a sea sonnet
 

Hi Cally,

Some quick notes-- I know, it's ~~The Deep End~~ Yadda yadda...

This is pretty good. I like the horses. A few things.

Maybe it would be stronger if the ending were not past tense: "I meet the horses face to face." A beat short...so what?

Also, I want a truer rhyme at the end of this poem. And, of course, I want you to close those lines up, but I realize this request will disappear in whelms of air.

About that: "the element of everywhere" and "whelms of air" are the kind of lines that come easily and define their own space for interpretation, IE huge. They are "spacey" with a certain "oh-wow-man!" element to them. The first segment of the poem has such simple and solid language, that when these phrases hit, I'm disappointed. I know you're going for a particular effect (from physical elements up top to elements of wonder post volta), but I think you should impose the constraint of rejecting such expressions here.

In the upper half, there are enjambments that employ a familiar mechanism. But imagine the stanza without the wrapped-around parts. This isn't a suggested rewrite of the stanza, obviously, but I don't think you loose anything for what you gain by cutting thee wrap-arounds, which I think have a deadening effect:

The weight of water passing through my hands.
A fleeting glimpse of sky.
How water understands
the need to part.
Other laws apply.


I think "passing" and "fleeting" carry the natural effect of waves and wind and their interaction. I might actually not be bugged by that last line getting spaced out! You could do that in some fashion with a real sonnet stanza swinging into the turn.

"Other laws apply" is a great turn signal.

Rick


Note: This is actually close enough to the correct length to count as a ~The Deep End~ crit! But does it weigh enough...? ~,:^(

Another gloriously lilting poem, Cally!

My favorite bit is “How water understands the need to part. Other laws apply”—“simple and solid,” as Rick says, and yet so odd and beautiful.

Least persuasive for me is “believing he is loved.” I doubt that animals believe anything about themselves, so the personification seemed contrived.

I suppose the horses are the islands themselves, seeming to bolt towards the swimmer as she approaches (Hippolyte meaning “releaser of horses”).

I didn’t know “whelm” could be a noun, but I see that it can be used poetically for a surge of water.

I think I disagree with Rick about the tense of the last line. It’s an exalted experience—like seeing God face to face—and might be cheapened if readers shared it in the present. Note that the line is also metrically ambiguous, since “I have met” could easily be an anapest. A word like “and” at the beginning would fix that if it’s a concern.

Keep singing, Cally!

Yes, pretty good. I also agree with a lot of Rick's other comments. Here are a few other thoughts.

In L4, I would make it "... How other laws apply."

Rather than "conceals an albatross", perhaps "reveals" one? If there is a non-omniscient human speaker sharing observations, which I assume given the "I" in the final line, then how could she know that an albatross is concealed behind the swell?

I'm not sure where the angels suddenly come from, and "breaking reins" confuses me a bit. I looked up the phrase and variations and couldn't find it used this way. "Breaking reins" are a kind of rein, no? At any rate, I couldn't parse how the line worked its grammar and syntax.

I'm not sure about "wind-bent waves." Aren't all waves wind-bent? To me, this suggests the same criticism that Rick had about the other "oh-wow-man" phrases.

I agree with Rick about changing the tense of the last line, but I'd go for future tense.

Though the poems don't really have a lot in common, I'm finding your poem keeps making me think of Kipling's "Seal Lullaby," which I love for the flipperling and the slow-swinging seas.

I wondered about that too and decided the horses snapped their reins when they bolted—or, rather, the angels did it, whoever they are.

.
Your title anchors the poem. (I looked it up. I think you're in the Tasmanian reef water) But then you pull up anchor and begin to move through air and on land.

The first stanza is quintessential mindfulness in a way only poetry can reveal, imo.
Stanzas 2 and 3 seem to slip from water to a dream/vision of sky (albatross) and land (horses).

Two images struck me:

Anything can happen. Land is lost.
Mutter and moan, the sea is open-mouthed,

It sparked in me a glimpse of all the rivers of earth opening their mouths to the sea. What a beautiful sight!

and this:

The horses! Here they come! The mind is altered
by angels breaking reins in whelms of air,

The phrase “breaking reins” tugged at me. I didn't know what it meant. I looked it up and still can’t say for sure what it means, but in the process I came across a short video entitled “Breaking Reins” and it colored your poem with meaning that may not relate to what you intended, but it sure feels right.

