time, even if it is just changing one word, but keep going, ten times, fifteen times, always trying something new. It works for me when I need to find a better, clearer or more developed way to say something.

Also I'd try to find a unique way to start each piece. "Orion," for example--and again because I suspect you thought that one through the most--starts with an interesting, exciting line: "Needing to escape." That makes me want to read more. The first line of Leo is nowhere near as interesting and Virgo's doesn't tell me much either: neither has the action of "Orion."

You also should think about how you can keep your writer's voice consistent across the poems. They don't all have to sound exactly the same (that, in fact, could be a drag lol), but they should transition well so one flows to the next or at least so the reader feels a sense of connection.

Anywho those are my ideas. If something here helps you, great. If not, no worries. I'm just throwing suggestions out there.

 

[fridayam]

Thank you

Thank you for taking the time to write this. I really appreciate it.

I didn't want the poems to be too connected. I wanted each constellation to spark a new idea. I wondered whether the imagery was too abstruse if you didn't know the stars--Leo really does look like a back-to-front question mark and Virgo's top half is cup-like. The fact that each constellation provokes a different poem meant that each had to be expressed differently--though I have no idea how a poem is going to fall out until I write it. Leo's triplets just came, they felt natural (though I maybe think it needs one more). Virgo is quite a dense argument, and a linking cup-arms-virgin-cup was tricky but satisfying.

Thank you again

 

[Palba_Noruda]

Like Angeline, I think Orion is the strongest of the three.

I enjoy the eroticism of Virgo. (I would take out the quotation marks around the quoted line and I would try to do something about the second to last line.) Well the whole thing could be played with some more. It would be a very interesting woman indeed who would skin and mount her first

Leo seems very general. Like you're setting the stage for something. I guess when doing a series, you're allowed to treat each poem differently, but it certainly sticks out when put next to the other two which are much more specific.

They are very nice poems. Like Angeline, I think it's a good idea to write in a series. I do that quite often in prose writing and in poetry too, I suppose. To tell you the truth, stars and astronomy don't rank up there with my favorite topics, but I like the way you've handled them here. I particularly like Orion.

I would consider not spelling out the reversal of ravished --> ravisher in Virgo. If the poems stay in a series, it may be enough to spell it out in the first poem and then just let it be in the third, without repeating the structure. It's a pleasant effect the first time, but when you spell it out twice, it runs the risk of becoming too much.

 

[butters]

i will be back to comment on these more, fridayam, as promised, but right now i really like the idea of a series, constellations of poems. Orion feels the most intense right now, the most personal ... guess it all depends on how you arrange these finally as to how each will forge links with those either side.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

One little thing I wanted to enquire about, I thought it was Aquarius that has the spilling cup. Being an Aquarian myself it sometimes annoys me that she is shown spilling her water

 

[EroticOrogeny]

I've enjoyed these.
I've forgotten many of the constellations since my youth (and they do look a bit different 10 degrees father south). Orion is so obvious, the others less so. And perhaps the fact that most constellations are essentially projections onto the sphere of the heavens, rather than physically close stars (most of them somewhere in the main sequence) changes my perspective.
I think Orion is the strongest poem. Virgo held some special resonances for me since my first love was a Virgo. I don't know if she was, but I was and remained one after we were over, long ago.

 

[fridayam]

One little thing I wanted to enquire about, I thought it was Aquarius that has the spilling cup. Being an Aquarian myself it sometimes annoys me that she is shown spilling her water

You are right in your Classical Mythology and in your constellations--Aquarius spills the river Eridanus down the night sky. I didn't say that Virgo has a cup but that it is cup-shaped. I hope that is clearer.

 

[annaswirls]

Dear Poets,


The Region of the Spring Stars


Orion

Needing to escape,
needing to smoke,
I crashed into the garden,
eyes blurred, flint catching,
and ran straight into
immense Orion
caught in his cartwheel
across the sky.

Cool scene, I could see it, just think this first stanza could be broken into two sentences. It flips between too many different actions. Needing needing crash blur catch ran caught cartwheel which is a wonderful display of happenings, just think it could be tighter somehow. This could be rectified by cutting out some of the descriptors or by turning some of the actions around as descriptors ie: blurry eyes instead of eyes blurred. I am a verb tense offender, but it seems as if your tenses are mixed in this first stanza as well. Another verb : ran into Orion. I know it is a figure of speech, but no one runs while lighting a cigarette. Same with crash, does not seem like the right verb for what one does while sneaking out of a party to escape and smoke. I feel like a bitch, but you know.

