 Felicity F at 15:17 on 11 August 2009
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Hi Fabienne,
Yes, there is enough said to express the tragedy without knowing the background.
Felicity.
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 V`yonne at 17:14 on 12 August 2009
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when you lost the love, you lost the clarity of thought and expression and something of yourself is what it says. You lost your way. I think it says all this very succintly.
mettle gone astray
the echo
of a story
I never wrote.
Words I think I think
tentatively |
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I like it.
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freynolds at 07:43 on 13 August 2009
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Thank you Felicity and Oonah for your comments, much appreciated. I'd like to see what James and the others in the group would make of this. I wrote this very quickly. It's one of these compulsive inspirations I had to put on paper and it trotted in my mind all morning.
Oonah, do you think this would be good enough for submitting to EDP?
Fabienne
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V`yonne at 11:42 on 13 August 2009
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You should see what we get! YES! I'm inclined to think the first 3 lines cliched. I read a lot that start that way...
Whilst I see what this is doing I think you could start with the 4th line and not lose anything by it.
So get a bit more feedback from the others here and then I'll look forward to see it at EDP...
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Nella at 15:19 on 14 August 2009
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Hi Fabienne,
I like those lines, too, which Kirsty highlighted. I also like this very much:
Words I think I think
tentatively
form |
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I'm inclined to agree with Oonah about the first three lines and I had a little bit of trouble with the last two lines. I wanted a comma after her, to make it more clear who the beloved amber is.
Then I wondered if a line break would do as well, possibly without the "my":
is the blurred shape of her
Beloved amber |
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I'm not sure about this, though - just a thought.
Best,
Robin
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 joanie at 18:05 on 14 August 2009
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Hi Fabienne. Sorry that I'm late to this. I think the whole feel of this is tragic. I liked mettle gone astray
the echo
of a story
I never wrote |
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which is so poignant.
Sometimes the nitty gritty isn't important; the reader's interpretaion is more important and much more valid, I think!
I liked this very much.
joanie
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 James Graham at 12:21 on 15 August 2009
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Following Don Paterson's maxim, I don't think the first three lines are needed because you 'say it once' in these lines:
A long time ago
there was spirit
to my writing. |
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The tears implied in the image in the opening lines can be understood by the reader because the whole poem is a poem of mourning. And I prefer those lines quoted above - though they are plainer, not figurative, for me they have more impact. In them you say all that needs to be said. So I agree that the first three lines could be dropped.
The rest of the poem, as it is, seems near-perfect. You have settled on the right form - very short, sometimes single-word, lines. It's as if the poem has struggled to be written, at a time when the 'spirit' is very low. Yet it's like other poems in which the poet talks about low spirits and the failure of the Muse, but produces a very good poem anyway. Shelley's 'Lines written in dejection, near Naples' is probably the classic. Also maybe Hopkins' 'No worst, there is none...'
One line I'm not sure about:
Does mettle go astray?
James.
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freynolds at 16:40 on 15 August 2009
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Thank you so much, everyone, for taking the time to read and provide your feedback. It is always invaluable. The comments have also highlighted that the first three lines, which were supposed to convey the tragedy, failed to tell the story.
'My muse is dry
I am
not.'
Refers to the fact that the writer has lost inspiration through alcohol addiction. The word 'dry' is used for abstinence from alcohol. The word 'spirit' later on refers to both the muse and the drink. The last line 'my beloved amber' is the drink that possesses the artist. The love of drinking is stronger and winning the writer over.
This was inspired by a short film I saw recently, in which the main character was unable to fight the addiction but so desperately wanted to. Each time he tried to stop, he lost the battle because he loved drinking more than anything else. This was so tragic.
Perhaps I should, as suggested, remove those first three lines and alter the last line to something like;
'my beloved absynthe'?
Would that work better?
Fabienne
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 FelixBenson at 17:10 on 15 August 2009
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Ah interesting, Fabienne. So we were none of us on the right track - thinking it was grief/loss. I think that the title (- although now I know the meaning of the poem, makes perfect sense) could still be the key. Why not just call it Absinthe? Then you can leave the last lines as they are.
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SarahT at 17:28 on 15 August 2009
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Hi!
I'm going to see if I can squeak a comment in past the modem... I'll make it quick. I think your explanation that this was the loss of alcoholic inspiration was great but I wonder if adding 'absinthe' in to the last line would make it less mysterious and slightly more banal. I think you got more discussion out of the fact that nobody could quite work out who or what 'amber' was - not least because it was a non-capitalised name. I would say that you should change the beginning if you want to flag up that it is about alcohol. Then the alcohol theme becomes a bit more of a tragic lament, rather than a punchline. If you want to play up on the mystery side of things, keep it as it is.
S
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James Graham at 15:10 on 16 August 2009
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I was wrong. Missed the point. Not for the first time. Reading again, at first I was sure there really are enough clues in the poem to point to the real subject, and that I should have got enough from them to make it clear. The clues are ‘My muse is dry/ I am/ not’, ‘spirit/ to my writing’, and ‘beloved amber’. But on reflection I’m not sure - a poem doesn’t have to be too explicit, a few clues are enough...and yet, maybe in this case one more clue would clinch it. Whatever you do, don’t change the last line - ‘my beloved amber’ has a resonance that you don’t want to lose. You could change the title. Absinthe is green, though! But there must be enough amber drinks to choose from, or another way of arriving at a title which could serve as a key to the poem and avoid misreadings.
Alternatively, perhaps an extra clue could be built into the poem. I thought of
My muse is dry.
There is a glass
beside me. |
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- which isn’t very good but may at least show what I mean.
Now I must add that I was also wrong about the first three lines, and they don't need to be omitted. Knowing the real subject of the poem, they take on a different significance. But what I said before about the form isn’t altered - there’s still that sense of the writer’s words struggling to come together out of a ‘dry’ creativity.
James.
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V`yonne at 21:36 on 16 August 2009
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AH! Flippin' 'eck! Of course! That make it all clear. If you made the title a drink that would solve the problem!
<Added>
Not Absinth - it's green I think!
Whiskey - Old Grouse - Scotch Mist
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itcametomeinadream at 18:48 on 27 August 2009
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Love the poem. Personally, I think it probably gains rather than loses from being somewhat ambiguous - I don't see a need to force a particular meaning on the reader. Amber could equally be a girl, but then addiction and love can often be cut from the same cloth.
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