I absolutely love the last two (spaced) lines that find themselves rhyming even though they don't.

It is the way the poem moves that makes it so striking to me. Roger and Rick suggest you change the tense of the last line to future. Yet I see a fluid movement from future to present to past encapsulated in the last six lines that indicates a kind of wisdom attained through experience.

.

I agree with Roger on future tense.

Rickster, (and Roger, too, as you both agree),

I've spent a day digesting your comments, and experimenting along the lines you suggest, and I ended up feeling deflated. The thing felt dead on the page. Too many words. Then I went back and read the original for the first time in 24 hours, and suddenly felt the wind in my sails again! I think what fell away was the visionary quality of the experience. Well, that's what I hoped was there from the start, and I completely accept I lack the skill to pull it off. And it's possible some way of catching the experience in words will come to me one day, but at this moment, I can't see anything that fits better than what's there.

For instance, the initial enjambments sort of enact the swimming motion for me, the regular over and over feel in the body, and the rotation. And the tense of the last line feels so right to me, too. I see it as Carl does, as an exalted state. And there's a holy stillness to it, the stillness within and just after a transforming event.

I can't yet see an alternative to 'everywhere' and 'whelms of air'. Swimming on the open ocean—I don't know the word for it but everywhere, or nowhere. 'everywhere' sounds so open. Also, I wanted the language to change through the course of the poem, to reflect the upheaval of the huge waves.

I tried making the couplet a full rhyme. But again, it felt too locked in, and most of the time that's necessary in a sonnet. In this case, I enjoy the flux in the sound between 'waves' and 'face' .
I'm not trying to say this poem is finished, but that as yet I can't see a better way. I would dearly love one day to have the ability to recreate in language the experience of awe I get from ocean swimming. To share it, really, the interpentration of world and mind.

Thanks for engaging with it! I'm glad you like the horses! Since I was little I've thought of the waves as horses, and of course the Greek myths go there first! Euripides' Hippolytus is one of my fave Greek dramas.

Roger, thanks! See above. Also, I didn't repeat 'how' because I don't want the effect of anaphora. I want a caesura at that moment. I do love caesuras, moments of silence, breaks. I'm becoming aware that I use them a lot. They can shift everything, indicate a turn in thought-track. Also, for the music.

I get your concern about the conceal/reveal conundrum. This is one of the most awe-inspiring experiences I've ever known, so it means a lot to me that it works, or comes across. Even with 'reveal' it didn't feel right. I tried lots of things. Then I read the Kipling which I must have read as a child but had forgotten, and how lovely it is! And this morning I saw that it held a clue for how I could go with that line! It's the sense of the great hollow between the ocean swells that I want. You know when you've left the coastal waters when that deep hollow happens. So I used 'hollow', and got rid of the conceal/reveal dilemma. I like the new line, so a thousand thanks for the 'Seal Lullaby'! I really appreciate all the times you've pointed me to other poems. It's always helped me.

Not all waves are wind-bent. The ones I'm trying to recreate definitely are—the ones where the wind is blowing the spindrift off the back of them, and it look like manes flying! I love the sound of wind-bent waves, too!

I don't know where the angels came from, either. Whenever I'm faced with a powerful force, I think 'angel'. That's what they are to me, not the cute cherub kind. Angels are powers. The force of a white-capped wave moving towards you, knowing it will overpower you -- says angels to me. The 'breaking reins' -- I didn't think it. It came on the back of the angels. Reading it now, for me it's about the release of emotions, emotional release. Not holding back. Impossible to hold back. I also like the suggestion of 'breaking REIGNS'. Not control, but breaking rules the waters.

But as I said to Rick, the state of the poem is fluid. It's just that I'm not seeing yet any better alternatives. You've helped a lot. Thank you!

Carl, many thanks! And that was the weakest spot for me, too. Not that I have a problem with personification, but that this was a lazy option. I must have been carried away by the sound of "believe" and "love" -- lieve/love. So I've changed that line thanks to your push, along with the line before due to Roger's push. I like the second stanza better now! I think it's better.

The horse are waves. They do break on the islands, of course. It's a stunning place, the southernmost edge of Tasmania where I live.

