[David Callin]

I've found this, the first draft of some old thing that I thought, then, had potential - I still do ...

The last wolf in England -
old, threadbare, mad ...

no reason not to take
a child, now, lolloping

out of the wood when the moon
is low in the sky,

something sweet, something toothsome,
something they will miss -

snicker snacker, blood
on the cultivated ground.

Self-preservation's
no use to me now.

The furious halloos
are getting louder.

I invite them, I expect them
momentarily.

They will despatch me,
and then they'll start to miss me.

After me,
it's foxes all the way -

cunning little brutes,
but where's the danger?

Nothing to define yourself
against.

But don't be sentimental over me.
I won't be sentimental over you.

[Jim Moonan]

.
How could it be that here I am, 7:30 on a Monday morning, knee-deep in the wiki history of the story of Little Red Riding Hood? —And to think it's only tangentially relevant to your poem! Something just led me here, and here I I've been for nearly thirty minutes learning all there is to know about a fairy tale I thought I knew but, as it turns out, I knew only in a childlike way. Thanks David.

S1: I love the image of a wolf in old age. (Btw, the hyphen can be made into an emdash by holding down the shift/control keys while typing the hyphen.) I'd consider replacing the hyphen and the ellipsis with emdashes to start and end L2. at the end of L1 and get rid of the ellipsis.

...The last wolf in England
...—old, threadbare, mad—

S2/3: I'd consider adding "sleeping" to "child" since it is clearly nighttime. "Lolloping" is a wonderful imageThis is where LRRH enters into my thinking. ("Tra-la-lollopping"). Unless you want to reinforce the fairytale feel of this I would change "wood" to "woods".

S4/5— things turn darker in these two stanzas. I'm so glad I made the effort to find out what "snicker snacker" was referring to. According to one source, it is an interjection. An onomatopoeia of unclear meaning, possibly referring to sharpness, or the sound of a blade cutting through something. Yikes! The old wolf is up to his old tricks...

S6,7,8,9:The wolf realizes he will be no match for the hounds and hunters he hears in the distance. They will soon end his life. He accepts his ultimate demise in a predator/prey existence. "Halloos" is sonically wonderful to the poem. (We've already heard the sound of him "lolloping" and the sound of a child being eaten.)

S10,11,12: The philosopher wolf expounds on how the Hunt is unfair to both him and the foxes that will fall after he is dispatched of.

The final stanza reveals the true nature of the wolf. Eat or be eaten.

When I took the time to really dig into this poem it resonated in a surprising way. Great poem, David. Kind of sort of but not really profound. Just life as we know it.

.

[Richard G]

Hi David,
potential? Definitely.

S5 - your wolf has vorpal teeth?

I wonder if you need S5 (the white space after 'miss' seems more than sufficient) and S6 (the latter is implicit throughout.)

S10 - can't help hearing this as 'foxes all the way down'
S11 - would a wolf describe a fox as a 'brute'?
I think both the stanzas would benefit from some more attention.

RG.

[Matt Q]

Hi David,

I like the idea here, and the opening, but I don't know how much the idea has really moved beyond being an idea. In the second half of the poem there's much less imagery and much more abstraction, the poem seems flatter and more prosaic, and to leans toward (over-)explaining, spelling things out. The idea that humans define themselves in opposition to wolves and will miss them for this reason and suffer from their absence seems pretty much just stated. Likewise that the wolf is no longer interested in self-preservation.

Matt

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, David—

I enjoyed this poem very much. I like the bravado of the old wolf facing extinction realistically and bravely, going out with one last outrageous act of violence, refusing to over-dramatize the inevitable.

The spelling of “despatch” was new to me, but I looked it up, and, sure enough, it’s legal.

Glenn

[David Callin]

Thanks all. I'm thinking there are two different voices in here, and I haven't reconciled them satisfactorily.

Anyway, I'm glad I set you off on a Little Red Riding Hood journey, Jim. That doesn't seem inappropriate at all. (Thanks for the em-dash help, but I can't seem to get it to work - maybe it's a UK/US keyboard thing?)

"Vorpal" is a great word, Richard. I'm glad to have it. Nice Terry Pratchett echo too. I think your point on S11 ties in to my thought on the two voices.

I think I agree with you about it not being much more than an idea at the moment, Matt. I need to work on the voice.

But thanks for enjoying it as it is, Glenn. I just think I need to work a bit harder at it, but my attempts to resolve the bivocal thing - out here in the real world - are not working out at the moment.

(Somehow I thought "despatch" and "dispatch" have different meanings, but I may be wrong about that.)

Cheers all

David

[Joe Crocker]

Hi David. Some lovely words here. "Lolloping", "snicker snacker", "toothsome", and the "furious halloos".

And I like the old wolf's shrugging acceptance of it all. It's the introduction of the foxes that I think could be better handled ie "Foxes all the way". I get the argument that foxes as hunters' prey will be rather a poor substitute for a wolf. Hard to feel any pride in pitting your strength against such an unthreatening quarry. Adopting the persona of a grizzled creature on it's unsentimental way out is a great perspective. I could spend more time in his company.

Joe

[Matt Q]

Hi David,

Coming back to this, I wonder if just taking the more explanatory parts out would improve the poem.


The last wolf in England -
old, threadbare, mad ...

no reason not to take
a child, now, lolloping

out of the wood when the moon
is low in the sky,

something sweet, something toothsome,
something they will miss -

snicker snacker, blood
on the cultivated ground.

The furious halloos
are getting louder.

I invite them, I expect them
momentarily.

After me,
it's foxes all the way -

cunning little brutes,
yet where's the danger?

But don't be sentimental over me.
I won't be sentimental over you.



It gives the reader a little more work to do, I think, but I reckon, that's a positive. Anyway, just thought it might be helpful.

Thinking about voice, you might change "momentarily" to something like, "I love a good ending". Or even, "I love a fairy tale ending". After all, the wolf usually gets it in a fairy tale. And "fairy tale" implies a happily ever after, against which the foxes part implies that it might not be so fulfilling an ending after all. Or, maybe there's a way to get "a happily ever after" in there somehow (a fairy-tale ending).

Matt