[David Callin]

When was the Dhoor? Unpromising name!
A place obscure, of little fame,
that features in my Mum's CV,
the uncertain biography
I have of her. It's all up here,
a jumbled blur of place and year.

It was somewhere she taught, the Dhoor.
I thought that there’d be traa dy liooar,
eventually, to get it straight,
but Lord, how we procrastinate.
I'd clarify it all, somehow,
some day, but I can't ask her now.

[Glenn Wright]

This is quite challenging for those of us not conversant with Manx Gaelic.
Google help me to learn that “tra dy liooar” means “time enough.”
Dhoor stumped me. It sounds as though it comes from one of the languages of India. It means “far away” in Tamil, “smoke” in Bengali, “cattle” in Gujarati, and “drum” in Urdu. It can also mean a unit of area, one-twentieth of a katha. I’m leaning toward the Tamil, but maybe it’s just a place name.

It appears that the speaker’s mother served as a teacher somewhere in southern India as a young woman before the speaker’s birth, when India was part of the British Empire. Like Anna Leonowens, she had adventures that she partially related to the speaker, but now that she is gone, the speaker realizes that he will never know the details of his mother’s life. Did I get most of it right?

I had fun with this, David. I made me think about some of my own garbled family history. I think when we are older, all of us wish we had paid attention when our parents tried to hand down the family lore.

[Cally Conan-Davies]

G'day, David!

It's the strangeness of "the Dhoor", indeed the whole first line, that actually makes the poem far from 'unpromising' to me! I like that it begins "when" was the Dhoor, not 'what' was the Dhoor.

What follows is universally true. These "Dhoors" are holes or wobbles in our family histories. In all histories there are Dhoors! But it's really how time lulls us into feeling it's a line. But there really isn't time. And some things are gone when we go.

I enjoyed this, and enjoyed pondering the thoughts that grew from the simplicity of your expression.

Cally

[Perry Miller]

If we take the word "Dhoor" to mean something in your mother's past that isn't quite understood or identified, then the poem works for me -- although you say she "taught" there, so how can it be a complete mystery? That line alone is in danger of derailing the poem (to the extent that it identifies the "Dhoor" as a school). To keep the poem entirely mysterious, you might change ...

It was somewhere she taught, the Dhoor.

... to this ...

Was it somewhere she taught, the Dhoor?

Do you see what I'm getting at? This will never be your greatest masterpiece, but it will fit somewhere in your canon.

[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by David Callin

When was the Dhoor?

It’s yours for £895,000. https://www.cowleygroves.com/propert...ramsey-im7-4eb

[David Callin]

Hi Glenn. Yes, as you surmise, The Dhoor is a place name. (It means "black ford", apparently - Doo-aah ... all sorts of doo-wop connotations now occur to me.) I'd love to get a bit of Tamil into my poems, though.

You got the teacher bit right too. And the gist of the poem.

G'day, Cally! Glad you liked the strangeness. (I had that old and unpromising Scots word "dour" in mind.) The second paragraph of your comment sums the thing up perfectly.

And hello Perry. I like the point you make about the Dhoor. I'll give that some thought. And I like the thought that I have a canon! And you're right, this does fit into it. (I don't write exclusively about the island, as you might be thinking, but I am putting together a collection of the poems about it that I have. Hence my Manx bombardment at present.)

I saw that, Carl! In fact I walked past the place just the other day. (Not my usual neck of the woods.) Absurd price, but it's a surprisingly large building for what was - I think - not even a village school. I think it catered for a lot of outlying farms and houses with very little in the way of larger settlements.

Cheers all

David

[Matt Q]

Hi David,

I enjoyed this, and I can relate to it too.

I kind of wonder what the purpose of the S2L1 is. It resolves the mystery of the opening line for the reader, I guess, but doesn't seem to do more than this, and seems logically unconnected to the rest of the stanza. And does this disclosure really help the poem? Maybe the poem works better if the mystery is unresolved and the Dhoor is never explained? Then the reader is left, like the N, in a state of incomplete information, which is maybe more appropriate to the poem.

