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First of all, this has naught to do with the poem...ok, it does a little bit, but because I am a nerd, I loved your explanation of the PNW accent in your A/N for this poem. Coming from just outside of Pittsburgh myself, we often have a noticeable dialect with certain words (our own version of “y’all,” is “yinz”). And also trying to hear someone from the city pronounce the words: "steel mills," together often ends with either: "steal meals," or "still mills," depending on where a person is from. But anyway, I enjoyed that extra explanation that you gave us on that front.
Anyway, I'm here to woo the Headless Horseman and check out some more of your original poetry. Honestly, after reading this, the song: "oh the times they are a'changin'," just randomly popped into my head hah. But honestly, it's one of those things that when slight progress happens, it begs the question of "is it enough?" You plateau and then you sort of have to try again. I think this piece showcases how things have historically changed within education and learning as a society. Not just within the classroom, but outside it as well, right? With the inclusion of things like child abuse and PTSD as being essentially not commonplace or requiring any type of outside interference or support...yeah, it points to us as a society needing to learn that those things simply are not right. And then learning, or rather supposing since it is not 100% confirmed, about what happened to Kenny Banks was another instance of that thematically occurring within this piece. Which I thought you incorporated all of that quite smoothly.
There’s also this idea that we all wish we could've done better when we're younger. But not all of us are bold or brave enough to do what is difficult. And in some instances like this one, children shouldn't have to be relied upon to be our morality check points. And yet, in so many ways they end up carrying that burden anyway. And I think you also do a great job of pointing that out as well with the speaker of this piece.
While the subject material of this was particularly difficult, I think you did a good job at highlighting corrupt things in our society, like the abuse of power that Mr LeBreton embodies, and how it corrupts individuals who were otherwise upstanding and good, like poor Kenny Banks--though we like to think he was not forever changed in a negative, but we won't know with 100% certainty either since the speaker never gets “full proof” of that.
Anyway, this is certainly longer than a flash review (I suck at them LOL), but I hope you still find it enjoyable and resonate a bit with what you were trying to achieve with this poem.
Job well done!
<3 Courtney
Author's Response:Hi, Courtney!
Thank you so much for this long and thoughtful review. (I suck at flash reviews also, can't not say everything I want to say, unless it's a timed review event like we had in the Winter in Fairyland review event a couple of years ago.)
Yes, the times have changed since those long ago days before we started marching in the streets, though we still have a very long way to go, and sometimes progress ebbs and flows. We all wish we could have done better when we were younger, but we tend to try to apply our adult understanding to our chilhood bodies and minds. Thus we say, "I wish I could go back and live some or all of my life over, but still knowing what I know now." Unfortunately, that's not a choice we have.
Within the past year one of my old classmates sent out a general inquiry asking if any of us knew what had happened to Kenny. I supplied my classmate with the material I had found in the Ohio Voter Registry, and he checked it out, but it turned out to be a different person of the same name, someone who had never lived on the west coast. So we still don't know how this story turned out.
I appreciated your comments very much. Thank you!
Vicki <3
Hi Vicki, here to woo the Headless Horseman and thought it would be a great opportunity to check out more poetry in your collection!
I really enjoyed the way you broke this poem down with your word choices. I mean, I know with a format like this, there is a particular format to follow, but I feel like your word choices at the end of each stanza really pack a powerful punch! And the image of "potatoes sleeping underground," was such a cute turn of phrase until the last line "far down," and then we felt the magnitude of the seasonal change.
Great job!
<3 Courtney
Author's Response:Hi, Courtney!
Thank you so much for choosing some of my poems to review for the Headless Horseman. There are some very specific features that appear in the garden in autumn, such as the sunlight which is of less duration and less intensity (because of the low angle of the sun), and certain plants going to seed, and the last berries losing their sugar, probably because of the lesser sunlight. And these changes are bound to happen -- they can't be prevented, at least not at my latitude. My creative writing instructor at the college faulted me when I personified growing plants in my stories, but the plants have personalities, don't they? I think of my potatoes as 'sleeping underground' like little hibernating mammals.
