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Knitting up the ravelled sleeve....
Posted: 16 January 2006
Word Count: 14
Summary: I hope I don't wake at 3am!!
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Bliss
when sleep
performs its natural function;
Grief
when stress
unpicks the day's delights.
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Comments by other Members
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 Brian Aird at 10:27 on 17 January 2006
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I just got my first goodnight's sleep now that my mother's funeral is over. So the theme of this poem rings true for me. I can see 'sleep is to knit' up as 'insomnia or stress is to unpick' but if sleeve = (say) hope, then unpick the day's (say) hopes, rather than despair?
As ever, I love the simplicity of your style.
Brian
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 joanie at 10:38 on 17 January 2006
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Thanks, Brian. You are absolutely right. I'll have another think.
joanie
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joanie at 11:20 on 17 January 2006
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Changed now. I didn't like the rhythm of 'hopes' but I'm trying 'delights'.
See what you think.
joanie
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Brian Aird at 11:55 on 17 January 2006
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As I'm learning in Darren's group (was Paul's) what works for one poet doesn't always work for another - see Requiem Straws (was She died of want of...) again if you have time. In the end we sometimes take our own advice as well as try everyone else's.
I find each day has few delights but rather more hopes and even more problems (or challenges)! Then at night my brain tries to fulfill those hopes in dreams (if I get any) or it tries to solve problems. My conscious mind is usually rubbish at that at the end of the day, and if a negativity spiral (See Hailfabio's Depression) sets in I get insomnia and solve nothing (although I have chosen to get up and work anyway) - if I sleep the next day I often find better solutions.
The trick I find in getting to sleep is to deliberately find problems - not the right word - devices perhaps, that sort of have a diminishing set of solutions that I find pleasing. The obvious is music. The structure of most music contains elements of stress and conflict and an attempt at their resolution. Beethoven had more in the way of stress and say Brahms more in the way of gentle ebbs and flows. Poetry can have this form, and I think we both seek that, albeit unconsciously.
Brian
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 DJC at 16:25 on 17 January 2006
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This reminds me a bit of that amazing quote from Macbeth: 'Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care, / The death of each day's life, sore labours bath, / Balm of hurt minds...'
Eh, they don't write them like that any more, do they?
<Added>
I think that sleeplessness goes with the territory of being a writer. Any of you tried meditation? Works a treat when you get into it.
<Added>
Oh, sorry Joanie - I see you'd already quoted the above. I should read the threads more closely.
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joanie at 17:10 on 17 January 2006
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Darren and Shika, many thanks. Darren, yes, the Shakespeare was the inspiration; timeless, isn't it?
joanie
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Tina at 17:22 on 17 January 2006
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Hi Joanie
I was thinking of you today and wondering when another of your delights would appear and strangely enough was thinking and a particularly unravelling issue of my own at then time so is that spooky or what! I agree with Darren above about the Shakespeare - I think if I have any 'issue' it is with unpicks - as stress kinda jumbles up for me rather than unpicking - ie it makes more mess in my head not less - I find my brain whizzing like it is now - (I am at work and should be working )!!!! Anyway when I am stressed I feel over stimulated and unpicking is kinda theraputic for me - I can just see my grandma doing it.........
Thanks for another lovely piece
Tina
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joanie at 18:43 on 17 January 2006
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Thank you, Shika! Glad I popped up at the right time. I was thinking of 'unpicks' as the opposite of 'knits up' - the quote that 'sleep knits up the ravelled sleeve of care'. What a huge amount of thought these 14 words have provoked! Brilliant.
Thanks again.
joanie
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engldolph at 08:52 on 22 January 2006
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Joanie,
A very neat and self contained 14 words! The knitting up and the unpicking ..the grief and the bliss...
a rather dire comment, for me, on many of today's lives which lurch from stressful day to the refuge of sleep..
my best antidote to the stress is not to have a mobile phone!
enjoyed
Mike
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