Perry's suggestion of turning the line into a question is an interesting one, and would help maintain the mystery. That said, the speaker begins by asking "When was the Dhoor?", which seems an odd question if he doesn't know what it was. And L2 indicates he does know.

This line strike me as trimeter:

the unCERTain biOGraPHY

Are you hoping I'll stress "the"? That's not naturally stressed, so that only happens if I force it. Easy enough to fix though with one-syllable modifier before "uncertain", I guess, if you can find one.

In the last line, I wonder if a full stop after day gives the final statement little more power, makes it a little more final, somehow?

I'd clarify it all, somehow,
some day. But I can't ask her now.

best,

Matt

[Jayne Osborn]

Hi David,

Your poem reminds me of David Anthony's wonderful triolet "Mother's Day", in which he laments the passing of his mother in a similar way to "but I can't ask her now."

I like Matt's suggestion of a full stop before that final statement, to give the maximum impact to those words.

I'm not too keen on the inversion of "a place obscure", but "an obscure place" puts the emphasis on the first syllable - obscure, rather than obscure. Is that the reason you wrote it the way you did? I think you could improve that line... should you wish to, of course, but otherwise just ignore me!

Jayne

[Paula Fernandez]

Hi David--

I like this poem a lot, but I think that's because I'm personally doing a grand excavation of my own parents' secret lives, so this hit a powerful note with me. I hope you'll continue to develop this theme. Also, when I read this out loud it had such a nice swing and casual tone--even given the mysterious Gaelic phrase. I do love your "voice" in this poem.

However, I'm afraid the poem would not function for me (as a monolingual English speaker) had I not had the benefit of Glenn's research to translate the Gaelic phrase. I think the audience for your work will be small if you insist on this particular bilingualism.

One other note that seemed off on reflection--you seem to indicate that you have your mother's "CV" which would typically be a written document of places and times. It seems odd then to say that "it's all up here" and "a jumbled blur". It makes me think, in fact, you must NOT have the CV or it would be much clearer for you. Maybe you have an oral history (the rhyme still works!). So that seems illogical to me.

I do hope you continue on this one! I'd love to see another draft.

[Mark McDonnell]

Hi David!

I agree, unsurprisingly, with Paula about your "voice". That the language sounds so utterly natural, even when working with relatively short lines and rhyming couplets, is a testament to the voice that you have developed in your poems. Nothing sounds forced or out of place, to me at least. It sounds like eavesdropping on a whispered inner monologue as the speaker sits with a dusty box from the attic.

Forgive me for "critting the critters" but I'm gonna. I see the reference to the CV as a metaphorical CV that you explain in the next phrase: "the uncertain biography / I have of her".

I like the Manx phrase. It's beautiful. It made me say "tralala", like Diane Keaton la-di-da ing. Little bits of local colour like this are hardly a challenge in the days of google, it takes two seconds. It's nice to do a bit of detective work if a poem has grabbed you enough to want to. Making the reader do that even fits thematically! Interactive poetry!

Keep "A place obscure". The inversion gives the slightest tinge of tongue-in-cheek gothic mystery, which seems entirely appropriate.

By the time I got to "the uncertain biography", I found myself slightly stressing "un" to give "the UNCERtain biOGraPHY" which felt good enough to make it tet for my purposes. The slow creep of the poem up to that point made this reading feel natural to me.

So. I think I agree with Matt about the full stop in the last line. Other than that, there's nothing I would change about this.

Mark

Edit: reading again, one line did strike me as sounding like trimeter and so feeling a little rushed. "It was somewhere she taught, the Dhoor", I read as "It was somewhere she taught, the Dhoor". Stressing "was" doesn't feel right and neither does making "somewhere" a spondee. What about adding a "that"? And then if you don't want the repeated "that" in the next line, make a little change, e.g

It was somewhere that she taught, the Dhoor.
I thought there might be traa dy liooar,

Possibly?