SUBJECT>Re: As Fire, my Father POSTER>MikeM EMAIL> DATE>1113072808 EMAILNOTICES>no IP_ADDRESS>cpe-68-206-169-51.jam.res.rr.com PREVIOUS>85966 NEXT> IMAGE> LINKNAME> LINKURL>

I got two who want me to put out the fires! Well, we shall see about that; perhaps, perhaps not. But I thnak you for your wonderful insights. And the Irish smartass in me begs to know; who do you love?? Morrison, Morrison, where have you gone Jimbo?

Peace,

Mike.

------------------------------------------------
: Mike,

: This has an awful lot going for it, in my
: opinion, but also some weaknesses that
: nearly bring it down--which is a pity,
: because in spots it flies very high indeed.

: For starters, I would delete every instance of
: "as fire" except the title. I
: absolutely love some of the lines without
: "as fire" in them--"My father
: melts December snow," "My father
: walks / under a sky filled with molten
: geese," etc. By the third reading, I
: have to confess I was simply leaving
: "as fire" out of the lines on my
: own.

: To my ear, the weakest part of the poem is the
: middle, especially the strings of nouns
: linked by "&". I'm really not sure
: what those things are trying to tell me,
: other than an added layer of detail--but the
: further the detail gets away from the
: "father," the less it interests
: me, even though it is ostensibly describing
: the father. I want everything to be seen
: through the lens of the father moving,
: naturally or magically, through his world.
: Then, the poem soars.

: I would try to combine the two couplets into
: one four-line stanza. Not sure why, but I
: think there's a relationship--"Some
: days the old river runs through his eyes /
: like facets on a diamond" seems to work
: for me. You might want to explore different
: combinations of the phrases that make up
: those four lines, see where they take you.

: I think the end might be somwhat unclear
: because the final "burning" could
: be a few different things--anger? sadness?
: memory? condemnation? Some of these are much
: more potent to me (and, I think, to the
: overall poem) than others. I'm wondering if
: maybe the final image does not need a little
: more elaboration. I also wonder if you wnat
: to bring "the son" into the poem
: as an active presence at all -- the
: repetitions of "father" and imply
: the son, don't they? To me, the poem might
: be more effective if the two never actually
: came together.

: At its best, this reminds me a bit of ee
: cummings' "my father moved through
: dooms of love"--which I think is high
: praise. I think you approach something even
: better than cummings' poem, in that you
: anchor your magic not in language but in the
: physical world. Those molten geese are, I
: think, the key to the poem. If this were
: mine, I would keep watching them.

: I enjoyed this greatly. Thanks for the chance
: to comment.