Bungee
Posted: 18 June 2006
Word Count: 148
Summary: I'm unsure about the structure of this! Feedback most welcome.
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On my notice board
your baby daughter
works her focus on
a toy giraffe.
My inbox pulses.
No more chemo, you
say your Mother's reached
her two months left.
I see you
above the Zambezi
ankles strapped
toes edging over
feeling the air
heart a womb
kicking with springbok
before you pour
yourself
into the falls
a cocktail
cherry head
it's stone
gravity
limbs spread
like liquid baubles
Amarula surfing
Crème de menthe
View
depth of steel
and genius blue
before you
comprehend again
order of sky and
valley sides.
At your wedding she
applauded me for
the pictures of you
from Africa:
‘the most hideous I have seen’
her face cornflower wise
freckled with humour
she owned you were an
ugly baby.
There is no advice
to lend a man who
plunged Smoke that Thunders.
The trick is to
let go
and be held
simultaneously.
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Comments by other Members
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 joanie at 15:36 on 18 June 2006
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Oh, Nina! It has changed. I keep coming back to read again and ..... I like the new beginning. The appearance of the giraffe, together with the inbox pulsing, grounds this somehow. (I don't even know whether that is the correct word.)
These are beautiful thoughts; I'm sure it must be first hand experience. I need to google 'Smoke that Thunders' but I'm commenting first. The account of the bungee jump is just wonderful. her face cornflower wise
freckled with humour |
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is lovely.
The structure is good; I like the way the last three lines hang alone and sum everything up.
I really did enjoy this.
joanie
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joanie at 15:36 on 18 June 2006
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Oh, Nina! It has changed. I keep coming back to read again and ..... I like the new beginning. The appearance of the giraffe, together with the inbox pulsing, grounds this somehow. (I don't even know whether that is the correct word.)
These are beautiful thoughts; I'm sure it must be first hand experience. I need to google 'Smoke that Thunders' but I'm commenting first. The account of the bungee jump is just wonderful. her face cornflower wise
freckled with humour |
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is lovely.
The structure is good; I like the way the last three lines hang alone and sum everything up.
I really did enjoy this.
joanie
<Added>
I swear I only pressed once!
<Added>
VICTORIA FALLS! Of course!
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 Okkervil at 19:15 on 18 June 2006
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This is a wonderfully paced piece, in which to my mind, the fall is taken in a dreamlike slow motion- it feels like at every line the reader has time t stop and look around. The mix of emotions that this is framed by is striking, but you wrap them all up very well in the last three lines. Loved the opening stanza, jus' 'cos, and the phrase 'genius blue,' but really I enjoyed the entirety.
Bye!
James
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NinaLara at 20:40 on 18 June 2006
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Thank you very much Joanie and James!
I'm afraid I've changed it again - I don't know how to indent so I've spaced the jump .... I've decided to indent the bit shaped like a cocktail glass on it's side. Slight change of pace in second verse too.
I've got such itchy fingers - I just can't leave things alone!
Thanks for reading.
Nina
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 James Graham at 13:09 on 19 June 2006
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Hi Nina. This is just my first impression of your poem. The way it ends is very telling. 'The trick is to/ let go/ and be held/ simultaneously' is powerful because the whole passage describing the jump feeds into it; the jump is an illustration that makes this 'advice' come alive, makes it real and much more than just a piece of advice. There's the subtlety too of saying 'There's no advice/ to lend a man who/ plunged Smoke the Thunders' - in other words, the speaker acknowledges that the 'advice' of the last four lines is something he already knows. There's humour in the tone of these lines too, the kind of tactful humour we use in very sad circumstances. All that, and maybe more that I haven't seen yet, adds up to a very delicate and nuanced ending.
I like your addition of the photo of his little daughter. She is part of what's meant by the 'and be held' part of the advice. 'And hold' implied too, maybe.
I like the portrait of the mother, and her remark about the photos. Her wise humour comes across very well.