With your permission, I would like to cut out some words to see what happens.

Needing to escape,
needing to smoke
I stumbled into the garden.
Eyes squint against the catch of flint,
I bumped into Orion,
caught in his cartwheel
across the sky.

He looked so mighty and forlorn
pinned between buildings,
the stars of spring
surprised in winter,
bejewelled scabbard flapping (okay maybe it is just me but scabbard flapping sounds like something that would happen to a flabby woman and the loose skin of her triceps)
on frozen thigh,
reminding me
how late it was.

Hunter looked on hunted:
who pitied whom?
We both were cold,
essentially alone,
though I had a house behind me,
warm but disquiet.
Flint caught, smoke rose,
keeping him company.


Overall I like the connection between the speaker and Orion, but I did not get why either would pity the other. Not sure what other word would work but neither, in this poem, inspired sympathy or needed it, from what was shown.

Leo

Leo’s great inverted question is
will there be Summer,
will there be rain?

I LOVE THIS!!!!! The questions seem to be stating the givens of time and nature, who but this kingly celestial beast would be large enough to even question.

Will the south wind blow and warm us,
or will sand-edged easterlies (why does this have to be either/or? I like the format of the first stanza)
etch our forlorn faces?

It matters to us, our weather:
we are trapped here, after all,
Summer after Summer.

So what will this year bring, this year
of sundered friendships and
untender love?

And will I feel warmth from a sun
dimmed by clouds
of unknowing?

Maybe Leo’s inverted question is
who do you love,
why do you love,

for what purpose?

Excellent questions!

To me, Virgo seems the most authentic, the most real-worldly. The first is a meeting of the man and the mystical, where man bumps into the stars, the second seems like a connection of the heavenly down to the earth. This feels like it could only happen on the ground. In the dirt only the way humans can fuck things up.

Virgo

Virgo’s cup ever threatens to spill over
but never does, save once.
Or maybe its not a cup but the arms
of a slender virgin
raised in supplication
or to ward off a blow.
The only virgin I had was
nude in a fake fur coat,
begging me to,
begging me not to,
cute and coy and secretly
enjoying the tender hooks she had in me.
She fed both ends of that strange male beast—
the Should-I-Shouldn’t-I,
knowing all along that
“the bleating of the kid excites the tiger”.
At least one us knew what we
wanted, expected, desired.
She skinned me after,
stuffed and mounted me:
ravisher ravished, a fitting memento
of the only, unique, unrepeatable time
her cup ran over.

do you need all three of these words? The Only and Unrepeatable seems redundant -
........of the unique, unrepeatable time her cup ran over.
has a great sound to it, that long ee sound repeated.

Again, this one feels the strongest of the three, not that they are in competition, silly me. They are all formed in the way they need to be formed.

Tell me to fuck off, sometimes I hate the process of critique because what the hell do I know, please know that I do not feel myself a better poet, just a girl pumping out the impressions like liquid soap.

I am glad you posted these here. Much enjoyed!

~Jennifer

 

[UnderYourSpell]

You are right in your Classical Mythology and in your constellations--Aquarius spills the river Eridanus down the night sky. I didn't say that Virgo has a cup but that it is cup-shaped. I hope that is clearer.

I don't think you make that clear enough from the first line especially with the Aquarian thing going on

Virgo’s cup ever threatens to spill over
but never does, save once.

 

[annaswirls]

but Aquarius does not spill a cup, does he? I always think of it as a vessel, a cooler for the gods. I am an aquarian as well, I always considered having more than just a cup of water, it feels more like an ocean ready to spill over. Let Virgo have her puny little cup We gots the Jugs!

 

[UnderYourSpell]

but Aquarius does not spill a cup, does he? I always think of it as a vessel, a cooler for the gods. I am an aquarian as well, I always considered having more than just a cup of water, it feels more like an ocean ready to spill over. Let Virgo have her puny little cup We gots the Jugs!

