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ineese
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Sgt.
revision:
To know you was to stir
a pond with a thin branch.
That military mind,
like multiple personalities at war.
Did you ever turn toward a beautiful day
notice the formation of geese,
remove those mud-caked boots
that reflected your face.
I remember a picnic blanket,
a lonesome walk along a pier
as the rain cut into your shadow.
How about a song to commemorate
the sheets that were your eyes.
I fold you into script,
count rows of street lights
that remind me of those you saved.
You'd enjoy today.
The silver fish are jumping,
and the sky is animated.
It's all you ever wanted,
all you never noticed.
draft:
To know you was to stir
a pond with a very thin branch.
That military mind,
like multiple people at war,
a constant linear attitude.
Did you ever turn from side to side
toward a beautiful day
notice the formation of geese,
remove those mechanical boots
you wore insistently until the mud
reflected your face,
wiggle your toes?
I remember a picnic blanket,
a lonesome walk along a pier
as the rain cut into your shadow.
How about a song to commemorate
those sheets that used to be your eyes.
I fold you into script,
count rows of street lights
that remind me of
those you saved.
You'd enjoy today.
The silver fish are jumping,
and the sky is animated blue.
It's all you ever wanted,
all you never noticed.
Last edited by ineese, 30/May/2012, 12:49 pm
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21/May/2012, 10:13 pm
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Re: Sargent
dear ineese
through your subtle delicate touch - we get the picture of the sargent - exemplified by your opening lines:
To know you was to stir
a pond with a very thin branch.
this speaks volumes! great lines!
i'm getting a picture of a soldier & a gentleman - absorbed in himself & his duty - with a kind of narcissitic tendency
apparantely he never wiggled his toes nor saw the formation of geese - nice touch - also the one about street lights reminding of people saved
you'd enjoy today - seems like a stand alone line to me & i love the closing.
an insular but expansive piece - that's what i really like.
i'm wondering if stanzas might enhance the poem - i see 'wiggle your toes' as the end of stanza 1 - or perhaps the opening lines...
your poem works fine without the stanzas but i'm curious to see what it looks like with them - also i'm taking liberties with your lines - hope you don't mind:
To know you was to stir
a pond with a very thin branch.
That military mind,
like multiple people at war,
a constant linear attitude.
Did you ever turn from side
to side toward a beautiful day
notice the formation of geese,
remove those mechanical boots
you wore insistently until
the mud reflected your face,
wiggle your toes?
I remember a picnic blanket,
a lonesome walk along a peer
as the rain cut into your shadow.
How about a song to commerate
those sheets that used to be
your eyes. I fold you into script,
count rows of street lights
that remind me of those
you saved.
You'd enjoy today.
The silver fish are jumping,
and the sky is animated blue.
It's all you ever wanted,
all you never noticed.
sorry for messing around! should 'commerate' be commemorate?
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22/May/2012, 2:12 am
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ineese
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Re: Sargent
Queenfisher,
You're more than welcome to mess away!
I like it when people dive in and offer
suggestions. That's what a workshop is for!
I got away from using stanzas but not sure why.
I know they work well and many people use
them. I think I did this because it made
the whole process more work for me. Trying
to decide which lines should stand alone,
things like that.
Not to say that isn't important. Maybe
I will think on that a little more.
Yes, I wanted this to describe the man
at least what I could put in these few
lines. Someone completely absorbed in
the military who lived it until he died.
And in doing so, missed an awful lot
of what he had been fighting for.
thank you again so much.
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22/May/2012, 7:17 am
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Re: Sargent
Damn but there is some good poetry, and prose, getting posted these days!
Opening two lines stop me, pin me down immediately. L15 stops me too. Why the subject's shadow, his after-self, gives a full characterization alone. Closing 4 lines make for a full and solid closure.
I'm unclear on the poem's POV towards its subject. But am okay with the slight confusion. What comes through is complexity of character. Complexioned even.
Oh I think you mean pier, not peer?
Tere
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23/May/2012, 2:20 pm
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ineese
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Re: Sargent
Tere,
thank you. I think you have a great
deal of talent on this site.
Oh, how embarrassing, now I should
have known how to spell pier!
I fixed it.
I appreciate the feedback. Yes, it's
rather an open ended up for interpretation
of the reader to really know how the narrator
felt about the Sargent. I think frustrated
at how hw wasted much of his life would
sum it up, somewhat.
