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The 19.50 from Gatwick
Posted: 05 November 2006
Word Count: 58
Summary: Observations last night.
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The 5th of November was on a Sunday
so Saturday
(understandably)
was the night for
family fireworks.
In back gardens,
on open heathland,
behind cordened-off areas
in the park
small eyes gazed
unbelieving while
chrysthanemums burst
their golden arcs
across the sky.
And from the heights
of thirteen thousand feet
a thousand tiny sparklets
scattered the darkening landscape.
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Comments by other Members
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 James Graham at 20:25 on 05 November 2006
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Hi Joanie - fireworks are sounding all around our neighbourhood as I write this, and I have to say this is usually something that brings out the grumpy old man in me. But I like the way you’ve put the fireworks and the plane together in this poem. I like the decoy title which becomes relevant only at the end. Let me just check with you if I’ve got this right - I see the pin-point sparks of the fireworks juxtaposed (actually juxtaposed, right there in the evening sky, as well as in the poem) with the winking lights of a plane. Just one word puts me off slightly from seeing that picture - you describe a ‘thousand’ sparklets, but is that the plane? The sparklets are at a ‘height of thirteen thousand feet’ so it seems this is the plane - but so many? I think of wing lights, tail light, and one under the fuselage. I would imagine the plane passing over would create something like ‘a new little star cluster’ to add to the fireworks, but a thousand sparklets seem an awful lot.
Maybe I’m wandering down a cul-de-sac. The combined picture of the fireworks and the plane gives the poem a terrific element of surprise, that feeling you sometimes get on reading a poem, that here’s something you absolutely never thought of before. But I’m slightly flummoxed by ‘thousand’.
James.
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 joanie at 23:00 on 05 November 2006
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Thank you James. As we flew over what was obviously a built-up part of southern England, I just could not believe the thousands of fireworks way below us. I expected the rockets particualrly to be much closer to the plane but they were all way below, just flashing lights and sometimes patterns which seemed to be on the ground, not above it. There were literally thousands; it seemed to be that every other back garden was having its own display.
I was struck by the fact that the view from the plane gave a very different perspective.
Thanks for reading. Perhaps I need to change it slightly to avoid the confusion.
joanie
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 Jordan789 at 06:27 on 07 November 2006
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oh. I read James' response before posting my own, and I wish I hadn't. Now I see that Gatwick is an airport and the speaker is in a plane. I thought that the speaker was in the park with children and he was imagining the fireworks to be exploding at 13000 feet. Fireworks actually only go a few hundred feet up, so I was a bit confused but figured it was just a large arbitrary sum. But not it makes sense!
in the park
small eyes gazed
unbelieving while
chrysthanemums burst
their golden arcs
across the sky.
This made me think he was in a park. How does the speaker see "small eyes gazing unbelieving" while he/she sits in the seat of a plane at 13000 feet?
And from the heights
of thirteen thousand feet
a thousand tiny sparklets
scattered the darkening landscape.
I'd change to this to remove some repetition and redundancy:
And from thirteen thousand feet
tiny sparkles scattered the darkening landscape.
What I like here a lot is that the sparkles aren't scattering, while in reality they are, but instead they scatter the landscape. It makes me see the world below the plane (now that I realize it's a plane) break into fragments and disperse before a black screen. And from a plane, doesn't the world seem to be so far removed that maybe these tiny flashes could do just that? But, anyhow, I really like how the verb is applied to the ground. I'm not sure if I like the use of "landscape" because it seems almost too common place or general. Perhaps describing maybe the lie of the land, or anything at all that might have been visible.
Anyhow, I'm not sure if it's needed or if I'm just a dullard, but I'd try to better convey the location of the speaker. Again, this might not be something you want to do, but someone as myself, ignorant of "gatwick" and quite not accustomed to using a 24 hour clock to tell time, might be a bit slow to follow.
-Jordan
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James Graham at 14:17 on 07 November 2006
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I took it the same way as Jordan did. I was seeing the fireworks from ground level, close enough to see the children's wondering eyes. I was also seeing the navigation lights of a plane passing overhead. But your idea of the fireworks being observed from the window of the plane is much more original than a description from the ground. I agree with Jordan that you need to make the speaker's location clearer, all through the poem. As for the children, the speaker can't see them so would have to imagine those starry-eyed children far below. Maybe the static lights seen from a plane could be worked in too - lights of towns, strings of lights along roads - as a contrast to the 'living' lights of the fireworks.
James.
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joanie at 15:06 on 09 November 2006
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Thanks again for your observations. I will keep thinking about this one because I do want to record the sight somehow. I wasn't thinking about the 'speaker', rather a descriptive statment, I suppose, whatever that is!
I find that I often have a problem that I know exactly what is in my mind and until others read it, I don't realise that it's ambiguous. Thank you, WW!
Thank you; I'll keep at it.
joanie
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