Okey dokey Virgo can keep her cup and we'll chuck buckets of water over the lot of them (mind you most of the pix I have seen it's a she spilling her cuppa!!)

 

[fridayam]

My dear friends,

thank you for all your comments, which I am really grateful for. I am in the middle of night shoots for a TV programme, so I will get back to you all when my body stops crying out for me to sleep.

 

[EroticOrogeny]

but Aquarius does not spill a cup, does he? I always think of it as a vessel, a cooler for the gods. I am an aquarian as well, I always considered having more than just a cup of water, it feels more like an ocean ready to spill over. Let Virgo have her puny little cup We gots the Jugs!

And we are a Gemini

 

[butters]

i apologise for not having the mindset right now for much detail, but (as you know) i lalready spoke to you in some depth about Orion. which, i'm embarrassed to admit, i keep reading as Onion. it's to do with the distance from my screen compared to normal.

now, the scabbard flapping on thigh thing works absolutely, for me, as a self-deprecatory masculine image. just sayin'.

yes, the first feels most immediate, most caught up in the emotions of the events of all three. i don't believe all twelve need to necessarily be as intimate but all need to have strengths in their own merits. i would say use what each constellation suggests to you, the parallels and links within yourself you can establish, but each need their own subtle 'voice' to represent their different 'characters'. where there are no obvious parallels or connections to be forged, then contrasts, perhaps, will suffice; if worked well, there's no reason why they can't be as strong. it's up to you how you choose to set these out, their ordering ... by the months they represent? their appearance in the night skies? their juxtapositioning, one to another?

all in all, as a concept i approve loudly and gauchely; i do not think these will be ready as a complete series for quite a while but are a solid idea on which to base a small but succinct collection of work that may be put forward for publication as a whole.

 

[greenmountaineer]

I liked "Virgo," but as a stand alone poem; I had trouble connecting it to "Orion" and "Leo." I also didn't see the need to subtitle Leo as a separate poem from Orion. When I read them as one poem, I liked the lines much better. There was a well-developed contrast between the seasons which worked well as the extended background with what I understood to be the on-going loneliness or disappointment of the narrator. I also would have introduced the cold weather in Orion in the first or second line.

I understand Orion is the hunter, but I couldn’t understand why you felt hunted, except in the third poem which has a different mood entirely than Orion. I thought “hunted” for that reason was superfluous.

Sometimes too much of a stickler for correct grammar, I nonetheless would have preferred "whom do you love” in that it wasn’t a conversation where the informal “who” would ordinarily be used. That is to say, I had the sense you were talking to yourself. “Whom” creates for me more of a sense of someone thinking over and over about a particular problem where we rehearse our self-talk about the problem in an attempt to understand it better as if the correct enunciation of it gets us closer to solving the problem. I also think it’s the same problem you were struggling with in Orion, which is the primary reason why I liked them as one poem.

Right or wrong, I wanted to give you something different to think about than repeat the keen observations made in the other postings.

 

[fridayam]

I am still caught mid-tiring-shoot, though in dark studios now rather than on fake-rainy locations. I am immensely grateful for the very generous feedback and I will respond to you all very soon.Thank you.

 

[GoodGirlTurnedSlut]

I also have a youthful nostalgia for astronomy and the constellations and I really enjoyed how you interwove the personal/human with the mythological/seasonal associations.

I'm not sure whether they quite hang together as a series yet. To me "Leo" is the odd one out here in that it doesn't feature the narrator in the same way as the other two. That gives it a slightly less intimate feel, which is why it perhaps fails to touch people in quite the same way as the other two. I could see scope for a continuation of the series - letting the self meet the seasonal constellations.

The phrasing in Orion may be the most thought out, but I loved "Virgo" for its emotional tone. You're revealing something deeply personal here, something you hint at in a way that allows the reader to wonder and to associate their own material.

I think people's question regarding Virgo's cup is a little too simplistic. Yes, the image would be even stronger if Virgo was indeed portrayed with a cup, but even so, it's absolutely coherent. The cup is the age-old symbol of the feminine, the receptive and the vulva and is therefore a symbol that's highly appropriate for a poem that's essentially about a woman. What is more, the woman merges with the constellation and it is the woman's once overflowing cup that is at the heart of the relationship. And then there is of course what I would call "the felt image". Isn't it the beauty of poetry that your unique image can express your felt impression of a situation or a relationship. So the image may not be mythologically correct, but I'm sure it is a perfect reflection of the poet's reality (?). But then I rather tend to feel my way through a poem, blatantly ignoring all literary conventions!

