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sambyfield Profile
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New Year Dispatches


An oldie from my archives, not previously workshopped anywhere. Worth submitting?


New Year Dispatches

Four days since Chinese New Year,
firecracker detritus still blows across
the pavement. The sun is late to emerge
from the smog but when it does
its warmth suffuses everything.
People are back at work though the streets
retain a carnival vibe, kids walking arm-in-arm,
old men on roadsides slapping chess pieces
like they’re swatting flies. This morning,
I pulled out a fifty to give the old man
who drives the peddle/petrol powered taxi
I sometimes take and he couldn’t break it,
instead saying pay me next time,
I know you’re honest.


*

My windows run with condensation
and I drink too much green tea.
Sleep arrives slow as a village bus
so I replay old conversations in
my head, a recent Beijing morning
when I woke looking into the eyes
of a woman who might be my next love.
Fireworks punctuate my thoughts, then car alarms.

*

Australia again, soon. Until then
I spend my days in cafes, long since
having given up on work. My colleagues
don’t notice I’ve left. So I’m now drinking
a point at the menu and see what arrives
green tea, which looks like clover and tastes
like clover and no matter how much
I tell myself it’ll grow on me, it doesn’t.
Everyone here owns a dog, the new status
symbol. In the distance I almost hear surf.
Sand shifts beneath my feet.
Mar/19/2012, 6:46 pm Link to this post Send Email to sambyfield   Send PM to sambyfield
 
queenfisher Profile
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Re: New Year Dispatches


a delightful read! excellent! i'm still savoring it! the taste of green tea lingers...

i'm really excited about this...! sorry i'm not much of a critic - but i love all the lines - every word - it's a very controlled calm piece of writing - picture perfect!

love the street scene:

The sun is late to emerge
from the smog but when it does
its warmth suffuses everything.
People are back at work though the streets
retain a carnival vibe, kids walking arm-in-arm,
old men on roadsides slapping chess pieces
like they’re swatting flies.

that last bit is great!

& the old man saying: pay me next time,
I know you’re honest.

nice touch - can only happen in the east!

next two stanzas plays out really well - the outsider looking in:

So I’m now drinking
a point at the menu and see what arrives
green tea, which looks like clover and tastes
like clover and no matter how much
I tell myself it’ll grow on me, it doesn’t.

love the closing:

In the distance I almost hear surf.
Sand shifts beneath my feet.





Last edited by queenfisher, Mar/20/2012, 4:56 am
Mar/20/2012, 4:54 am Link to this post Send Email to queenfisher   Send PM to queenfisher Blog
 
Zakzzz5 Profile
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Re: New Year Dispatches


sambyfield,

Definitely send it out. Well, if I were the editor I would certainly consider it. It isn't as smooth around the edges as some of the best that's published, but it has a vividness (word?) and veracity that is quite good. Zak

sambyfield wrote:

An oldie from my archives, not previously workshopped anywhere. Worth submitting?


New Year Dispatches

Four days since Chinese New Year,
firecracker detritus still blows across
the pavement. The sun is late to emerge
from the smog but when it does
its warmth suffuses everything.
People are back at work though the streets
retain a carnival vibe, kids walking arm-in-arm,
old men on roadsides slapping chess pieces
like they’re swatting flies. This morning,
I pulled out a fifty to give the old man
who drives the peddle/petrol powered taxi
I sometimes take and he couldn’t break it,
instead saying pay me next time,
I know you’re honest.
[I'm assuming this takes place in China. There's a Fellini-like feel to this. He was able to be artistic while depicting the most mundane of scenes. The detritus blowing across four days after the New Year; this reminds me much of Hemingway after the festival in Pamplona, the running of the bulls and all that. This is very good; not everybody can pull this off.] *

My windows run with condensation
and I drink too much green tea.
Sleep arrives slow as a village bus
so I replay old conversations in
my head, a recent Beijing morning
when I woke looking into the eyes
of a woman who might be my next love.
Fireworks punctuate my thoughts, then car alarms. [I don't know if it is your age, or your romantic nature, but many of your poems have the love angle to them, the longing, the imagery. It's startling, the waking up to those eyes. Again, good, excellent work.]

*

Australia again, soon. Until then
I spend my days in cafes, long since
having given up on work. My colleagues
don’t notice I’ve left. So I’m now drinking
a point at the menu and see what arrives
green tea, which looks like clover and tastes
like clover and no matter how much
I tell myself it’ll grow on me, it doesn’t.
Everyone here owns a dog, the new status
symbol. In the distance I almost hear surf.
Sand shifts beneath my feet. [Now here, having left his work and all, I'm reminded of Kerouac's novel. The traveler. Then a streak of reality with the dislike of the green tea, and the recognition of how tastes (everyone with a dog) are changing, just as the sand is shifting.]



