[Mary Meriam]

The Disappearance of Deities
The gods were companions. They would come in the window or accompany you in the fields.
—John Riley

Goddesses clear from corpses in the field,
the hunted deer discarded, cruelly shot.
I lost my company, I lost my shield.
Mad gods made of my broken limbs are not
companions. This is far from Ancient Greece.
No gods knock on the window bearing peace.
Blackberry lilies open on green stalks.
High in the air, I see black birds in flocks.
No forests, mountains, naked to the eye
show gods or goddesses of any sort.
I move these words to reproduce support
that’s gone. If only I could make the sky
and earth alive as goddesses, the end
averted, blue-tailed skink a god-like friend.


~~~
L1 was: Goddesses escaped

[Carl Copeland]

Hi, Mary. The disenchantment of the world—as a result of monotheism or modern science or just growing up—is a theme that fascinates me, so you’ve got me from the start. Pushkin is also guaranteed to grab me, though here, of course, it’s only the form he invented.

The picture I get in the first six lines is a little fuzzy. With the pun on “company,” the deer-hunting scene turns into a battle in which the N is a combatant who lost her shield. Is she one of the deer in this part of the poem? That possibility is supported by the idea that her “broken limbs” would be made into “mad gods” (mounted trophies? symbolic deities?).

The second half of the poem attempts to find beauty and meaning in a “naked” natural world, devoid of gods and goddesses. Black birds and a skink replace the divine deer, just as quail and pigeons replace the green cockatoo in “Sunday Morning.”

Anyway, here I am floundering around in the Deep End, trying to find something—anything—critical to say about a delightful poem.

[Rick Mullin]

A Pushnik. Nice!


I'm not going to keep apologizing for crits that aren't particularly ~~The Deep End~~ crits. I will do so up front here for the last time. My apologies.



This is very good. The conceit (though conjuring something very familiar in your work), the imagery and color. I love the closing line. skink! You can see it zip with the blue streak propelled by the imagery momentum in the poem.

Nits... In the penultimate line, maybe go with "with" rather than "as"
Depends on how you want to deal with plurality, I guess.


In line six, I was about to suggest "boding" for "bearing". Bad idea... I like the image of the god with a sack on his back. Especially in the image system going here. I can deal with a sack of peace.

I am wondering if something better can be done with this stretch:

"I move these words to reproduce support / that's gone"

I really dislike references to the poem at hand in poems. I don't even like the title "This Be The Verse". Also, the line is a lull generally.

Rick


Cultural note: Our friend Diana is coming for dinner tonight.

[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by Rick Mullin

Cultural note: Our friend Diana is coming for dinner tonight.

If that’s Diana the Huntress, would you tell her to go round and knock on Mary’s window?

[Cally Conan-Davies]

Memsy, I LOVE IT!

A beautifully made thing. Care in the making.

You've handled and re-imagined the myths so well, piecing bits together in a fresh way. The personal can be deeply felt in the mythic. Such grief in the beginning. Total loss, company and shield. I love the double-duty of company, both military and friendship. The sense of loss and exposure is real. The blackness and the bereftness and directness of the middle lines make me dry-cry. Here is real feeling. Almost anger, more like that fierce rejection that comes from deep hurt.

I absolutely love the line "I move these words to reproduce support" then the enjambment. This is where the shift is, the turn to now, to an action, writing, with the hope that it will bring life back to life again. I think it's stunning. The strange way hope and presence is mingled with despair.

There's a meta-irony at work somehow, because the thing the forsaken writer has produced is so alive. The gods thrive, even (or especially) when they seem gone.

Beautiful, Memsical. I can't stop reading it.

Dink

[Mary Meriam]

Carl, I'm so glad you liked it. So funny about Diana.

Rick, revisions aren't happening with me at the moment.

Dink, I can't help feeling that your sea sonnet makes "the sky and earth alive as goddesses." So thank you.

Hello, John Riley, are you there? Thanks for inspiring me. May I have your permission to quote you?

If so, does anyone like or dislike this poem with an epigraph?

Thanks,
Mary

[Rick Mullin]

I like the epigraph. It puts the ball in the air.
RM

[Julie Steiner]

Lovely, Mary, but a Pushkin sonnet's meter is iambic tetrameter, and half the rhymes are feminine. (The official Pushkin rhyme scheme is aBaBccDDeFFeGG, where the lowercase letters represent feminine rhymes and the uppercase representing masculine rhymes.)

This is iambic pentameter, and all the rhymes are masculine. A completely different dance vibe. Just sayin'.

[Carl Copeland]

Yeah, iambic tetrameter with alternating masculine and feminine rhymes (not specifically the Onegin stanza) has dominated Russian poetry ever since Pushkin. The alternation I think they took from classical French poetry, with all its e muet endings. It’s hard to pull off in English, but I managed it in the Zenkevich love poem I’ll post this week.

[John Riley]

Wow, Mary. I hadn’t noticed this before. I am beyond honored. It certainly isn’t anything I expected. To think I could have inspired this beautiful poem! I’m going to have to find a pillow large enough for my head. Thank you.

I can read this poem over and over. “Mad gods made of my broken limbs are not/companions.” The narrator separates from nature and nature’s gods and goddesses although there are many. None come forward and she is as alone as she would be with only one transcendental god. Blackbirds in flocks but no gods. How else can one feel after a losing battle? The final separation of a war.

This is a powerful poem and playing a part in its birth stuns me. Thank you, Mary.