I am glad you enjoyed this poem! <3
Vicki
Hey Vicki, here to check out some of your original fiction for tag! And I don't think you ought to feel guilty for posting in the OF tag. You do have some items on your AP, which qualifies you. Your works just haven't found the right person at the right time yet. That is so often the case with original things. Anyway, here to read some poetry!
I love how tactile this haiku is. The imagery is so vivid and the sounds the words evoke give a certain soothing feel to them. There is also a melancholy to the change too, but you also explore the idea that change is inevitable and something we must accept. But in accepting these changes we see in nature as you describe them, we're also enjoying the other phases and forms that these things take. It feels different, but it still happens.
I don't know if you intended any of this, but that was my major takeaway in reading this piece. I will definitely be back to read more from this collection! :)
Great job!
<3 Courtney
Author's Response:Hi, Courtney.
First let me give you a big Thank You for helping me to get enough reviews to respond to, this week, to make the total of 10 responses for the Monster Speed Dating. It's been a challenging month -- 10 responses for the October Forum Challenge, and then 10 responses for Casper -- for a person who has no backlog of unresponded-to reviews. So I am very grateful to you. You're a pal. <3
I am glad that you liked my poem about the dry season. I do like to write about the seasons, as you have probably noticed. Each one has its own kind of beauty, and the season after spring has gone by and the hills are brown does have a soothing vibe, as if the frantic burst of growth is over, the grasses and wildflowers have set their seeds, and now everything is in a peaceful hiatus until the fall rains return to encourage a little flush of green grass on the hills before the snow covers it all up.
Right now we are going back into the colder part of the year. Our prolonged Indian Summer during this autumn has come to an abrupt end (like from one day to the next), and now the days are getting really short, the rains are here, storm after storm off the Pacific Ocean, and by the time Thanksgiving Day comes we can no longer complain if it snows, because that's the Cosmic Rule: after Thanksgiving, the snow is permitted to fall.
Thank for the pep-tallk about posting in the OF thread. :)
Vicki
Hey Vicki, I'm here for your review request!
First off, I love the double meaning of the words "Still life" have in the first and last stanzas, the horrifying image of children's bodies on the ground void of that and yet the hope of love, courage and life for the future. With the dawn of the new day comes a positive outlook amongst the pain of grief and I love that.
The desperate plea in the middle really got me. You can feel the anguish of needing their friends and classmates to be alive even if the odds are extremely low. It's such a traumatic night for so many.
"But heaven-bound they sprawl" might be my favourite line because WOW it says so much. I don't know if I can explain how I interpret it, but the peaceful and angelic image contrasted with the ugly and unjust manner of death, especially because of how young they all are just really hits me.
Beautiful poem!
Jerri x
Author's Response:Hi, Jerri!
Thank you so much for the very lovely review, and super thank you for choosing to review a poem. Many years ago, when my fanfiction home was Mugglenet Fanfiction, I wrote a not-very-succesful poem on this topic, to the assigned title of 'Still Life,' using a different poetic format, but I always wanted to come back to the topic and try to do it more justice, so I ended up more recently writing this pantoum. I am happy to know that you enjoyed this poem, although, as you say, it is a horrifying image. Children dying in a war. :(
Vicki <3
Hi Vicki, back for more galazy reviewing!
(and I found more poetry by you <3)
And it's about season again, which I love. I just read your 'seasons at the castle' poem and i just love the way you talk about nature.
I love how you talk about the sun burning the grass dry, such an apt description. And the "brown hills wait" is another great line. I love the personification of the land and the sun in this first stanza
And then spring is there immediately, which is how spring usually feels lol. And it fades quickly to the laze of summer. And it's just a calm, swaying feeling. I love the lanugage you use, it is all so purposeful <3
Another great poem here Vicki!
Thank you
Author's Response:Hi, Catherine.
Thank you so much for this lovely review, and I am glad that you are reviewing poetry also because poetry doesn't get as many reviews as prose. The dry season is special to me because it is a feature of the western terrain, where the early rains which bring the green grass and colorful flowers soon give way to the long dry season when the earth dries out and everything turns brown. It's a distinctive season. In many part of the US and other countries, there is frequent rain all year long, and nothing ever really dries up. The green of grassy hillsides is less appreciated because it's always there.