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23/May/2012, 2:54 pm
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Re: Sargent
ineese -
this touched me deeply (i'm back onsite by the way *heh)
as a tender adoration this is amazing, as a very subtle and darker hinted description of a disturbed personality at war with itself it is equally moving. Maybe I am wrong to run these parallel possibilities simultaneously but we have a heatwave going on here in UK and i think it's in my brain *vbs
I enjoyed a dalliance with your lines which might remove too much of what you would prefer to keep but I did feel maybe there was an order of lines thing going on that affected the internal weather of this poem;
anyway, please ignore or take any of these linear suggestions/alternatives
To know you was to stir
a pond with a very thin branch.
I remember a picnic blanket,
a lonesome walk along that pier
as the rain cut into your shadow.
I fold you into script, count rows
of street lights that remind me
of your military mind full of war
Did you ever turn your muddy face
toward a beautiful day, notice
how geese flew in formation,
linear and beautiful, like you in
those insistent mechanical boots?
You'd enjoy today.
The silver fish are jumping,
and the sky is animated blue.
It's all you ever wanted,
all you never noticed.
in the UK we'd spell it sergeant but i've no idea how that goes in the US
beautiful writing ...
D
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24/May/2012, 4:58 pm
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ineese
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Re: Sargent
Daisy,
Thank you for the feedback!
My son lives not far from London
and I love that part of the world. Yes, it does
get hot over there.
am revising this. I will check on that
spelling. There may be two ways
for it, like with color/colour
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24/May/2012, 5:06 pm
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ineese
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Re: Sargeant
Daisy, I'm so glad you brought
that spelling to light. I checked
with a General in the army and
he enlightened me!
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24/May/2012, 5:10 pm
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Re: Sargeant
Hi Ineese,
This is a bittersweet, nuanced portrait of the sargeant, told in such a way that the reader gets to know something about the N's character as well. I think this is very well done, and I've been enjoying reading and rereading it. FWIW, I liked in these line breaks in original better than the revision because the lines seemed less jumbled and read easier to me:
remove those mechanical boots
you wore insistently until the mud
reflected your face,
wiggle your toes?
Also, I was wondering if you left out the word "that" here:
the sheets [that] were your eyes.
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25/May/2012, 9:30 pm
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ineese
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Re: Sargeant
Katlin,
Thank you. I am working on fixing
some of the glitches in this.
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26/May/2012, 9:36 am
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Re: Sargeant
Hi Ineese
this starts strong and ends very, very well - believably poignant. When a poem causes me to exclaim 'woh' i know it's good.
some thoughts-
while the form is fine, there's something about the rhythms of your sentences which might lend themselves here to longer line – a little more room to breathe and enhance the impact of pauses. eg-
To know you was to stir a pond with a thin branch.
That military mind, like multiple personalities at war.
Did you ever turn toward a beautiful day, notice
the formation of geese, remove those mechanical boots
you wore until the mud reflected your face?
I remember a picnic blanket, a lonesome walk
along a pier as the rain cut into your shadow.
How about a song to commemorate the sheets
that were your eyes. I fold you into script, count rows
of street lights that remind me of those you saved.
You'd enjoy today. The silver fish are jumping,
and the sky is animated. It's all you ever wanted,
all you never noticed.
There are a few bits you could sonsider cutting –
‘from side to side’
‘insistently’
‘wiggle your toes?’ (slightly wrong tone perhaps with this image)
Everything from ‘I remember’ onwards is really exceptional.
a pleasure
sam
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27/May/2012, 6:12 am
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ineese
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Re: Sargeant
Sam,
I like your suggested edits a lot!
Since I am primping this one for a chapbook entry
(hopeful me) I may just take them into tow.
Much appreciated.
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27/May/2012, 12:42 pm
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Re: Sargeant
Funnily enough, when i read this i was thinking 'I'd love to see these in a chapbook'! Who are you planning to send it to?
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27/May/2012, 9:01 pm
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ineese
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Re: Sargeant
Sam, that is very kind of you.
I'm entering the 2012 Palettes & Quills Chapbook Contest, having been honored to be
a finalist in 2010, I thought I would try again. The deadline is September and I'm almost finished with my poems.
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27/May/2012, 9:05 pm
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Re: Sargeant
Congratualtions on your previous honor, ineese, and best of luck in the upcoming conest!
If you would like, you can post a draft of your chapbook in Ateliers, which is designed for, among other things, posting longer works, including collections. Then you can ask for whatever type of critique you would like to receive, e.g., comments on individual poems, the ordering of poems, how the poems work together to form a collection, etc. If you aren't interested, that's okay, but if you are, I would love to see you utilize the forum in that way. When Tere and I designed the Ateliers, providing a space where members could stretch their wings a little bit was one of our dreams/reasons for creating the forum. 
