A new Poem (Because I can)
Posted: 08 July 2007
Word Count: 154
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When the northeastern sweeps across the coast,
a little boy looks to the horizon, mouth agape for one moment
before he returns to the sand.
He digs and digs, his plastic shovel, blue and furious,
digging until the shovel reaches hard packed dirt, and he can go no further.
Dismayed, but partly amused, the boy lays the shovel in the hole and covers it with dirt.
He wipes his hands together and swipes away excess sand,
the way his father does after the axe is put away,
and the way his mother does, when all of the dishes are washed, and the only thing left to do is have a cup of tea.
And although he'll return tomorrow, behind the shed where the stone bulwark opens to the sand, and across the sand to the water, he will never again find the blue shovel or remember why
he buried it in the first place.
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 James Graham at 18:24 on 14 July 2007
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Hi Jordan - I like this. It's a short narrative and strikes me as a story worth telling - one of those little episodes that are 'ordinary', barely noticeable, utterly non-epic, that are so well suited to telling in verse. It's told in plain, non-figurative language, but it doesn't need to be dressed up. The long and not-so-long lines seem to flow naturally, and break where they should break, and there's rhythm in the paced repetitions. I don't want to push the comparison too far, but once again there's an echo of Whitman - 'On the beach at night,/ Stands a child with her father...'
If you use very free form and don't heighten the language much, the story has to speak for itself. What I see in this is the paradoxical thing the little boy does, the kind of absurd act of digging a hole with his shovel and then burying the shovel. 'Partly amused' is is nice touch - he seems to see that what he is doing is absurd, a kind of practical joke on himself. Underneath what he does I get a sense of loneliness - perhaps he is an only child, living in a remote place; perhaps his parents are often too busy to pay enough attention to him. There are other telling little touches, the child's imitation of his parents for example, and the conclusion that for a child tomorrow really is another day, that another day he will return to the same places but his little exploit of burying the shovel will be forgotten - 'buried' in another sense - because it will be another day and there will be other ideas and other inventions.
For me that's enough to show that this free-form poem in simple language has plenty to justify it.
One small revision, possibly. Change around the two halves of the line 'He wipes his hands together...':
He swipes away the excess sand, and wipes his hands together
the way his father does after the axe is put away... |
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which reads better.
James.
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 V`yonne at 18:30 on 14 July 2007
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I liked it too, Jordan. I like the thought that the shovel will remain buried, like childhood itself, forever lost and episodically forgotten. I also liked the way he copied his mother and father.
I agree about that suggested reversal by the way.
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 Jordan789 at 20:00 on 19 July 2007
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Thanks James and V'yonne for your responses. Well said and much appreciated. And I agree with your suggested alteration. Thanks again.
-Jordan
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Tina at 10:11 on 29 July 2007
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Hi Jordan
There seem to be some themes about at the moment and in my own little world I seem to be surrounded by beach themes - thus this poem stuck me and I have read / re-read it several times. I particularly like this second half of your work - the ever extending lines and repetition of ideas like an argument getting more and more urgent.
He wipes his hands together and swipes away excess sand,
the way his father does after the axe is put away,
and the way his mother does, when all of the dishes are washed, and the only thing left to do is have a cup of tea.
And although he'll return tomorrow, behind the shed where the stone bulwark opens to the sand, and across the sand to the water, he will never again find the blue shovel or remember why
he buried it in the first place.
I also like the idea of burying the shovel/ the past/ the moment which has a powerful impact for me.
Really enjoyable
Thanks
Tina
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