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Thread: Scavella's god knows she must be crazy

  1. #61
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    Hey Scavella - enjoying catching up on some of these.

    Re. 'The Daughter-in-Law Takes Lily for a Drive', until we got to "How you keep so straight?" I thought you might be doing a no-pronouns exercise, but it's more to do with voice, I take it? It's got a lovely cinematic feel and seems like it could be about the development of many third or second world city or island communities over the last generation.

  2. #62
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    Scavella, I'm half-sad that Lily is coming to an end as a series; waiting for the next episode has become a part of my poetic life. I hope that wig is really big and Lily gets the respect she deserves.

    Your Easter poem made me homesick, for a home I've never lived in.

    Thanks for the reads.

    - s
    Writing is easy. You only need to stare at a piece of blank paper until your forehead bleeds. - Douglas Adams

  3. #63
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    I could try to comment on everything--the Good Friday sevenling has an interesting ending, to be read more ways than one--

    But the Lily prose poem swallowed me whole.

    An excellent use of the prose poem form. Somehow, despite the "prose", it is still eminently poetic, and knowing that the Lily poems are coming to an end, and remembering that one of my earliest crits on the site was of Lily and the hurricane, I am forced to pause.

    Good luck with breaking new ground.

    There are many islands of poetry where you may find a home.

    BrianIs AtYou
    I think I think, therefore I might be.

  4. #64
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    The Magic Mirror Tempts Lily’s White Daughter (1951)

    Kirsty, Hannah, Jon, Salli, Brian, thanks for the kind words. Brian, yes it could.

    And now for something a little different.


    The Magic Mirror Tempts Lily’s White Daughter (1951)


    You could pass............say the mirror............ fine comb slide............ through your hair slide
    through your glory............ you could pass............and if sun don’t see your skin............you
    could marry some white man............ have little white babies............if the sun don’t see
    your skin............ You the fairest of them all

    Fair is foul............Ruth tell the mirror............white right ain’t all it seem............I don’t want
    no longhair glory............I don’t want no whitebread husband............I want Momma
    rainbow babies............and if the sun don’t see my skin............then my eye don’t see the sun
    foul is fair............she tell the mirror............take back your fog and filthy air

    But they will take you............say the mirror............they will let you in they front door............you don’t need
    no paper bag test............you got whiteness on your side............and they will take you
    in they parlour............they will take you in they bedroom............they will seat you at they table
    they will walk you down they aisle............ and you could pass say the mirror............ fine comb
    slide right through your hair............why you don’t pass

    Ruth say I is............ a woman who don’t care............ about no hair............no white skin save the Saviour
    and no white skin save Ma Lily............death come knocking anyhow and............no fine comb save
    my darling brother and when he bleed............ his blood run red just like............ a black man bleeding
    and he dead............ just like a white man............ dead and so my skin and hair don’t............mean nothing
    and comb............don’t resurrect the dead and skin............ return to blind earth............just like blood roll
    to the ground............if the dirt don’t see no difference why should I

    And then Ruth break the magic mirror
    I am not as good as I think I am -- Scavella's mantra, Nov 2006


  5. #65
    M is offline Fun and felicitous PFFA patron
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    Wow. This is among one of my favorite poems so far this month. Just wow.

    and no white skin save Ma Lily............death come knocking anyhow and............no fine comb save
    my darling brother and when he bleed............ his blood run red just like............ a black man bleeding
    and he dead............ just like a white man............ dead and so my skin and hair don’t............mean nothing
    and comb............don’t resurrect the dead and skin............ return to blind earth............just like blood roll
    to the ground............if the dirt don’t see no difference why should I


    That was awesome.

  6. #66
    Empty Chairs is offline Fun and felicitous PFFA patron
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    More Lily! I love the Lily poems. They're so vivid.

  7. #67
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    I've enjoyed all of these, but I think the Magic Mirror the most, so far. Although the Sevenling was powerful and the story of the Collin's Wall and the message of poverty continuing to enslave and loved the image of Lily and she and her daughter-in-law on different wavelengths, different concerns. It was very touching.

  8. #68
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    Scavella,

    I always enjoy your "Lily" poems. Love that you are experimenting with form in many different ways in the series.

    "Good Friday Sevenling" also stood out for me--simple, strong, with layers of meaning and thought provoking.

  9. #69
    Zeedee is offline dipped in the river Stynx
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    Hi Scavella,

    and if the sun don’t see my skin............then my eye don’t see the sun
    -- fair and true. I actually welled up! So good.

    Zee.

