[Christine P'legion]

AUTUMN CONFESSIONAL

I like it in the fall. I like it grim
and gloomy: sky pressed in, its corners drawn
to earth, tucked tight against the threat of dawn.
The trees are fading, bare; the blue jays' hymn
is sung to elder gods; the light grows dim
as days grow cold and geese take wing. They're gone.

I like it in the fall. I like the way
the air spills cold and liquid on the land
and on my skin, the wind a pressing hand
against my back. The garden's dead bouquet
stands stiff and brown, the glory of its spray
a nothing now, no more alive than sand.

I like it in the fall. My heart lives here,
in face of death, in spite of nature's sad
retreat before the frost. It's not all bad.
My eyes are drawn, each turning of the year
to what's beyond. No fear, says fall, no fear:
the sky is pure as slate. Drink deep. Be glad.

[Susan McLean]

I like it, Christine. It manages to be vivid and keep an edge of surprise. The rhyme and meter are well handled, and the content is bracing.

Susan

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Christine—

I like this poem a lot. I find myself wondering why the speaker claims to like the fall, which she admits is “grim / and gloomy,” and which she acknowledges is a time “in face of death,” and “sad.” Without offering proof or example, she claims it is “not all bad,” She seems to be whistling past the graveyard, trying to face death, her own or that of a loved one, bravely, looking “to what’s beyond.” I wondered if she had decided to end her life, to “drink deep” of whatever drug she had chosen for that purpose. Or perhaps she was resolved to extract whatever pleasure she could from the time left before her own or her loved one’s death. Very finely crafted.

Glenn

[Roger Slater]

I also think this is quite good.

My one pause was over "It's not all bad", since you hadn't been listing bad stuff all along, but were praising fall from the beginning. But I do get what you meant, so it's not a big problem.

I'm reminded of Frost's My November Guest, which almost sounds like it could be about the author of your poem.

[Joe Crocker]

I also struggle with "It's not all bad". How about something like "Good follows bad." ?

[David Elliot Eisenstat]

Three AABBAB-rhymed sextains, each opening with the refrain "I like it in the fall". Iambic pentameter, only spondaic substitutions (?). In tandem, the enjambment and midline pauses create variation, but I find myself wishing for more.

The first stanza is my favorite. I like the metaphor for the sky, "threat of dawn", the motion in two of the multiple descriptors: "fading, bare" and "geese take wing. They're gone." I am less keen on some of the redundancy:

- "grim / and gloomy" when Webster's lists "gloomy" among the definitions for "grim"
- "the light grows dim" later
- "the blue jays' hymn / is sung to elder gods"; while this sentence does need a verb, "sing" is implied by "hymn"

The second stanza has more redundancy:

- "spills cold and liquid", because "liquid" is implied by "spills"
- "dead bouquet / stands stiff and brown", because "dead" is implied by "stiff and brown"
- "the glory of its spray / a nothing now, no more alive than sand", which restates what came before it and feels as though it's just padding out the stanza

I find the third stanza too predictable, but then mostly straightforward pastoral is admittedly not my favorite.

As rhymes go, land / hand / sand and both sets in the third stanza seem rather basic.

[Carl Copeland]

This reminds me of Pushkin, Christine. He always felt his best in the fall, and the two most productive periods of his creative life came during fall in the countryside. Your poem has something of the conversational intimacy of Pushkin’s “Autumn.” (Maybe I’ll post my translation when the weather is conducive.) No doubt, I’m hearing Pushkin because he’s the poet I’ve spent the most time with, but it’s also my way of saying I love this poem. Especially wonderful is your touch of Ragnarok: “the blue jays' hymn is sung to elder gods.” I have nothing but praise.

[Christine P'legion]

Hi all, thanks for your thoughts on this one.

Glenn, Roger, Joe -- the three of you have essentially honed in on the same question, namely "why does the N like fall?" and "why does the N say it's 'not... bad' when she's been praising it the whole time?". To the latter, I think I was working mostly off the implication that the things she notes -- cold, darkness, the birds leaving, dead gardens, etc. -- would typically be viewed as negatives by others. She's asserting that she likes them, but the unlike the rest of you is unvoiced. It's helpful to know that this was maybe more of a hiccup than I had anticipated, although I think you did mostly follow me. (Glenn, you seem to read a lot of death into my poems; should I be worried more about you, or me? Haha.)

David, I don't think we've met yet, so hello and welcome to the board, first of all. One of the questions I've had in my mind with this poem is how well the two latter stanzas connect with the first one. I wrote the first one, or most of it -- I don't quite recall -- and it didn't feel complete, but it was several months before I went back to it and found the rest. So that's a helpful datapoint. Thanks for your thoughts on verbiage also.

Carl, I'd never read "Autumn" but I feel wholly in tandem with Pushkin's pov! It's a beautiful poem; I'd love to read your translation sometime.

[RCL]

Christine,

I like your 'been there, liked it, and repeat it" of a season that will forever be as fertile as Love and Death (three themes currently bored by me). Thanks for the refresher with a difference.

[Roger Slater]

Maybe just make it "And that's not bad." It works as a simple assertion, I think, but saying it's not "all bad" made me wonder which parts are being called bad and which are not. It's maybe too defensive. If the speaker is going to say she likes these things, there's no need to couch it. Best to go all in.