[Hilary Biehl]

I like "appalling," but I also see what Matt and Carl are saying. Though I think the line "Someone had to be in trouble," and the images of possible accidents, sets it up somewhat. I'd personally enjoy more of that sense of menace, but it's probably not what the poem is going for?

[Joe Crocker]

Thanks Matt. We crossposted. Good to know that some of the references had wider resonance and that you enjoyed the Cherry Blossom. It didn’t often snow where I grew up, west of the Pennines. It was a huge excitement when it did. So this poem is my attempt at Citizen Kane’s “Rosebud” moment.

My instinct is to write in fairly formal structure, and I get a little nervous wondering where to put the linebreaks outside that framework. I will revisit S7 with its single word lines. (But I did enjoy enjambing the flower girl line after “throw up” which encourages a double meaning).

I’ll probably delete the “breathtaking” line. It is a word has become drained of most of its “gasp and stretch your eyes” sense. The whole poem I guess re-treads a well worn theme. And yet, and yet, remembering a child’s first amazement, is still affecting. It still makes me shiver. And I would like to pass that shiver on.

I was quite proud of “appalling”, which I felt added a crunchy discord at the end. It tends to be used to simply mean “bad”. But it also has the sense of shocking and disturbing and also a much older sense of “to make pale”. But I can see that that it may need more setting up.

The title may need more thought. I didn’t want it to mention snow. And that word doesn’t appear until near the end. If you had no words for snow, then skyfall might be how you’d describe it.


Carl. Thanks for that. So glad most of it came across.

, The “pillowed feathered milk” is probably overegging it.

The final verse does adopt a different tone. It borrows something from some of Cameron’s poems where “nothing” isn’t merely an absence so much as a looming presence. So “nothing” here becomes a synonym for a real thing --snow. And you get to play with those contrasting meanings.

When you smudge something you normally wipe a dark thing onto a lighter background. But here the white snow is being smudged over the dreary grey winter suburbs. And I liked the half rhyme with “touch” at the very end.

As I said to Matt, I would like to keep “appalling” end, even though it clashes with the more obvious childish wonder that precedes it. I may need to better set up the clash though.

Hilary again. So glad you liked “appalling”. I’ll see if I can figure out a better way of bringing it in. And more menace may help.

Joe

[Glenn Wright]

“Confetti” in American usage always refers to colorful bits of paper thrown at celebrations, but can also have the older, original meaning of small candies. “Thrown up” can also have two meanings. Either reading is possible here, but I took it to mean the paper literally thrown up into the air by an over-enthusiastic celebrant and floating down like snowflakes—not involving any gastric distress.

“Appalling” usually means “shocking,” but its original meaning, as Joe pointed out, coming from the same Latin root as “pale” and “pallor” is “to make pale/white.” William Blake plays on this double meaning in his poem, “London.”

Although “pillowed, feathered milk” taxes the reader’s imagination a bit, I liked it because it captures the effort of the N as a child to understand and try to communicate the new experience of snow in terms more familiar to him.

[Joe Crocker]

Have made a few tweaks. Not shorter -- yet. Used Matt's association of Skyfall with Chicken Licken or Henny Penny which I think is more common in UK? I certainly remember the tale from primary school around the time the poem is set. And it adds some more menace as suggested by Hilary. (Though I like your point Glenn about overloaded metaphors reflecting a child attempting to get his head round a new experience).

[Matt Q]

On behalf of the entire UK, I just wanted to say I've never heard of Henny Penny.

-Matt

[Matt Q]

I just found a small and entirely unscientific survey that suggests that most UK residents (70%+) go with "Chicken Licken", a minority (~15%) with "Henry Penny", whereas US residents overwhelming (95%+) go with "Chicken Little".

So, it looks like "Henny Penny" is the choice most likely to confuse your readers wherever they're from.

Meanwhile, a shout out to Hen-Len

-Matt

[Jim Moonan]

.
Hi Joe, If your intent is to create a sense of wintry memories of childhood, this is spot-on. You have succeeded in capturing something rare. If our childhood escapes us, then we are left with nothing but the outer shell of who we are. If there is no sense of wonder attached to everything we say, hear, see, taste, smell, do then we have lost our essence.

I think your instincts are telling you the right way to go with this: it is a missive in the vein of Dylan Thomas’s A Child’s Christmas In Wales , which is a prose poem in every sense. I did try to relineate your poem to be a prose poem but it doesn't work. Although I do think you could work on the formatting to be a bit better at telling your story.

I think you could come up with a better title by tweaking it a bit. It took me a while to connect Henny Penny with Chicken Little, but I think that is charming. Let the reader figure it out. It was fun to finally make the connection. It made me feel like a child again in discovering it. That you then go on to conjure it as being communion hosts spilling from an altar boy's hands or confetti being tossed from a flower girl's basket is mesmerizing.

Although the final line is striking ("appalling touch") I wonder if it's accurate. I wonder if "astonishing" is more the feeling you mean to convey. Maybe not. Just wondering : )

Some of your imagery and phrasing is electric.

A CHILD’S CHRISTMAS IN WALES OPENING:
One Christmas was so much like the other, in those years around the sea-town corner now, out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve, or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.


.

[Joe Crocker]

Hi Matt

Henny Penny or Chicken Licken? Both are familiar names to me and I can’t remember now which version I heard first. Both names could work in the poem but Henny (not Henry!) Penny just sounds slightly better I think, especially with “prophecy”. But it’s not a deal breaker, so I may change my mind. The poem already has other proper names that may not ring bells.

Jim Really pleased it worked for you. I was worried that Dylan Thomas might be turning in his grave, and deliberately didn’t re-read “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” because…well because I couldn’t hope to aim that high. I did think of writing it as a prose piece but that would have invited even more comparison. And I’m still a little uncomfortable outside a safe formal structure. The poem has some obvious rhythms, alliteration, rhyme and slant rhymes but doesn’t follow any very regular form. I have a lot to learn about lineation.

Title. Did you suggest another title? I thought you did but can’t find it now. But either way, I should think a bit a harder about it. I often find it the trickiest part of a poem.

And “appalling”. You’re not alone in feeling unsure about it. I am too. I like the way it leaves the reader teetering on the cliff. In my revision I did try to signpost more scariness. I may need to revisit that. In an earlier version I had “amazing” and if “appalling” is just too paradoxical, precipitate, I may go back to something like that.

Thanks again

Joe

[David Callin]

Joe, I really like this. Your specific references are spot on - for me, at least. But I'm having trouble with "appalling" too. That's not the way I thought we were going here at all.

Cheers

David

[David Callin]

Actually, would stopping at "beautifully blank" not have the same disorienting effect, without being so blatant about it? Maybe not.

David