I'm relieved you read the last line as I do. The gods. I also see what you mean about the possible anapest reading. My hope is that the trochaic line before it, together with the space to let that rhythm take hold, will lead the reader to stress the "I". Musically, and in a visionary way, I'd like to begin the last line with "I" rather than "And".

And that's how I see the breaking reins, too. I don't really separate the waves from the horses from the angels. There's transformation going on, the mythic and material completely interpenetrating. I don't know how else to show it yet. I don't have the words. I'll keep trying! Thank you so much for your suggestions and your encouragement, Carl!

Jim, believe me, it counts. Your crits always do. You're really onto something with "quintessential mindfulness". The "I" or "me" in everything I write (even when I'm not writing) is always provisional. It's always shifting. It's not a narrative "I" but more like a series of visions.
Do you know the poem "I Am Not I" by Juan Ramon Jimenez?

I am not I.
I am this one
walking beside me whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit,
and whom at other times I forget;
the one who remains silent while I talk,
the one who forgives, sweet, when I hate,
the one who takes a walk when I am indoors,
the one who will remain standing when I die.

The reason I swim in the ocean is that there, there is no I at all. But something is fully present, fully aware because it is dangerous and beautiful out there. Alert and alive, all the senses humming.

I love your vision of all the rivers opening their mouths to the sea! Yes! All the waters are so open-mouthed! It's what our mouths do, too, in the moment of wonder, or shock, or any powerful emotion. Our mouths open. I think the film you found, the breaking of the heart and the opening it makes for transformation is always there in the sea. A huge part of the wonder of the sea is the great grief it holds. It is charged with the deepest emotions.

What you love about the way the last two lines rhyme is why I like them that way, too! Only you put it so much better than I did! "finding themselves rhyming in spite of the possibility that they don't". Ha! Yes! As always, it is a joy for me to follow your heart-mind through a poem. It's a real privilege. Thank you, dear Jim!


I'm still watching this poem move. I really want to stress that I take every reaction to heart, and I'm truly grateful. I've posted a revision, and it may not be the final one. I just can't feel a way to change anything else yet. Still in the heat of it! The whelm of it!

Thanks to everyone!

Cally

I have a friend who swims in the lakes around here, and she loves hearing about where you swim. I showed her your poem, and she loves it immensely, as do I. I love picturing the queen of the Amazons swimming with such strength and sensitivity in a vast sea, and how the meter and rhymes are steady and exact, like a body swimming.

This revision is a let-down for me:
heading for the ice sheet, old, severe and loved.
gliding on time, believing he is loved.
It seems rhythmically fussy, and I miss the three syllable "believing." Don't we all wish we could be "gliding on time"? Don't all creatures believe they're loved? Belief takes on a new meaning applied to a wild creature, just as other elements of the poem—time, mind, air, waves—have also been transformed into something wild and "everywhere."

This is so great:
They'll be here soon, the horses, once they've bolted
to ride the element of everywhere.
The horses! Here they come! The mind is altered
by angels breaking reins in whelms of air,

I do like this revision, because I prefer the in/wind sound more than the by/bent sound:
re-created in the wind-bent waves.
re-created by the wind-bent waves.

The last line—I have met the horses face to face—has a million literary echoes for me, which you could probably list faster than I could. Yet it's all you.

I’m slow to come to this. This board isn’t my usual stomping ground. I love the poem. I can feel swimming outside in the sea. The rhythm of the body moving in a moving body of water is there. The meter is flexible and doesn’t draw attention. I liked it before the changes but like the new lines in S2. The “hollow of the green swell” has a hollow.

Another beautiful and muscular poem. Congratulations

I still prefer the effortless original: "a deep green swell conceals an albatross".

Stupid me kind of skimmed over the title the first few times I read this, so I didn't see the connection between the "horses" in the poem and the name of the rocks. I still think it's deliberately tenuous. I don't know what the horses are but they feel more elemental than approaching islands. I love the poem. I heard Eliot's sea-girls "riding seaward on the waves" in the last line. I seemed to hear echoes of a dozen things but with the power of hearing something for the first time.

I think the line "heading for the ice sheet, old, severe and loved" is a little crammed and busy now. Perhaps "believing he is loved" was a bit much but maybe the speaker could believe that he (the albatross) is loved. Funny how an albatross believing he is loved seems a little too sentimental but water understanding the need to part feels just right.