Last edited by Katlin, 28/May/2012, 7:53 am
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28/May/2012, 7:52 am
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ineese
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Re: Sargeant
Katlin, Thank you very much!
IT's more work (the chapbook gathering)(
than I remember a few years ago but then I
have low vision so everything's a challenge
these days but I will definitely check that out.
I love the forums, too, btw.
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28/May/2012, 2:54 pm
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Re: Sargeant
Hi ineese,
I see that you took Sam's suggestion and dropped "wiggling your toes" in your latest revision. That was the part that threw me off in the original.
Regarding posting your chapbook in Ateliers: I have some limited experience helping my friend who wrote the O'Keeffe poems put together a book length MS, so if you do post your chapbook here, it would give me/us the opportunity to learn more about the process of assembling a chap/book.
Also, I've been thinking that Finishing Line Press might be a venue for you to consider. Have you heard of it? I know three people who have had chapbooks published by them, and from what I know of their work and yours, I think the press might be a good fit for you. I will post a link to their 2012 chapbook contest in the Writing News You Can Use forum in case you--or anyone else--is interested.
I am also going to PM you a link to my friend's O'Keeffe poems. I think you might enjoy them. My friend is also a big fan of both Jane Kenyon and Jane Hirshfield, btw.
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30/May/2012, 8:17 am
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ineese
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Re: Sargeant
Katlin , I just got your links,
thank you! It's odd, I recently
recorded a movie called "Georgia
O'Keeffe" because I love her paintings
but I didn't know she wrote poetry.
So I have printed them out. From what
I have looked at so far, they are gorgeous.
I have heard of Finishing Line and
submitted there about 5 years ago.
I will check that out also.
I did a chapbook (Past the River) in 2007 with DN Publishing
but since then, my vision has worsened
and I am really struggling with this right
now as far as spell checks and things like
that. It's becoming quite a task to overcome.
I will see how things go. (don't mean to advertise my other chapbook but it seemed
reverent) at that time the lady who helped me did it all via email and it worked out well.
also, I goofed and should have left the original poem along with the revision so I will watch that from now on.
Thank you so much again for the links. I really, really love this poetry you sent and I will see if I can get this chapbook assembled before summer gets away from me.
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30/May/2012, 9:36 am
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Re: Sargeant
"I recently
recorded a movie called "Georgia
O'Keeffe" because I love her paintings
but I didn't know she wrote poetry.
So I have printed them out."
Sorry for the confusion. Those weren't poems O'Keeffe wrote but poems my friend wrote about her paintings. I'm glad you like them though! Researching those links for you got me to thinking I needed to encourage me friend to see if she can get a chapbook of them published, so earlier this morning I gave her a nudge (what are friends for, right? ).
"I did a chapbook (Past the River) in 2007 with DN Publishing
but since then, my vision has worsened
and I am really struggling with this right
now as far as spell checks and things like
that. It's becoming quite a task to overcome.
I will see how things go. (don't mean to advertise my other chapbook but it seemed
reverent) at that time the lady who helped me did it all via email and it worked out well. "
I'm sorry to hear about your vision problems. Please don't feel pressured to post your potential chapbook here if it feels like it's too much. I'm glad you mentioned your published chapbook. I'm pleased to know your work has been recognized and is receiving a wider audience than merely posting on poetry boards can provide. Do you have a link? If you don't wish to post it here, perhaps you can PM it to me?
Yeah, check out Finishing Line Press if you are so inclined. The same friend I've been talking about had a chapbook published by them, and it turned out very nicely. Unfortunately, they no longer have a link to her chapbook on their website, or I would have sent you it to you.
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30/May/2012, 10:37 am
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ineese
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Re: Sargeant
K, I will pm you so I'm not hogging
the bumping thing!
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30/May/2012, 12:36 pm
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vkp
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Re: Sgt.
Ineese: Just getting to this poem after a crazy spell that took me away from the board (sadly!). I see it's gotten a lot of attention and that you've already made a revision (a good one IMO). I still wanted to chime in and say how much I loved this piece. As many have noted, the opening lines are just riveting.
I also especially loved these lines and all that they imply:
quote:
How about a song to commemorate
the sheets that were your eyes.
