Shell
(Easter Monday, April 9th 1917)
“I simply watched the shells changing the landscape”
- Edward Thomas
No man can take this land, it is nature’s own
Shimmering under full moon, and poppies autumn sown.
A long night exposed, watching, peaceful in the dark,
Listening to the thud, a dud, so close but still, no blast.
A shell of frost on mud in early dawn of day
Turns quick to blood red streams throughout the clay
Into the ditches, limp bleeding streams,
Along the other tracks he might have been.
Nettles have no peace to grow among the plough
Shares rusting in the burnt barns wrecked by fire.
Empty shell of snail holed by the thrush, now
Beak bladed open in the filthy mire.
A watcher turns field glasses towards an armoured sky
To the projectile falcon, at its summit,
Ready to drop. The shell still hovers higher.
Incessant noise, then autopsied flesh, then quiet.
“He was killed on Easter Monday by a shell”
- Helen Thomas
Shell (Easter Monday, April 9th 1917) is a simple poem paying homage to Edward Thomas, an English poet with a long writing career but short duration writing poetry. Thomas was a professional writer and was encouraged to publish his poetry by Robert Frost. A brief outline of their friendship and the consequences of Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” is available in an article in the UK newspaper “The Guardian”. Edward Thomas enlisted in the British army during the First World War and died on the first day of the Battle of Arras.
Thomas wrote at a time of immense change, breaking free from the constraints of Georgian poetry but not stretching as far as the modernist approach of Eliot, for example. Nevertheless, Thomas provides a peculiarly structured yet loose portrayal of England (rather than Britain) at the time of WW1.
In this poem there is a reference to Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” as well as Thomas’ poetry, particularly “Tall Nettles” supplemented by Yeat’s “Second Coming”, a post-war poem containing savage and mystical imagery and sharing the evolutionary path in British poetry that Thomas might have taken, had he not been killed in 1917.
Rhyme in this poem has been carefully controlled and disrupted in an attempt to display the evolutionary state of poetry at the time, as has the metre. Formal rhyming schemes come in and out of focus, initially aabb, but moving to a slant-rhymed abab at the final stanza.
Monday, August 6, 2012
Friday, July 27, 2012
Reading at the Mokaba Bar, Whangarei
New Zealand National Poetry Day is today, and Whangarei celebrated early with readings at the Mokaba Bar on Wednesday. I read new poems spread over two slots. The poems are all unpublished and included “Downtown”, "The Evolution of the Universe”, “Hare in a Glacial Sequence”, “Sunday after the Abbatoir”, “Lazarus and Martha at Tikipunga Falls” and “Maiden Voyage Wreckage”.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
For... - Not Haiku
For Yuri
Yuri,
Filling new space moves
In circles, then falls back to Earth.
For Neil
Fly a figure of eight
To the Moon
For the dust of your age.
For my son
There are no secrets.
We offered you space
And gave you nothing.
© Martin Porter 1995
This is a sequence of three poems, dating from 1995 but somehow has managed to stand the test of time and may even be more relevant now than when it was written.
The poems are not haiku, nor were they ever intended to resemble haiku. The syllable count does not correspond to the usual 5,7,5 of a modern english-language haiku and the sequence of thoughts in each line does not follow the seasonal aspect, cutting through or reconciling that is frequently found in haiku.
The sequence is built from three poems of three lines, a structure that appealed to my sense of elegance in structure. Each poem contains fifteen syllables. The poems become increasingly structured, until the last poem which consists of three lines of five syllables. This movement from relative freedom to a more restricted form was intended to convey a corresponding movement from sixties freedom, to the more restrictive eighties. The final poem reflects the sense of disappointment as the idealism of the sixties collapses into the unregulated “greed is good” era ushered in by the mid-eighties. As such there is a polemic in both the structure and presentation of subject matter, perhaps not obvious. Even if this had not been intentional (which it was), living through the passing of manned Moon missions and the resultant change in perspective and subsequent disappointment would most likely have coloured my writing at the time.
Yuri,
Filling new space moves
In circles, then falls back to Earth.
For Neil
Fly a figure of eight
To the Moon
For the dust of your age.
For my son
There are no secrets.
We offered you space
And gave you nothing.
© Martin Porter 1995
This is a sequence of three poems, dating from 1995 but somehow has managed to stand the test of time and may even be more relevant now than when it was written.
The poems are not haiku, nor were they ever intended to resemble haiku. The syllable count does not correspond to the usual 5,7,5 of a modern english-language haiku and the sequence of thoughts in each line does not follow the seasonal aspect, cutting through or reconciling that is frequently found in haiku.
