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Dark
Posted: 16 November 2004
Word Count: 94
Summary: We have been looking at 'Snow' by Louis MacNeice this week in Poetry Seminar. This is my reponse.
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Darkness has descended far too early for
Day is still a teenage rebel, ready to take on
All the world; yet Night has come,
Creeping like a panther through the shadows.
Day may mouth her protests loud and thunderous
But Night is stubbornly serene. Night mines
The gold from seams which never use
Their abundance of Obscurity. Blackness shines
Its own light now. My eyes constrict and widen;
My senses sharpen. Images appear unbidden
On my ears, my skin, my nostrils, inside my being,
Until Day retreats and under total Darkness nothing remains hidden.
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Comments by other Members
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 laurafraser at 08:52 on 16 November 2004
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Joanie, beautiful images here with paralleism to "creeping" panther in the night-really brillant poem loved it and enjoyed it thoroughly
adored the line "dayness is like a teenage rebel," actually could pick out any line and say he same!
very good piece
xlaura
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 joanie at 09:05 on 16 November 2004
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Thank you laura! Glad you liked it, especially as I wasn't sure about this one.
joanie
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Okkervil at 14:51 on 16 November 2004
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Brilliant Joanie! Fantastic imagery, I loved the mining obscure seams lines and the joy at the onset of night, when it's so easy to slip into a morose 'the day is dying' mood. Line breaks are odd, but effective I guess. I was reading it out loud and poured pompous emphasis into 'darkness shines' but then tripped on the continuation of the sentence. Which is good, albeit the literary equivalent of slipping in the street into someone. Which I've also done today. Immaterial, james. Thanks for excellence!
Bye!
James
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poemsgalore at 18:20 on 16 November 2004
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Great, another Louis Macniece fan, I love his 'Sunlight On The Garden'. This has a real feel of his work in it, very well crafted.
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 Elsie at 20:24 on 16 November 2004
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Joanie, I am so impressed. I have no idea how I would try to replicate a Louis MacNeice piece. So perhaps I won't. Or perhaps I'll try!
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joanie at 21:10 on 16 November 2004
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James, Kathleen, Elsie....thank you so much for your positive comments. I really do appreciate it.
I'm glad it seemed to work.
joanie
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roovacrag at 23:27 on 16 November 2004
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Joan.. images are vivid here. Felt like a painting coming to life.
Well done.
xx Alice
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lieslj at 03:43 on 17 November 2004
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Hi Joanie,
You have successfully turned me upside down with this poem! I'm having to re-evaluate my long held perceptions of how I experience day and night. To that end, this work is most successful.
I guess my experience of the teenage rebels I teach is that they want to take on the night, take cover in the night. Hide. So, I'm having a little trouble connecting with this metaphor, because for me the image of Day is the one that is serene, going out like a senior citizen - quietly. I can't seem to shake my own perspective on this...
Shining in the night. I'm going to ponder that all day now! I'm going to say to myself how can blackness shine its own light? How, how?
Oh well. You have a nice day too.
L
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joanie at 10:06 on 17 November 2004
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Liesl, this was my intention, I think - to turn the usual thinking upside-down, to make us re-consider whether Night has its own 'thing' of which we are unaware.
It was experimental, as a result of the Louis MacNeice 'Snow', where the thing which struck me most forcibly was the personification. This, together with the fact that the nights are really 'drawing-in' spawned it, I think.
Hope it hasn't spoiled your day!
Thanks for responding.
joanie
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Mac AM at 12:02 on 17 November 2004
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I really enjoyed your poem - especially the second stanza and the mined gold from the seams we never use. Very lovely.
I would question just two small things:
1. The pantha - it seemed out of place with the remainder of the poem
2. inside my being - this is a well-used phrase and you work so hard (and achieve) to bring freshmenss to the rest of the poem.
Never-the-less I very much enjoyed reading it.
Mac
<Added>
That should be panther
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joanie at 16:09 on 17 November 2004
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Thanks Mac. I want to keep the panther - black and stealthy and very sure of himself.
I agree with your second point. I'll have a look at changing it.
Thanks again.
joanie
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lieslj at 18:13 on 17 November 2004
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I'm chuckling, Joanie, and very glad you achieved what you set out to - even if at the expense of my composure...
I'm easily discomposed!
L
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 Nell at 08:10 on 19 November 2004
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Hi joanie,
I'd never have have guessed that this was your poem - it seems so different from anything of yours I've read so far. I liked the overturning of our common perceptions of Day and Night, which I have to say made me feel slightly odd when reading (especially the 'teenage rebel' metaphor) but then I am slightly odd! I had to stop and think hard about the following lines: Night mines/
The gold from seams which never use/
Their abundance of Obscurity... but that's no bad thing, and sent me back again to the beginning. My favourite line is: Blackness shines/Its own light now... Wonderful, I know exactly what you mean! Those last words: and under total/Darkness nothing remains hidden... have the enigmatic quality of MacNeice's last line - I'll be thinking about them all day. I found the capitals for words other than 'day' and 'night' a little distracting and portentous, and they seemed (for me) to dilute the importance of Day and Night themselves and their momentous struggle. Returning to check the above I see that it's only 'obscurity' that's capitalized, yet because of its placing 'blackness' becomes personified too. But the poem is impressive, and a marvellous response to Snow. I have to say that I'm finding it difficult to find a parallel from which to begin although I've had Snowin the back of my mind since fevvers suggested it. For me it's been the most difficult poem to use for my own work (except possibly the terzanelle) - perhaps because I'm involved with something else at the moment and can't give it my full attention. So it may be some time before I attempt the exercise.
Nell.
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joanie at 11:01 on 19 November 2004
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Thank you for your full comment, Nell. I'm not quite sure where this came from; it was a horrible dark late afternoon, I was aware of the day going quickly and the poem became a change-around of day and night almost.
I take your point about the capitals and also I wasn't sure about capitals at the start of each line but I was following MacNeice's example.
Thank you again for your reponse.
joanie
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