The part I'm still working on is the description of the jump, especially the lines 'it's stone...baubles'. I think I see what you want to do with these lines - convey the sense of everything being dislocated and scrambled during the jump, until the 'order of sky and/ valley sides' returns - but the thread of the poem actually seems to break at this point. These few lines seem too disconnected. '...stone gravity limbs lurch stretched liquid baubles'? Each word means something to do with the jump, and I know they're not supposed to form a sentence, and they don't have to, but they seem rather disjointed. The image of the cocktail cherry and the Amarula/ Creme de Menthe are perfectly clear, but those few short lines seem to lose their way. I wonder if they're necessary? But, as I said already, these are first impressions, and it's surprising how the meaning or 'thread' of a poem - or of a section of a poem - can jump off the page after a few re-readings. I may come back with a 'Eureka'.
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NinaLara at 13:28 on 19 June 2006
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Does this make any more sense? I was assuming that you could hear my reading of the poem, I think! On reflection, I think there need to be a few more clues.
you pour yourself
into the falls
a cocktail
cherry head
its stone
gravity
limbs lurch
spread like
liquid baubles
Amarula surfing
Crème de menthe.
Does this make it any clearer?
<Added>
Perhaps a full stop after gravity?
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James Graham at 20:42 on 19 June 2006
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Can't leave these lines alone, because everything else in the poem is so clear and lucid, but I can't unravel this little bit at all. 'Your pour yourself into the falls' - no problem. Far below, you look like a cocktail cherry in a glass. 'Its stone/ gravity'- its stone (cherry stone) pulled downwards by gravity? The stone has its own force of gravity? The stone is gravity? What's the connection between stone and gravity? This probably seems ridiculous to you, but I'm just worrying away at it because just at this point the jump gets lost for me - I can't visualise it from these lines, or (more important) really get that sense of disorientation which relates to the closing lines of the poem. I lose it in these few lines, at any rate - taking the whole passage about the jump, from 'I see you...' to 'valley sides' I think it does come across; but there just seems to be a little knot tied in the poem, especially at stone/gravity.
Maybe my trouble is I can't really see how the cocktail idea works in connection with the bunjee jump. But I do see that you're trying to do something that's subtle and quite difficult to get right. I ask myself how I would describe a bunjee jump and at the same time convey that feeling of loss of a sense of order that's so important for the poem, and I know I couldn't come up with any better ideas than the cocktail imagery.
Sorry to keep on about this, but I like the poem very much - just seem to trip up on these lines in the middle.
James.
P.S. After I wrote this I looked at it again, and it suddenly seemed to work like this:
you pour yourself
into the falls
a cocktail
cherry head
limbs spread
like liquid baubles
Amarula surfing
Crème de menthe. |
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Somehow this seems to focus the cocktail image, and it also seems to help the cocktail idea to justify itself. It's not so much a metaphor as a conceit - a surprising, slightly way-out comparison. It works better for me in this slightly shortened form.
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NinaLara at 22:14 on 19 June 2006
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I agree with you James - this really sharpens it and doesn't loose any of the original picture I had in my head. I think the problem was that I was trying to work a visual image into the feeling of falling, which was the head feeling like a stone, dragging the body down. It works much better without the stone!
Thanks!
Nina
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James Graham at 19:32 on 20 June 2006
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Hi Nina - the only way to read 'stone/ gravity' (if you kept those words in) would be as free-floating words with little or no grammatical connection to what comes before or after them. It's possible they could be spaced:
you pour yourself
into the falls
a cocktail
cherry head
stone
gravity
limbs lurch
spread like
liquid baubles
Amarula surfing
Crème de menthe. |
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Thus the two words would be left 'hanging', to produce in the reader's mind any associations they might have for him/her. The stone might just hold on to its cherry stone association, plus its regular meaning of a rock plunging towards the water. Gravity is our rational, scientific word for what causes the bungee jumper to fall, in contrast to his experience of the jump, which hasn't much to do with reason as it seems to make consciousness turn upside down and back to front. But that's putting a fine point on 'gravity', and the reader would have to be reading very actively to make so much of it.
This use of disconnected, 'hanging' words is perfectly valid in free verse. Even if you don't use 'stone/gravity' in this way for this poem, it's a device you might be aware of and possibly use in future writing. I think I still prefer (about 60%-40%) the version without 'stone/gravity'. But see what you think.
James.
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NinaLara at 20:18 on 20 June 2006
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That is really interesting James. I think I'm nearer 50-50 at the moment. I'll put it aside for a while and see which one wins later ... or perhaps haveing two versions is valid too? Thanks very much for your help, for thinking so hard about this and for teaching me a couple of very important lessons in the process.
Nina
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