Kitchen Garden (Inspectors in my Garden revised)

[Jackie]

v.2
As if after a lead
the rain lilies popped out further round the rocks
this year,

unveiling new plantain curtained
in nursery sheers:
the plant's own sunbright fronds—

a sunbird perched
off a white hibiscus, intruding
his down-curved bill—

a soaring of doves leaving two—
tails touching, beaks high and afar—
so loath to go.


v.1
As if after a lead,
the rain lilies popped out further round the rocks
this year,

unveiling
new plantain, nursery-curtained
behind wide, sheer fronds—

a sunbird
perched off a white hibiscus and intruding
his down-curved bill—

two weavers, beaks afar,
in a crowd of ten chattering on a wire,
touching tails, so loath
to go.

[penguin]

Nice poem. nursery-curtained - don't know what you mean by that.

two weavers, beaks afar,
in a crowd of ten chattering on a wire,

That confuses me - two weavers in a crowd of ten weavers?

[bodkin]

I also enjoyed this but probably did not understand it fully.

Not being familiar with this flora and fauna also probably reduces the impact somewhat.

Can you just "intrude" or do you always need to have something you are intruding on?

I like the bit about the weaver, although probably don't understand it as already discussed...

Ian

[Ros]

Weaver birds, I'm assuming. This is lovely - I don't have any problem understanding it, but I'm feeling that the idea of the plants being (police?) inspectors feels a bit stretched - and I'm not sure what it's adding to the poem, as the rest doesn't seem to follow up on the idea. As I description of the nature in your garden and the birds loathe to leave it, I think it stands fine by itself.

Ros

[Antcliff]

Hi Jackie,

I thought this was lovely too. Sorry not to say more, but I'm a bit unwell at the moment and my crit abilities are doubtless not up to much. But, I did want to call by and say that it was lovely. I like the idea of flowers chasing leads!

Seth

[Antcliff]

Hi Jackie,

I thought this was lovely too. Sorry not to say more, but I'm a bit unwell at the moment and my crit abilities are doubtless not up to much. But, I did want to call by and say that it was lovely. I like the idea of flowers chasing leads! Super.

Seth

[Jackie]

Thank you penguin, Ian, Ros, Seth. You're helping me rethink this.

Jackie

[bodkin]

I like the bit about the weaver, although probably don't understand it as already discussed...

Weaver birds, I'm assuming.

I got that they are birds, I just don't know how beaks get "afar" or why the two birds stand out from the ten...

This is lovely - I don't have any problem understanding it, but I'm feeling that the idea of the plants being (police?) inspectors feels a bit stretched - and I'm not sure what it's adding to the poem, as the rest doesn't seem to follow up on the idea. As I description of the nature in your garden and the birds loathe to leave it, I think it stands fine by itself.

Ros

Police inspectors!? Where is it about that?

I saw "inspectors" in the title, but that was something else I didn't understand... I am afraid "police" didn't really register.

Just now I realise that the first line may end "leed" and not "led", which I guess supports the police idea, but I don't get anything else that supports that.

Sorry, I may be thick...

Ian

[Macavity]

hi Jackie,
Challenging mix of line lengths, but I felt the sentence evolved naturally, the emphasis in the right places. Particularly liked how you invited the reader to dwell on loath. The long/short L2/L3 works read aloud, though on a silent read less so. The use of dashes helped the fluidity. Something about the style of your writing felt different to me, as if I'm noticing the use of say assonance rather than hearing the voice. Either way enjoyed.

all the best

mac

[clemonz]

suop... really liked the ending, but hated the title

edit why not indent the last line a little? the birds leave / poem end thing could work better than it does - i just really liked the idea of birds on a wire not [or seeming not to want] wanting to fly off.

[Jackie]

Thank you so much for all your comments—Ian for coming back, Mac for looking for a writing style, Clem for liking those two birds (if they'd been people in a crowd I'd have sworn they'd slept together).

I just posted a revision that I do hope works better.

Jackie

[clemonz]

wait, waat, not sure if the lady is deliberately trying to write about >___<

[David]

Hi Jackie,

If there are no longer inspectors in your garden - and I like that idea, although (like Ros) I would like to have seen it sustained for the whole poem (although I can see that that would have been difficult - impressive if you could pull it off, though!) - then can you still refer to the lead? It seems to have lost its relevance.

The nursery sheers is an interesting combination of words, but I'm not sure it's a particularly happy one.

Otherwise, I think it's a pretty good revision.

Cheers

David

[KevJ]

Hi Jackie
I much prefer the revision I think. Beautifully written. Love the image of the sunbird (I just had to google it for a picture. Beautiful little things.

[Jackie]

Thank you for your input, David. I did work on the inspectors and may tackle it again. The rain lilies are tiny. They seem insignificant but spread a lot from one season to another; first not there and then in your face.

Rainliliessmall.jpg (81.78 KiB) Viewed 2081 times

I'm not happy with the stanza about plantain myself. The leaves are in fact big as curtains, supple and soft. People use them as umbrellas.

Thank you, Kev, I so much appreciate your response.

Clem, I'm not sure what you mean.

Jackie

[clemonz]

well i was just asking if you it was a metahpor on sexual love ?

i get that from a lot of your poems, a sense of sexuality, wondered whether it was deliberate.

[David]

Lovely photo!

[clemonz]

Kitchen + Garden - i mean obviously not only women do / ought to do kitchen work.. but knowing you're a women, there is a sense of it there. i'm not saying its sexually charged, but there is IMHO a sense of the unconscious feminime to it.

you ever read denise riley?

[Jackie]

It's often said that meaning is made by readers from their makeup, experiences, needs. . .there isn't just one meaning to extract from a piece of writing.

Jackie

[clemonz]

ok, i'll bear that in mind.

i still think the title is a bit flat without the reader injecting some of the speaker's personality. tho.

[Jackie]

I'm not happy with the title either. I think this piece needs to stew on a low burner for a while. Thanks for your input!

Jackie

[bodkin]

Could you do "lead" -> "scent" ?

"a soaring of doves" is lovely but possibly too consciously poetic?

But what happened to the weavers in the new revision? I thought they were the focus of it...

Ian

[Jackie]

Ah, scent is a great word. Good thought.

I miss the weavers, too, but no one seemed to know what they were. I'm trying to be more understandable (> the photo).

Jackie

[cynwulf]

Hello Jackie,
Beautiful pictures-both your poem and the photograph. I liked the original idea of inspectors-hope you bring them back. I think you lost the weavers too easily, they are far from unknown entities to the UK, thanks to the nature telly programmes here -anyway, always a fine thing to learn something new.
Regards, C.

[bodkin]

Ah, scent is a great word. Good thought.

I miss the weavers, too, but no one seemed to know what they were. I'm trying to be more understandable (> the photo).

Jackie

I do not think the problem was in not knowing what they were, I think it was in not grasping quite what you were saying about them... e.g. what they were doing?

Ian