Edit: I've just read all the crits properly. The horses are waves. Thought so. On a slightly less erudite note, along with Eliot I had Patti Smith and Jim Morrison in my head too.

Hi, Cally,

Good to read you here. I'm enjoying this poem. Just a couple of thoughts to take or leave:

I'm a lover of slant rhymes and creative takes on rhyming but struggle with mouthed/loved. I wonder if this would be any different, however, if I were from your part of the world. And perhaps it sets the stage for the radical bolted/altered.

Also I wondered if it might feel fresher to actively show how it unfolds and feels to lose the land were the currents pull someone out rather than piling up the passive theoreticals. The abstract "other laws apply" might be better followed up by action?

I love the horses.

I've been to an ocean a handful of times but have never properly swum in one. Your poem is a fine experience.

Thanks for this!
Deborah

Memsy, I completely agree with you. There are too many words. The power should be where the words aren't. And if the words are taking all the space, the whole thing deflates. And I do feel the same as you about believing. I do! I know it spontaneously, in my very soul. And I, too, think the keeper part of the revision is the "in".

My heart has returned to the original. It has that feeling of inevitability about it. Thank you so very much for your persuasive advocacy of the original!

Oh, and what you say about the last line. How true and perceptive. It feels like my whole literary soul suffuses that line. What you say reminds me of Virginia Woolf saying "All literature is one mind". A great truth.

Thank you, John, for venturing here!! I never would have come here in the olden days. I remember I did once, and it was just too scary. But those days are gone, and these halls are empty, and I was encouraged by the presence of Rick and Siham and Mary! Almost everything about this poem feels musically inevitable for me now, but for those two lines in the second stanza. Something might tweak there, but I'm not sure what or how. I don't need to rush. I do like "the hollow of the green swell". It sounds lovely, and it's accurate, too.

I love "muscular". That's a huge thing for me. Thank you!!!

Sharkey -- I hear you. See what I said to Mary about the last line. Its antecedents go back way further than Eliot, although I think 'Dry Salvages' is impossible for me ever to escape, as is Wallace Stevens 'Idea of Order at Key West'. In my heart and mind, I've gone back to the original albatross line, with the hope that time and tide will show me some small, yet huge, way to tweak it. I can't help it. Since I was a child, there is something that believes in love. This is not a hippy-dippy thing. It's more like geological.

Ha! I hadn't thought of Patti Smith or Jim Morrison! But it's great to have them onboard!!

Others have misread the horses for rocks because of the title. I wonder if I should tweak it—something like 'Near the Hippolyte Rocks'. As a local, I think of the Hippolyte Rocks as a region which includes the water all around that area. I'll think about it.

Hi Deborah!

First I want to apologise for not responding to your comment on my last poem. It had slipped down the board, and I didn't want to drag it up, but I had fully intended to PM you, but LIFE does what it does—gets in the way! Which is no excuse. So, I'm sorry!

I'm so glad you're enjoying the poem. Interesting to hear your take on the rhymes. I, too, adore creative rhyming. The two words 'mouthed' and 'loved' have a very similar feel in my mouth as I say them, with the actual sound being very similar too. So I suspect it is a closer slant rhyme for me than it is for you.

I do see what you mean by following the opening with action. I felt, in the midst of composition, and still feel now, that the delay of action is necessary. It actually is very abstact, in a way, floating alone on the ocean, and waves don't come regularly. There can be long waits. And then they'll come in sets of 3 or 5. It gives you dreaming time out there, meditative. And then this SUDDEN rush of force and overwhelming MOMENT. I am trying to get something of that.

I'm so glad you love the horses. I think I mentioned earlier that I always imagined the waves as horses since I was a child. I've never actually called them horses in a poem before. I think it must have been their time.

All, I fairly sure I'm going with the original, for the most part. Still wavering about the last two lines, S2. So I'll leave the two versions where they are. If any changes occur, I'll let you know.

Thank you for all the help! It made me experiment with lots of things.

Cally

"I think I mentioned earlier that I always imagined the waves as horses since I was a child."

As you may already know ( though I just found out a moment ago), breaking waves are often referred to a "white horses" or "horse's mane waves." Google "waves as horses" and you'll see.

