[Carl Copeland]

Great new second line, Mark, and you get a gold star for “crook,” a charming and overlooked word.

[Yves S L]

Hello Mark,

So that first quatrain, the cadence of it, the weight on "mystery", come across as if the N had never seen an avocado before, and then wants to make a moment out of it; and the way the sentiment gets echoed with "like the stone of a puzzling fruit" with the emphasis on "puzzling" comes across to me as forced "wonder can be found in common every day things" trope.

[Mark McDonnell]

Thanks for coming back, David. I can't quite see it myself but I accept I might be hearing it in a way I want to hear it. I know "pale" is a strong word to ask to be unstressed but I think in context it works to slow the reader down there. I'd be interested if others have the same issue.

Thanks Carl

Hi Yves,

You're right, the sense is that the speaker has never seen an avacado stone before. This actually happened to me. Someone handed me one and asked me to work out what it was and I couldn't. I don't think I ate an avacado until I was close to 30. The return of the stone at the end isn't supposed to invoke "wonder can be found in common every day things" but suggest a metaphor for how a memory of one day can remain central, solid and strange amongst the mush of years of surrounding memories. Probably over explaining now...

Cheers folks.

I've decided to change "galaxies" to "shipwrecks". It is more in keeping with the imagery. I think I was just enamoured by the alliteration with "ghosts".

[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by Mark McDonnell

I've decided to change "galaxies" to "shipwrecks". It is more in keeping with the imagery. I think I was just enamoured by the alliteration with "ghosts".

PRO: “Galaxies” must have made that line pent. Why didn’t I notice?

CONTRA: A shipwreck usually lies on the bottom and doesn’t go anywhere, so the “falling” is hard to picture. (I’m saying this as if a ship or galaxy falling down the sofa wasn’t odd to begin with!)

[W T Clark]

What a wonder of a final image! But the fourth lines seems a little too hyperbolic, a little vague — to me. The "mystery" of Michigan or of the stone? It needs, I think, to be made subtler: paired down, it's too loud a line, without quite setting up a precedent for its loudness: it could be handled better. Would you consider "sink" instead of "fall"? I return, eagerly, to that last image.
Hope this helps.

[Mary Meriam]

I like it very much and have a few observations - no nits. There's an "M" progression from Michigan to Mystery to Memory. I believe you don't use "I" very often in poems, but prefer to make statements about how things work, or what they are, such as in the first two lines of S2 and the last two lines of S4. As always, your poems have much music: stone/struck/stranger, mind/binds, home/hem/comb, dive down/dregs, wrack/wrecks/cracks/rocks. I like how "moulded by time" reminds me of fungal mould. You use "down" twice: dive down and fall down, which seems to suggest actions of memory, which "sets," "binds," or "expands." If I were to use the word "didactic" about some lines in the poem, I would take it back since the suggestion of such is quickly followed by vivid images: hem of a dress, comb of the sea, bladderwrack. I think teaching is in your blood, and your poems search for answers like any student would, rather than preaching from a pulpit. As for the connection between an avocado stone and memory, I recently described certain of my memories as a tiny bitter rock deep inside me that needed to be dissolved.

[Joe Crocker]

Hi Mark,

As usual I’ll say what bells this rings for me.

Your first line leads me to “Michigan seems like a dream to me now”. (Simon & Garfunkel) which has the same metre.

I remember when avocados were something weird and wonderful in the UK. Kids around the country would suspend the stones over jamjars of water to see what they might grow into.These days my kids think that avocados are what toast is for.

Ah bladderwrack. Slippery slimy and popping under your toes as you ran along the beach. Fucus vesiculosus. We studied it for biology “O” level.

Tobacco stained fingers ferreting down the back of the sofa is also a familiar thing. It was usually where I ended up trying to find my cheap clipper cigarette lighters. And I would often dredge up long lost treasure there – from postcards to pencil-sharpeners, So “shipwreck” works for me. (And “crook” is just the right word too.) I didn’t quite get how the pale dregs of evening fit in there, but that may be because I thought the tobacco-stained fingers and the sofa was a single memory and I expected the final line to follow on from them, whereas I can see now that they are each isolated images.

I did enjoy the seeming self contradiction of the unreal being true. And the return to the avocado stone was very satisfying.

Cheers

Joe

[David Callin]

Michigan's mitten-like appearance is news to me, but I like what you do with it.

Mary mentioned "didactic", and that's what I feel about the first two lines of S2 (which seem a bit vague and fuzzy to me anyway), but (as she also says, I think) the imagery redeems that.

I think I prefer "galaxies" to "shipwrecks".

The whole thing is a gorgeous experience, though.

Cheers

David

[Mark McDonnell]

Hi Carl,

"What ghosts, what galaxies, fall down the cracks" was still tetrameter, I'm sure. David prefers galaxies and maybe you do too? I do think a shipwreck can fall down a crack, though. It could be balanced on rocks at the bottom of the sea, then slip down further into some even more mysterious crevice. I'll think about that line.

Hi Cameron,

I'm glad the ending works well for you. In a way, the ending explains the beginning: it's the fruit stone that is the mystery, the "puzzling" thing.
What would you think of something like this?

Michigan looks like a mitten, she said,
and home is the crook of the thumb.
She gave me a dry avocado stone.
I held it. It struck me dumb.

But then, I do like the way "Michigan/Mystery/Memory" fall down the side of the poem, as Mary points out. Again, I'm still thinking. And I'll think about "sink" as well, which could work. Cheers.

Thanks Mary,

I do like the feeling of making a statement, I think perhaps people shy away from them too much. I hope they don't have the negative connotations of "didactic" though, which is defined as

"intended to teach, particularly in having moral instruction as an ulterior motive.
in the manner of a teacher, particularly so as to appear patronizing"

If the statements were along the lines of "racism is bad" then they would be didactic but hopefully the examples you point out in the poem are more mysterious than that: subjective ideas presented as objective fact, in a way for the poet to understand them him/herself. I'm glad you like this. I really love reading what you see in the poems.

Hi Joe,

You're right about the Michigan line, though it honestly hadn't occurred to me. Now I can't help singing the opening of the poem! What a beautiful song that is. I'm glad lots of things resonated with you. And I'm glad you undertood the exotic qualities of the avacado. Also, there's something very strange about the stone when it's dry. It has a quality of polished wood. Thanks!

Hi David,

Thank you. I'm thinking about galaxies vs shipwrecks, and other things. I quite like the idea of saying something "fuzzy" in a very declarative way. There's lots of linked imagery in that stanza: weave/bind/hem/comb/, even the bladderwrack are like giant threads or hair. I'll take "gorgeous". Cheers.

Thanks for returning folks. This one is still percolating for me.

[John Riley]

I’m late to this and have little to add except I like it. I’d never seen Michigan as a mitten. To do so is an example of how a naive, even youthful imagination, can make discoveries. This sense of youthful discovery is reinforced with the full end rhymes. I usually prefer more subtle rhyme but this works well here. It all adds up. I don’t see need for any changes.