The sequence is built from three poems of three lines, a structure that appealed to my sense of elegance in structure. Each poem contains fifteen syllables. The poems become increasingly structured, until the last poem which consists of three lines of five syllables. This movement from relative freedom to a more restricted form was intended to convey a corresponding movement from sixties freedom, to the more restrictive eighties. The final poem reflects the sense of disappointment as the idealism of the sixties collapses into the unregulated “greed is good” era ushered in by the mid-eighties. As such there is a polemic in both the structure and presentation of subject matter, perhaps not obvious. Even if this had not been intentional (which it was), living through the passing of manned Moon missions and the resultant change in perspective and subsequent disappointment would most likely have coloured my writing at the time.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
How to Grow Avocado
How to Grow Avocado
I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do
- Willa Cather, “O Pioneers”
Choose your sapling carefully.
If planting bare rooted,
Ensure the roots can spread
In an elegant fan, else
Dig a pit just deep enough,
But not too deep,
To take the root ball,
Gently guide
The root tips downward to ensure
A good, firm anchor.
They say it takes
Seven summers
For this tender tree
To mature. That’s not
Too long to wait.
Rich, oily fleshed and puckered
Dark skinned fruit
Worth waiting for
Weigh down its broad leaved
Reaching branches,
So vigorous I have to prune it
To perhaps three
Or four times my own height,
Or reduce it by the
Careful grafting of its leg
Onto another foot.
And at its centre
The polished nut,
Seems almost systole, pumping
Future sap in woody veins to
Wrinkled skin on sunburnt lips, or
Palms of a gardener’s hands.
I lean on one leg on my spade
And wonder “Should I
Dig this pit through
The midpoint of the Earth
And out the other side?"
But here, the air
Is much too warm,
The soil too rich,
To lose, by just one
Careless footfall
Slipping gently
To cold winter,
Rotting windfalls.
© Martin Porter 2006
"How to Grow Avocado" is a poem that benefitted from comments made by critical friends.
The origins of the poem come from a workshop several years before the poem was conceived (see entry in this blog: Lunch in Marco's Kitchen) where recipe poetry was discussed. The recipe has been replaced by a set of instructions on avocado cultivation. The movement from these basic instructions to the more personal wistfulness evolved naturally as the poem was written.
The poem in its original draft was less disciplined. It had the same movement as this version, but the conclusing two stanzas were considerably longer, and the first few stanzas had longer lines. By editing the final two stanzas, the poem became more compact and elegant, but the longer lines of the start of the poem became top heavy and inelegant. Splitting the lines and editing out unnecessary adjectives gave the poem greater internal consistency. Critical friends then gave their opinions on the poem and the final stanza, in particular, was further edited making it less explicit and more meditative.
The poem was published in the 52/250 A Year of Flash blog in 2011.
I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do
- Willa Cather, “O Pioneers”
Choose your sapling carefully.
If planting bare rooted,
Ensure the roots can spread
In an elegant fan, else
Dig a pit just deep enough,
But not too deep,
To take the root ball,
Gently guide
The root tips downward to ensure
A good, firm anchor.
They say it takes
Seven summers
For this tender tree
To mature. That’s not
Too long to wait.
Rich, oily fleshed and puckered
Dark skinned fruit
Worth waiting for
Weigh down its broad leaved
Reaching branches,
So vigorous I have to prune it
To perhaps three
Or four times my own height,
Or reduce it by the
Careful grafting of its leg
Onto another foot.
And at its centre
The polished nut,
Seems almost systole, pumping
Future sap in woody veins to
Wrinkled skin on sunburnt lips, or
Palms of a gardener’s hands.
I lean on one leg on my spade
And wonder “Should I
Dig this pit through
The midpoint of the Earth
And out the other side?"
But here, the air
Is much too warm,
The soil too rich,
To lose, by just one
Careless footfall
Slipping gently
To cold winter,
Rotting windfalls.
© Martin Porter 2006
"How to Grow Avocado" is a poem that benefitted from comments made by critical friends.
The origins of the poem come from a workshop several years before the poem was conceived (see entry in this blog: Lunch in Marco's Kitchen) where recipe poetry was discussed. The recipe has been replaced by a set of instructions on avocado cultivation. The movement from these basic instructions to the more personal wistfulness evolved naturally as the poem was written.
The poem in its original draft was less disciplined. It had the same movement as this version, but the conclusing two stanzas were considerably longer, and the first few stanzas had longer lines. By editing the final two stanzas, the poem became more compact and elegant, but the longer lines of the start of the poem became top heavy and inelegant. Splitting the lines and editing out unnecessary adjectives gave the poem greater internal consistency. Critical friends then gave their opinions on the poem and the final stanza, in particular, was further edited making it less explicit and more meditative.