  10. #70
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    Do not stop. This is tres kewl material.
    -a

  11. #71
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    The Diplomat Helps Fulfil Lily’s Prophecy (1981)

    Michelle, Laura, Laurie, Emily, Zee, Andrea, thanks for popping in.
    ============================================

    The Diplomat Helps Fulfil Lily’s Prophecy (1981)


    The cough, Mark told them, was a cold. Bronchitis. An infection caught
    somewhere in Asia, from a geisha in Japan, on a transpacific flight
    with one too many smokers. Pneumonia. Something you could cure.
    And they believed him. After all, he had been spared the curse.
    His kidneys both worked fine enough to give a healthy one to Paul.
    And he’d survived the war, addiction, the burial of his wife,
    white women’s adoration, two children’s slide through schools,
    mergers, takeovers, cigarettes, rebuilding the news from the inside out,
    a string of government contracts, industrial unrest, failure at the law,
    and this latest appointment: honorary consul to Japan. The cough:
    a bad bad flu.
    .........................Not, by any means, a carcinogenic lungspot,
    legacy of too many gaspers in the Tunisian hills. Not creeping lung failure;
    not cancer. The coughing up blood was an aberration, his hoarseness
    the result of damp breezes at the racetrack. Nothing that couldn’t
    be cured by a stiff course of penicillin, a few weeks in bed.

    And Lily stood by him to face down the hospital room,
    the airlift to Miami, an oxygen tank, the shaking of heads,
    a squeezing out of air, apologetic rasping, a coffin, and a grave.
    I am not as good as I think I am -- Scavella's mantra, Nov 2006


  12. #72
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    Running on empty, as I feared might happen, and before double digits too; good thing I can still dream. Quick nod to Kirsty, who is dreaming too. And thanks for the prose poem fans.

    =======================
    A Dream of Love and Destruction

    Part I: The House

    A sanctuary, concrete in a hollow, storm windows, granite walls. The family: called from all ends of the earth, or to be real the country. Three sons and some daughters. A daughter in law wanting to get away. A wife all duty no love. The father, the first son a farmer and dreamer. The second dull and silent, a shadow. The third but a boy. The first son’s wife draped in hate. She bathed five times a day to dissolve it. The last child an adopted wild and wandering child.

    The hollow was sheltered, was sacred. Sentinel trees ringed it like soldiers, like saviours. They lived in the hollow in harmony.

    Part II: The Petition

    This place is too small and airless, he said to his father. Let me go find another.
    We stay here, said the father. We’re safe here.
    There is nothing for me here, he said to his father. There is no horizon. The trees lean in over us like guards in a prison. The fields are plantations. This house is a cage.
    We stay here, said his brothers.
    We’re safe here, said his mother.
    Where you going? said his adopted sister.
    But his brother’s wife just sat in her bath said nothing.

    Part III: The Plunder

    They came in dribbles, creeping round the trees and assembling in the fields. They saw them the first day from the breakfast deck, shadows in the distance. Tourists or mercenaries, peering through the glass. The mother was startled by a face at her bedroom window. The youngest son stockpiled toy weapons away from skylights and panes of glass and giggled at the game. The adopted child went missing. The brother’s wife ran baths and could not find her husband.

    When they struck it was a game, a siege, and the youngest laughed with glee. But the women refused to take off their clothing and the father thought about the cattle grazing in the fields. When he saw his son through the front door window he laughed and invited him in.

    The invaders burned through the sanctuary like fire, like terror. They left nothing standing but the son who led them in. He stood in the ruined home, bewildered at the betrayal, watching the sentinel trees burning, and listened to the hard laugh of his wife from the door, to the chatter of their adopted sister as she escaped with the invaders across the fields.
    I am not as good as I think I am -- Scavella's mantra, Nov 2006


  13. #73
    JustMiko is offline Fun and felicitous PFFA patron
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    Billy goats? YAY!

    The Collins Wall was amazing. I like the use of the word tabby.

    IV: the conversationalism. I am hopeful reading this. Buy my snapper?

    Lily. Funny how a writer doesn't really know how much the poems are read. Even if not commented on - I know Lily.

  14. #74
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scavella View Post
    Inspired by the prose poems spreading like viruses all over this site.

    Lily think bout sunshine, three light, children, bout her last and only daughter.

    The poinciana bob and bloom.

    Lily question, question, question, and she don't hear no answer.
    Aside from the beauty and rhythm of the language throughout, lines like these are what fold the poetry back into the prose for me. The repetitions give a structure that fixes the whole, for me. And poinciana - a gift for you.

    The Magic Mirror is truly magic. Lily raised her daughter right. So sad to see her lose yet another, The Diplomat. And that was an amazing dream; I am loving this, can't wait for the next story.

    I am so happy that Lily will have her book.
    Last edited by new leaf; 04-09-2010 at 08:21 PM.

  15. #75
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    Scavella,
    dearie, your command of the vernacular is impressive, as is your storytelling:

    "She sit, get move,
    she reach, get stop, she ask for limeade
    for favoured fish head—"

    I think your Carib world is full of literary inspiration.

    Collins Saga: what, are you writing a novel? You are, aren't you? This is NaPO not NaNO. heh. It's good fun reading anyway.

    Magic Mirror combines both techniques and adds experimentalist imagination - quite an accomplishment under this pressure. Way to go.

    Dream of Love - way to hang in there, but wouldn't poeming it down actually be easier? Just askin..

    cheers,

    Geoff

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