tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post4045142051062984577..comments2023-11-22T09:11:01.567+00:00Comments on George Szirtes: New Canzone on front pageGeorge Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08889600788146987089noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-25299600296918411622010-01-30T16:53:42.100+00:002010-01-30T16:53:42.100+00:00thankyou for writing this poem George. It is utter...thankyou for writing this poem George. It is utterly beautiful and I can find no fault with it. I love every bit of it and like it's title, it sings.<br />love<br />JoyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-58551845097476143342010-01-26T21:18:54.975+00:002010-01-26T21:18:54.975+00:00Did I desire 'your' poem to be mystical? M...Did I desire 'your' poem to be mystical? Maybe I did and maybe I am guilty of tending towards the Lewis Carroll school of thought: 'take care of the sounds and the poems will take care of themselves'. Or is that too simplistic?<br />It's of course more; something of a romantic Anglo-Welsh ideal in me and in one respect it is perpetuated or better demonised into me by Dylan Thomas with his 'Heron priested shores' etc. <br />As to Lewis Carroll (an interesting choice of nomme de plume) the family were of the priesthood and came from Daresbury (on road to Chester, Wrexham, Offa's Dyke, Shrewsbury etc) so the romantic-mystical, the neo- Celtic, would be influencing there too.Gwil Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03305768121713053837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-14251028654468172902010-01-26T07:59:37.835+00:002010-01-26T07:59:37.835+00:00Can you imagine rolling down a hill, Gwilym? I use...Can you imagine rolling down a hill, Gwilym? I used to do it as a child. When you are rolling it seems the earth is rolling with you. <br /><br />And when you - and people generally - talk of rolling hills, do they think the hills are actually rolling? No, their eyes are rolling along them.<br /><br />As we look down the hill towards the road it feels as though the hill were rolling down towards them.<br /><br />When people talk about a rolling road, do they really think the road is "heaving itself up from its earthy roots and then rolling away"? That seems rather too literal to me. Figurative language can be body language. Always has been.<br /><br />I really don't see the problem. That may be my problem, of course, but in that case I have always had that problem.<br /><br />Nor is there anything really mystical about the poem. The poem posits a god of the imagination, a figure that has a greater consciousness than we have. Someone who has numbered our bones because our bones matter - every one of them, as does the precise number of our hairs. But we know the figure is imagined.George Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08889600788146987089noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-40016768594272223492010-01-26T07:48:12.404+00:002010-01-26T07:48:12.404+00:00Try as I might I can't imagine your hill heavi...Try as I might I can't imagine your hill heaving itself up from its earthy roots and then rolling away. Perhaps the earthquake is too much with me. Maybe that's it.Gwil Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03305768121713053837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-43304007701718235612010-01-26T07:45:28.921+00:002010-01-26T07:45:28.921+00:00As you say, time will tell.
But I'm really in...As you say, time will tell.<br /><br />But I'm really interested in how much respected and knowledgable poets like yourself decide which words they will use. <br /><br />Wouldn't, in your poem, "Below us the 'world' rolled away" be more to the sense of it? Kind of 'out of body' mysticism, dreamy and universal.<br /><br />Or does it have to be 'hill'? If hill it has to be then 'rolled away', for a single 'hill' is to me incongruous, as is generally used more in the sense of the many rolling hills (pl) usually in the far distance, you know in the sense of meaning 'undulating or gentle' hills I feel.<br /><br />Interesting choice you made anyway.Gwil Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03305768121713053837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-53465860991333012112010-01-25T22:32:57.421+00:002010-01-25T22:32:57.421+00:00My hunch is that you're wrong on that, Gwilym....My hunch is that you're wrong on that, Gwilym. But each to his own, and time will tell.George Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08889600788146987089noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-57406489412843786432010-01-25T19:30:25.752+00:002010-01-25T19:30:25.752+00:00Far be it from me to venture forth with my opinion...Far be it from me to venture forth with my opinion but as it's Burns' Night and the wee kilted sporan flayers are abroad I've taken refuge in celebratory a wee dram. Armed with this McVariant of Dutch courage I shall sally forth:<br />George, I feel that the first two verses and the last verse are the best. I especially enjoyed the first verse. But what pulled me up sharply in my reading of the poem was the seemingly incongruous phrase "the hill rolled away" which I felt did it a diservice. I then couldn't really get back into it. <br />George, please forgive me and enjoy the rest of your haggis, <br />GwilymGwil Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03305768121713053837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-50737636774453693512010-01-25T16:36:03.760+00:002010-01-25T16:36:03.760+00:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com