IRiz

Apr 24, 2018

This poem is part of the workshop:

UNFINISHED WORKS

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Winter Leaving

Poem Body

A touch of white on the red dirt -
the last snow - a page lost
from a diary written
by a careless hand on the day
when wind was stronger than words.

Winter knows her lines.
Three-finger footprints,
tink-tonk of the branches,
black seeds on the snow,
squirrels and crows are her poems.

She writes and leaves them to melt
on steaming slopes of the days,
when warbler is singing
and rocking the branches
in drunken fox-trot.

No leaves yet if not for a few light-green,
almost transparent, and sticky ears
standing up, listening to winter leaving,
her shuffling steps and tears
running on the back of her throat.

About This Poem

Last Few Words: I am not sure yet that idea is stated clearly and the meter is not complete. You are welcome to cut the ending and suggest alternative. On the back of my mind is that the page might have a message from winter asking why she has to leave. O. r maybe I just have to leave it as is. It is a new write, just made it up for your workshop. I like it. I think the way she hides tears is good metaphor. What are your thoughts, my friends?

Editing Stage: Editing - rough draft

About the Author

Region, Country: Washington DC, USA

Favorite Poets: Matsuo Bashō, Sylvia Plath, Charles Bukowski, TS Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Joseph Brodsky, Boris Pasternak, DH Lawrence, Robert Frost

Comments

Good poem to bid adieu to

Good poem to bid adieu to winter and welcome spring. I think it could have been in two stanzas with "No leaves yet" beginning the second stanza. This could also separate end of winter and beginning of spring.

I especially loved the lines
No leaves yet
if not for a few light-green
almost transparent and sticky ears
standing up listening to
winter leaving,
her shuffling steps and tears
running through the nose
so nobody sees it.

Yes..."Winter asking why she has to leave" would give her a voice to express her reluctance. As for meter I am not qualified to make any comment since I do not have any handle on it.
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Thank you Raj, you are always

Thank you Raj, you are always there. Do poets sleep in India? And if yes, when?

Liked your tongue in cheek query

I can only say I do not sleep walk..:)

Hahaha

You know me.

I often don't feel I've read a poem till I've read it aloud. And this one needed it.
https://vocaroo.com/i/s1BsoD2GFazU

And I'll tell you a secret. I always copy the poem into Word and remove all the line breaks and replace stanza breaks with line breaks. So it looks like a page of prose and the words have to make their own pacing,cadence, meter, caesurae or whatever. Knowing that listen to it again. Parts of it like-
Steaming slope.
River banks.
Thicket, filled with warbler, rocks. [does that mean thickets filled with a type of bird called a warbler?]
No leaves yet

Are just list words, they play a disruptive part in the poems voice.

A toch of white on the red dirt [touch]

"running through the nose
so nobody sees it."
Eh? I think it is graphic. Everyone notices a runny nose. Eeew.

I think the poem is no so much unfinished as needs some work, it has the potential for a gentle, wistful musicality.

Always a pleasure to hear

Always a pleasure to hear your voice, Jess.
I am mesmerized.
To me if poem needs work it is unfinished.
I never have half written polished write.
Those short sentences are to describe the scene, not simply a list. I need them so I can start talking about the leaves listening.
About the ending.
You are right you see running nose but not tears. That is the key. If running nose is graphic then what do you say to the poets here who write about vomiting, killers and gutters?

redid the whole thing

A suggestion

To create "winter asking why she has to leave" you may consider a minor expansion to the line "winter leaving" with

winter leaving
with heavy steps [or feet]
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thank you

your poem

I unfortunately see the poem as quite finished, needing some tweaks (below). But the idea of the poem, of idea that winter crying to herself as the early leaves perk up their ears is fantabulous.
I would fix this a bit, and consider it done.
for an unfinished workshop, you'll have to do better.

- a typo- i suppose touch of white, not toch (which i looked up to be sure )
- I would make something like the wind to be the cause of the lost dairy page, as if it blew away
- i would omit "Stone walls keep the warms" I don't understand this line
- i would put it as "Thickets filled with warblers, rocks.
-New stanza starting, no leaves yet

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cool comments, thank you very

cool comments, thank you very much, I edited the original unfinished version
I used your suggestions and developed parts that were not clear.

Wow, oh wow!

Full on revisions. Yet I think you kept what you wanted to say, just said it a lot better.

My last line! What do you

My last line! What do you think of it?
I could revert to the nose version, not sure.

NO! Please.

I can handle dismemberment and vomit, cannibalism and amputation, even great gouts of blood, but not runny noses!

ok, how about 'running down the back of her throat'?

Thought of it and feel it is

Thought of it and feel it is excesive.
You make me laugh with your peculiar choices of what to tolerate. It is a nervous laughter though. On the bright side, I know how to scare you now. Apcheeeee!

Wow, great editing job. The

Wow, great editing job. The poem is now far more coherent, and different parts now connect in an easy flow. I felt it listed incongruent parts originally, Now I feel a smooth logical flow. In my opinion it went from choppy to beautiful, just like that. Bravo.

Tyro, thank you very much for

Tyro, thank you very much for going through the revisions with me. I think that is a part of workshop to show raw and unfinished and then polished and more defined work.
I am still debating the last line, whether I managed to say that she hides tears.
Can you see it clearly? Have you experienced something like that when you swallow tears?

a totally new poem

and I think all agree a better one. I like the form of stanza's and the rich physical development of the central idea in word play. I like the longer lines in these versions, 5-7 words which give a line a chance to develop, add richness and images. I think the poem is right lenght, too many poems I've been seeing lately are too short. 20 lines is perfect.
Essentially both the original and revised follow the same poetic idea, a strong central theme. Love the personification of winter as a her, as opposed to 'old man winter' which is in our culture the image I grew up with.
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What a pleasant comment!

What a pleasant comment! Thank you, Mark.
It was a tough day, finishing up a science project, driving in DC and thinking about leaving my job for my beloved nature, books and writing.

Marvelous revisions on two

Marvelous revisions on two counts. One because of making the poem marvelous and two for continuing to make me marvel at your poetic skills. Personally the last line was like a crack in a beautiful vase...
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