The poem was published in the 52/250 A Year of Flash blog in 2011.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Reading at the Thirsty Dog, Auckland
Poetry Live has regular performances and open mike at the Thirsty Dog on the K. Road in Auckland. I read three poems, “The Wrong Place”, “Callan in Black and White” and “The digital enhancement of photographs of Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio”.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Encountering the Other
>Language>Place Blog Carnival edition #15: Encountering the Other features the blog entry “The Ghost at the Old Lychgate, St Mary, Berkhamsted” as one of the exhibits. If you have not visited a blog carnival before, take the chance to visit this multinational offering when you can.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
The Tree at Michaelmas
The Tree at Michaelmas
The tree at Michaelmas was always bare,
Its pale branches stretched across the sky.
In contrast to the grey clouds there
Were ruddy veil like twigs held high.
The veins of sap were still alive
Hid deep below a show of death.
And we feared it might not survive
As the cold air could freeze our breath.
Just one bold robin filled its twigs with song
And blue tits perched in rings around its crown,
Until one day a strong man came along,
Took up his axe and chopped it down.
© Martin Porter 2001
“The Tree at Michaelmas” is an original poem, written on a chilly day in September in an office but recalling the view from a conservatory window. The details are straightforward, the rhyming scheme is a similarly simple abab, and the scansion is unsophisticated, despite the variation from pentameter to tetrameter and back again. The three stanzas each appear to handle single concepts on first reading, until the final stanza, where the last two lines introduce some humour, or tragedy, or both.
Generally, I tend not to write consciously humorous poetry, although humour does seep through some of my work. An example of the more subtle humour occurs in 1:25000 with the opening line “Only slightly lost” implying the possibility that the narrator holds the belief that “lost” is relative. It is a gentle nod to times when walking companions acting as navigators have marched us into bogs because they knew roughly where we were.
On a more horticultural note, a tree being bare at Michaelmas would be unusual as most deciduous trees would not be shedding trees that early in the autumn., Michelmas falling on September 29th and "Old Michaelmas" on October 10th or 11th. The weather is usually less harsh than described at this time of year. But in law, the Michaelmas term covers October to December, allowing a degree of accuracy, and some schools also speak of the autumn term as the Michaelmas term.
Many years after completing “The Tree at Michaelmas” in this form I came across Housman’s “Loveliest of Trees”. Interestingly, “Loveliest of Trees” also has similar but not the same scansion, simple, but not the same rhyming scheme, and three stanzas. Perhaps I had seen "Lovliest of Trees" before and it had been buried in my unconscious thoughts, producing a poem with the same subject. Perhaps there is just something about the form that particularly suits trees.
The tree at Michaelmas was always bare,
Its pale branches stretched across the sky.
In contrast to the grey clouds there
Were ruddy veil like twigs held high.
The veins of sap were still alive
Hid deep below a show of death.
And we feared it might not survive
As the cold air could freeze our breath.
Just one bold robin filled its twigs with song
And blue tits perched in rings around its crown,
Until one day a strong man came along,
Took up his axe and chopped it down.
© Martin Porter 2001
“The Tree at Michaelmas” is an original poem, written on a chilly day in September in an office but recalling the view from a conservatory window. The details are straightforward, the rhyming scheme is a similarly simple abab, and the scansion is unsophisticated, despite the variation from pentameter to tetrameter and back again. The three stanzas each appear to handle single concepts on first reading, until the final stanza, where the last two lines introduce some humour, or tragedy, or both.
Generally, I tend not to write consciously humorous poetry, although humour does seep through some of my work. An example of the more subtle humour occurs in 1:25000 with the opening line “Only slightly lost” implying the possibility that the narrator holds the belief that “lost” is relative. It is a gentle nod to times when walking companions acting as navigators have marched us into bogs because they knew roughly where we were.
On a more horticultural note, a tree being bare at Michaelmas would be unusual as most deciduous trees would not be shedding trees that early in the autumn., Michelmas falling on September 29th and "Old Michaelmas" on October 10th or 11th. The weather is usually less harsh than described at this time of year. But in law, the Michaelmas term covers October to December, allowing a degree of accuracy, and some schools also speak of the autumn term as the Michaelmas term.
Many years after completing “The Tree at Michaelmas” in this form I came across Housman’s “Loveliest of Trees”. Interestingly, “Loveliest of Trees” also has similar but not the same scansion, simple, but not the same rhyming scheme, and three stanzas. Perhaps I had seen "Lovliest of Trees" before and it had been buried in my unconscious thoughts, producing a poem with the same subject. Perhaps there is just something about the form that particularly suits trees.
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