The opaque impenetrability of eyes that see what they want to see -- that's what I get. I think of my own father, not a military man but a man as caught up in his own ideologies as any sargeant might be. His eyes could be loving but also sheets pulled taut across the window to the soul. Not everyone wants that window open to view.... And those sheets are barricades in both directions, of course. We can't see in, and he can't see out. Thus misses the geese, the beautiful day, the moments in life.
Anyway, (sorry about the personal tangent) this poem works for me and I am so excited about your chapbook aspirations. Wishing you all kinds of good luck. I'd love to see the collection on Ateliers if you decide to post.
vkp
Last edited by vkp, 15/Jun/2012, 8:08 am
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15/Jun/2012, 7:52 am
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Re: Sgt.
Ineese--
This poem is amazing. Even though it's been said multiple times now, I have to say it again: the first two lines are brilliant. And the rest of the poem holds its own too. The last four lines hit me like a punch in the stomach and made me ache. Poems don't usually make me cry, but this one came close. Awesome job.
--Magy
Last edited by magyproductions, 15/Jun/2012, 8:22 am
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15/Jun/2012, 8:10 am
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ineese
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Re: Sgt.
vkp,
I haven't been as active either
due to the blahs and other things
but hoping to feel better soon.
I'm very glad that you shared your personal experiences
of your father and h ow this blended in with that. I'm very appreciative
of you allowing me
a peek into that. Thank I like what you say
about the sheets and that is exactly
how I wanted to portray that analogy.
Perfect.
Thanks for the encouragement
on the chapbook. Working on it
but probably with my eyesight problems
be lucky to get the thing in the mail
much less post it again online.
We''ll see. (pardon the pun)
thank you!
Mag: I'm very honored at your
reply and hardly know how to respond. So,
thank you so much! Really, I appreciate
that a lot. Helps me keep going.
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15/Jun/2012, 7:04 pm
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vkp
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Re: Sgt.
Did not know about your eyesight problems, Ineese. Knowing that makes it all the more meaningful that you read the work on the board so closely and give it so much of yourself. All the best. vkp
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16/Jun/2012, 8:19 am
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ineese
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Re: Sgt.
V, that's very kind of you. Thank you.
There are a few places (forums) I don't
feel I belong anymore but thankfully,
this is not one of them! The eyes have
their good days and bad.
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17/Jun/2012, 2:35 pm
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Re: Sgt.
Hello Ineese
I like the revision. My only nit is that lines 3-4 don't feel right - grammatically not a whole sentence. Perhaps a semi colon after line two would fix the problem.
I sent you a PM as well regarding chapbooks.
Cheers
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26/Jun/2012, 5:07 am
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ineese
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Re: Sgt.
Sam, yes that part bothers me too. I may revise severely. I sent a reply to your PM.
I think. I can't find my sents, but I'm sure I did.
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3/Jul/2012, 9:19 pm
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Re: Sgt.
ive always dug the idea of changes in the poetic process between drafts. I like how you posted the revision and the original together,---very similar, but to me (and maybe only to me) they rely on eachother to get a feeling for the whole work, which I see as a descant. The opening line's the same, which i think is crucial as it sets the rhythm for the rest of the piece, but oftentimes what we lose in revising a piece can be resurrected in the original, almost as an answer to those fleeting half-ideas that got us writing a given work in the first place. Cheers!
---satdoc
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5/Jul/2012, 1:11 pm
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ineese
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Re: Sgt.
satdoc,
thank you. I've been away from this one
for a few weeks. I do that sometimes and then look at it with what I hope are fresh eyes.
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9/Jul/2012, 3:55 pm
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Re: Sgt.
Hi ineese,
Thank you for the lovely experience of these poems. I enjoyed reading both version. One thing that struck me was that the shape of the first version is more rigid and in the second you've rounded and softened him in the same way that the poem does.
I like many of your changes although I question a few. I liked some of the extra rigidity expressed in the first. The new version explains less though and I feel honors him a bit more.
These are parts I question the editing out as I think they explain the ending more. I read him as someone who deeply appreciated nature but had been molded by a military experience. Maybe you questioned some of the particular wording. Makes me think of how the formation of geese can be like military airplanes in formation.
a constant linear attitude.
Did you ever turn from side to side
toward a beautiful day
notice the formation of geese,
remove those mechanical boots
you wore insistently until the mud
reflected your face,
What I especially love is how you end, with what really mattered to him.
You'd enjoy today.
The silver fish are jumping,
and the sky is animated.
It's all you ever wanted,
all you never noticed.
Last edited by CarolineX, 12/Jul/2012, 12:45 pm
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12/Jul/2012, 12:33 pm
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