Choppily sea-like, Cally. The metre is a furious machine, always not quite balanced: like the sea.

No apologies needed, Cally. I get that! And, of course, the bottom line in forums like this is seeing whether your choices hold up even after someone questions them. So it sounds like you’ve got the right track.

Re: horses and the sea.
In the midst of the furious horse-rushing of the waves, I get another image: the poet herself, suspended in perfect stillness, upright, in the storm's-eye center of continual agitation—a motionless sea-horse.

Nemo

Hi Roger! I've never thought to google that before! I've been lucky enough in my life to have lived on some of the wildest coastlines with magnificent horses. The best place I've found is the Oregon coast; waves there have the full white manes, the sprindrift flying back, and the pounding sound. The way it all comes together in my imagination is the connection between waves, horses and emotions as found in Euripides' play. Because he refuses to honour emotional life, Hippolytus' own horses/waves smash him against the rocks. I remember my shock of recognition when I first read this play.

Hi, Cam! And thanks for "furious machine"! The sea has many moods. It's all weather.

Deborah, hi! And thanks! And you're absolutely right. To have one's choices challenged, and then to scrupulously examine them—this is the real value of the Sphere.

Nemo. Yes. That's the heart of it. Living at the heart of the "constant never" --- it's amazing how calm it is. Beautiful calm.


Still dreaming on those unsettled lines, watching for something to resolve . . .


Thank you!

I love this, Cally. My favorite part is probably the first stanza, though it’s all terrific. I think Mary referred to a part as “effortless” (and I agree with her there), but that’s how I feel about the whole poem, especially that opening. The line breaks there are really swimming. Gliding and turning. Graceful, precise, beautiful. And I love “Other laws apply.”

I would stick with the original. The albatross lines come across as more immediate and meaningful there. In the revision, they are a bit overthought, imo. And, yeah, sure, the albatross doesn’t believe it is loved, but might this tell us more about the speaker? In any case, I think it’s a very human thing to attach our own thoughts and feelings to animals and objects. Yeah, I wouldn’t mess around much (if at all) with the original.

.
Just chiming in to lightly agree with the others who like the original — though I like watching you write, so even the revision has merit : )

.

James! Thank you! SO very much. I have to tell you an amazing coincidence that has just occurred in the last 24 hours. A little background: Hobart, my birthplace (I live south of the city now) was designated a UNESCO City of Literature last year. Late last week, I was invited by the City of Hobart to submit a poem to be considered for an anthology being put together to celebrate the City of Literature status. It's called Voices of the Southern Ocean. I was so undecided about what to send, then yesterday I read your comment. Mary pressed for the original, too, so when I read your comment, I thought -- that's it, I'll trust the poem. So I sent it off last night, and I've heard today they're taking it!!! HOORAY!!! So thank you sooo much for taking the time to comment. Your comments were a moment of resolve for me. And now it will be in a book about the place I love most in all the world!

And Jim, I read your chime just after the acceptance came through, so you have increased my happiness. And I love that you like watching me write. It feels so companionable! Thank you for chiming!!

My thanks to everyone for making me test the limits with this poem. I can't imagine it being in a better home now!!!

Cally

Cally's Sea Sonnet
 

Dear Cally,

When you wrote about ‘conceal-reveal’ — about the albatross in ‘the wave’s hollow’— I thought of how holographic our existence is: now we’re here, now we’re not. “Anything can happen. Land is lost.”
It seems to me that this holographic nature may, in some way, be close or related to “the element of everywhere.” Even “The mind is altered by angels breaking reins in whelms of air,” then: “re-created in the wind-bent waves.”

“I have met the horses face to face” comes at closing as a survivor, after facing a huge wave and seeing that there was no way to beat it to the shore—therefore, one must get into that ‘hollow’ as it forms and hope to be precise in the timing. One way I see the ending line, “I have met the horses face to face”, a rather concrete way, while it’s the more ethereal quality that ‘foams up’ from your way with words and the vivid imagery. The moment when, not having entered the hollow, sometimes we are ‘rolled over’ and dragged (“Land is lost.”), more like kicked by the horses than lifted by the wave—that in the dizzy reappearance, having just survived that moment which, as lovers of the sea, we will continue to face, because we will, again and again, ‘dare’ the ocean. You mention the ocean being beautiful and its scary power, at once.