 

[butters]

I also have a youthful nostalgia for astronomy and the constellations and I really enjoyed how you interwove the personal/human with the mythological/seasonal associations.

I'm not sure whether they quite hang together as a series yet. To me "Leo" is the odd one out here in that it doesn't feature the narrator in the same way as the other two. That gives it a slightly less intimate feel, which is why it perhaps fails to touch people in quite the same way as the other two. I could see scope for a continuation of the series - letting the self meet the seasonal constellations.

The phrasing in Orion may be the most thought out, but I loved "Virgo" for its emotional tone. You're revealing something deeply personal here, something you hint at in a way that allows the reader to wonder and to associate their own material.

I think people's question regarding Virgo's cup is a little too simplistic. Yes, the image would be even stronger if Virgo was indeed portrayed with a cup, but even so, it's absolutely coherent. The cup is the age-old symbol of the feminine, the receptive and the vulva and is therefore a symbol that's highly appropriate for a poem that's essentially about a woman. What is more, the woman merges with the constellation and it is the woman's once overflowing cup that is at the heart of the relationship. And then there is of course what I would call "the felt image". Isn't it the beauty of poetry that your unique image can express your felt impression of a situation or a relationship. So the image may not be mythologically correct, but I'm sure it is a perfect reflection of the poet's reality (?). But then I rather tend to feel my way through a poem, blatantly ignoring all literary conventions!

yes. yes. and yes.

feeling your way obviously works well. if you write as well as you evaluate, then your work will be a rewarding read.

 

[fridayam]

Gemini

I see them face to face,
conjoined somehow,
sick of each other’s sight but
constrained to stay:
eternal catamites, prey to
sex-starved wanderers who
lust conjunction with each
or either.
When randy Jupiter swings by, or
cruel, surly Saturn comes, can
the one read or sing or knit while
the other’s rictus purls
from pain to pleasure?

 

[UnderYourSpell]

my husband is a Gemini ... and I? the sex starved wanderer?

 

[fridayam]

my husband is a Gemini ... and I? the sex starved wanderer?

Not unless you are Planet "UnderYourSpell" x

 

[UnderYourSpell]

An ex named a star after me does that count?

 

[butters]

Gemini

I see them face to face,
conjoined somehow,
sick of each other’s sight but
constrained to stay:
eternal catamites, prey to
sex-starved wanderers who
lust conjunction with each
or either.
When randy Jupiter swings by, or
cruel, surly Saturn comes, can
the one read or sing or knit while
the other’s rictus purls
from pain to pleasure?

makes me think of documentaries i've seen about the conjoined. this takes it that one thought further than any of the programmes that only stated some of the women had children, husbands, lovers. love those last three lines. so apt for this site. it also speaks, to me, of the duality of the individual: of the individual mind of one half of the conjoined having to deal with these realities, but also of the split nature of the gemini person - their (sometimes) conflicted desires, their surface reality v their inner urges. your writing always - always - makes me think and think and think.

i really like how these are working out, fridayam, but need to see them all before being able to assess how well they balance eachother out as a whole. personally, i'm enjoying them thoroughly and find the whole starsign as applied to the human reality thing a fabulous concept to work from.

 

[fridayam]

makes me think of documentaries i've seen about the conjoined. this takes it that one thought further than any of the programmes that only stated some of the women had children, husbands, lovers. love those last three lines. so apt for this site. it also speaks, to me, of the duality of the individual: of the individual mind of one half of the conjoined having to deal with these realities, but also of the split nature of the gemini person - their (sometimes) conflicted desires, their surface reality v their inner urges. your writing always - always - makes me think and think and think.

i really like how these are working out, fridayam, but need to see them all before being able to assess how well they balance eachother out as a whole. personally, i'm enjoying them thoroughly and find the whole starsign as applied to the human reality thing a fabulous concept to work from.

Thanks Chip--I'd better write the bloody things then