There is a starker beauty in a landscape that isn't so overwhelmingly lush and where the seasons are so distinct. Quick, admire it while you can because it will soon be gone again.
I'm lad you enjoyed this oem.
Vicki
Ok, well, of course whenever I saw a poem feat. Arthur Weasley, you knew I would be here in some form or another LOL. ;) So while this wasn't one of your recommended poems, I hope you will also accept this review as part of our swap. <3 (If not, I'll come back later and review the other poem you recommended, no problem, at all, LOL).
OK, so knowing the subject of what this was going to be about...of course, this is incredibly sad. I really have to say though, I think the ways you broke up the lines here was mind-blowingly brilliant! It really speaks to the fragmented thought process that plagues us when we are grieving something as immense as this. And the way the lines are broken (like my heart and probably Arthur's too) packs very powerful punches to this moment in his life.
And just the repetition of words and phases in general speaks to how your mind is sort of on a loop (or can be, grief is different for everyone, so I don't mean to assume with blanket statements), fixating on particular things that spark these sudden memories of someone so dear that you've lost, was so, so real. This was MASTERFULLY done.
And I FELT so much Arthur's hope and desire to see his son again in this way that struck me hard after I read and reread and reread again. The word choices are simple and not laden down with emotion, but I think the way you constructed this poem gives it the emotional weight and heaviness of this topic and I am seriously just sitting here in awe of your still on this one. It's such a tiny poem, but it is conveys such strong feelings...it's amazing...and I'm flustered trying to come up with things to continue to say about it LOL.
You get a BRAVA MY FRIEND, on this one because...I adore this more than I could ever convey in words.
(And now I need to read some happy Arthur Weasley fluff because my heart is sad--but consider that a compliment LOL)
<3 Courtney
Author's Response:No, no, you can review whatever you want, for the review swap. It doesn't have to be the ones I suggested, though you might want to read the other one also just for fun because it's rather light-hearted, compared to Ash Wednesday.
This poem was my first effort at writing a pantoum with its pattern of lines that appear and then recur a little farther along. It's a real challenge to find lines that can be used and then reused while still making sense, and without its sounding like a tangled jumble. So you end up with the fragmented thought process and the mind going in a loop, and luckily enough, that worked just fine for a newly-bereaved father who didn't know whether he was coming or going. (I take no credit for having planned it that way, I was just struggling with trying to pin down this fiendishly convoluted verse pattern.)
The sudden flash of thinking, for one fraction of a second, that you see the loved one (Fred) and then realizing, a fraction of a second later, that it's not Fred, can't be Fred -- that must be almost like losing him all over again.
I'm trying to think if I have any Arthur fluff on my AP. I think you have already read The Hogwarts Storm, where Arxthur has a heroic role, and Arthur appears significantly in Chapter 10 of The Baby In The Closet, which is not a fluffy story. I'm afraid that's all. Sorry. :)
Thank you so much for this lovely review. It's always a pleasure to see how a poem or story speaks in unique ways to different people!
Vicki
Hello! I decided to review more of your poetry!
This is so pretty. I love haiku as a poetry form, and you clearly know how to write it. The nature imagery is so important to a good haiku, and I love that you chose the dry season as your inspiration here. On its face, it seems like a harsher time of year, but you made it beautiful. In particular, I think the third haiku is really lovely. The alliteration in "fated to fade" and "sere summer's sway" is fantastic.
You have a talent for poetry. This made me dream of summer, especially as it's been cold where I am for what feels like forever.
Well done! I hope to read more soon!
Best,
Emily
*for the Fairyland review event*
Author's Response:Hi, Emily!
Thank you again for reading my poetry. The dry season is a major feature of the landscape in the West, including here in Oregon, and spring is more appreciated for being relatively brief, since we do not have year-round periodic rain showers and the humidity is low. I seem to put seasonal references into many of my poems; where I live, we are very close to nature. And yes, it is cold in Oregon for much of the year, but we get used to it.
Happy New Year! Vicki
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