Then, “the horses”, the heralds..

Love, faith, trust, a proclamation and nature’s reciprocal offering where giving and receiving are one and the same. In short, perfection. The poet lays her awe and respect at the shore, her poem, a bouquet.

“The Hyppolyte Rocks” remind me of a totem after reading the poem.

That ‘the angels alter the mind’ — the angels change the outcome — we are out of the ferocious being rolled over and find ourselves at the shore in the horses’ midst, “face to face” and side-by-side.

The horses! Here they come! The mind is altered
by angels breaking reins in whelms of air . . . <<<

<<< Here, I see ellipses, or a dash, or a colon, instead of the comma.
Then, because I see the albatross as a projection of the N’s self:

re-created in the wind-bent waves
I have met the horses face to face.

A tiny punctuation tweak that makes the N the ‘re-created’ at the shore alongside the horses.

Your poems answer questions I never asked.

I hope my addition is a relevant parallel. Maybe, it’s just my little mind spinning.

I apologize for the delay, but I wanted you to know I was a gleeful partaker.
My comment is still a rough draft lacking sequence for clarity.
I am the turtle that can’t keep up with the hares in the workshop.

Sigh. Thanks!
Congratulations!!
~mignon

.
I would be the butterfly... Or possibly the bee... Or maybe the hummingbird... Or all three : )

Mignon, I think you latched onto the poem beautifully. If I had the time I'd wax poetic about the things you said.

Cally, How good to know the wind took this poem and put it where it will happily live forever in the annals of the place you love.

.

Mignon and Jim, honestly, you two! You make me cry! Both of you are forms of angels. Not just because of the way you respond to my poems, but whenever you appear on any poem thread. You bring something special.

Mignon, what you give back to me is more than I could ever dream of. Every word of your commentary is awash with truth! What you say about the holographic nature of existence -- how good --- what a great image for it. And what you write about surviving -- is spot on. Literally, I've nearly died out there twice, seconds away from drowning; once by a big wave, once by being caught in a rip. Other times, tumbled and broken up a bit, but safe. What you learn is the forces in life are completely beyond our control, but you're not going to stop living! The greatest lesson of the ocean, for me, has been learning to respond to situations counter-intuitively. Go deeper under instead of up and out. Go further out instead of going to shore. I could go on, but you see what I mean? It's all metaphor. Go towards what you think is going to kill you. It might still kill me one day, physically, the sea. I know I take risks. But I love it. I feel more at home there than on land. I know somehow my soul will go on in the flow.

I love how you see the Rocks as totem, and the albatross as a projection of the self. Yes!

This statement: "Your poems answer questions I never asked." This is the best thing I could ever hope for as a writer. Ever. I regard it as the greatest compliment. It's the ultimate expression of what I'd want a reader to feel. I will write it down on a card and keep it on my writing table as a constant reminder of what we do this for.

And never worry about sequence etc. I get what you're saying. Always. I know where you're coming from. I'm so grateful you are here.

Jim, I agree! I could take off into another poem from what Mignon said! Ha! And whatever creatures you and Mignon are, I am so grateful for what you give to me.


Cally

painting from the turn of the millenium
 

To enlarge or shrink the image, go to 'view' and click on 'zoom in' or 'zoom out'
Attachment 1126

Thank you, Cally and Jim,

I posted an image of a painting of mine from way back.

I'll read your comments over and over again.

It's far better than waking up, as a child, to presents under the Christmas tree.

Maybe I'll have vvords later.

Sigh. A good sigh,
and gratitude,
~mignon

Hey, thanks for sharing that, Cally. I’ve been dealing with some illness, but still trying to stay engaged with things here (and that gave me a charge). Just a lot slower getting around to posting/commenting on anything lately—and I’d been meaning to comment on your poem for the longest time. Maybe timing isn’t everything, but it does matter—glad I commented when I did. Anyway, big congratulations!

If I had been shown this blind I would have thought this was yours Cally. It has your essence.

Poseidon’s horses riding on the Apple Isle indeed

On wind and wave. Waves are wind created and reflect and diffract close to shore but as Cally has said the wind will lift their mane and if oblique the wave can give an appearance of bending.

You are the wind that bends to an alternate sight.

Beautiful Cally.

Jan