Mar/21/2012, 3:28 pm Link to this post Send Email to Zakzzz5   Send PM to Zakzzz5
 
Katlin Profile
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Re: New Year Dispatches


Hi Sam,

I like this poem. I like the tone of it, the concrete observations, bits of self-reflection, hints of humor. I understand what Zak is saying about the poem not being as smoothly polished as some poems one reads, but I think some roughness around the edges, a little incompleteness works in this piece. If it was too polished in that way, I wouldn't believe it. The poem is in part about moving on, letting to, transitions, so some uncertainty suits it.
Mar/21/2012, 7:35 pm Link to this post Send Email to Katlin   Send PM to Katlin
 
satanicdoctor Profile
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exquisite.


You asked me if I read any contemporary poetry. I see that you do, because this reads like a john ashbery poem. You definitely know his work, if you didn't I'd be very surprised and kinda amazed that someone who literally mirrors his style could have passed this erudite and wonderful poet by. It's an accomplishment, to write the way you do, my friend. I want to examine more of your work because clearly you have a strong hold on your craft. I've been writing seriously since I was fifteen and I live and breathe poetry; it's been my life, for better or worse. And although I follow more in line with a dithyrambic, confessional and, at times, self-involved and abstruse way of writing (akin to the late A.R. Ammons, though not nearly as accomplished, by any means) Ashbery is one of those poets I adore to the point of madness. I urge you to check him out if you haven't, though I almost feel like I'm wasting my time because the anxiety of influence regarding this damn poem is completely off the chain, when you compare your work and his. Here's one of my faves by him:


WET CASEMENTS.

“When Eduard Raban, coming along the passage, walked into the open doorway, he saw that it was raining. It was not raining much,”

Kafka, “Wedding Preparations in the Country”

The conception is interesting: to see, as though reflected
In streaming windowpanes, the look of others through
Their own eyes. A digest of the correct impressions of
Their self-analytical attitudes overlaid by your
Ghostly transparent face. You in falbalas
Of some distant but not too distant era, the cosmetics,
The shoes perfectly pointed, drifting (how long you
Have been drifting; how long I have too for that matter)
Like a bottle-imp toward a surface which can never be approached,
Never pierced through into the timeless energy of a present
Which would have its own opinions on these matters,
Are an epistemological snapshot of the processes
That first mentioned your name at some crowded cocktail
Party long ago, and someone (not the person addressed)
Overheard it and carried that name around in his wallet
For years as the wallet crumbled and bills slid in
And out of it. I want that information very much today,

Can’t have it, and this makes me angry.
I shall use my anger to build a bridge like that
Of Avignon, on which people may dance for the feeling
Of dancing on a bridge. I shall at last see my complete face
Reflected not in the water but in the worn stone floor of my bridge.

I shall keep to myself.
I shall not repeat others’ comments about me.

Anyways,

Kudos. Seriously, you have a gift.
Mar/22/2012, 11:36 am Link to this post Send Email to satanicdoctor   Send PM to satanicdoctor Blog
 
sambyfield Profile
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Re: New Year Dispatches


Thanks very much everyone for the encouragement and food for thought, really nice to come across something that i'd forgotten existed and discover that it's actually alright.

sam
Mar/30/2012, 10:34 pm Link to this post Send Email to sambyfield   Send PM to sambyfield
 
Terreson Profile
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Re: New Year Dispatches


Can I remember the poem? I want to say I do. Not that it matters.

By all means send it out. Good to go. But I got to tell you. Were the poem mine I would take out S2, let the poem swing on a kind of binary system created by S1 and S3. Good and symmetrical like.

Tere
Mar/31/2012, 1:26 pm Link to this post Send Email to Terreson   Send PM to Terreson
 
sambyfield Profile
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Re: New Year Dispatches


Tere, I think you hit the nail on the head. I always figure that a good way to work out if a line or a few lines need to be in a poem is whether you miss them when they're not- transition from s1-3 works well without s2. as you say, symetrical.
Apr/3/2012, 5:07 am Link to this post Send Email to sambyfield   Send PM to sambyfield
 
Opie DeLetta Profile
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posticon Re: New Year Dispatches


This strikes me as personal journal per se. And I intend that in the
prismatic sense of what “personal” implies and to journalize
in the poetic stream of life. You’ve sown this together with a
delicate thread and yet there’s an “emptiness” being explored
that has deeper ramifications to the human endeavor.

Like not quite being in the right place at the right time.
So I get the concluding impression this poem is about
transformation and (not sadness, not despair) but a
white space (sort of) “emptiness” that pervades…

Of course I reserve the right to be totally wrong. If the above
has any traction I’m just wondering if the title could be modified
to drill down a bit deeper? But it’s wonderful as is.

Great work IMO.

Opie.

Apr/3/2012, 12:02 pm Link to this post Send Email to Opie DeLetta   Send PM to Opie DeLetta Blog
 
Katlin Profile
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Re: New Year Dispatches


Hi Sam,

I'm back and playing devil's advocate: I don't think you should drop S2. I love this part:

Sleep arrives slow as a village bus
so I replay old conversations in
my head, a recent Beijing morning
when I woke looking into the eyes
of a woman who might be my next love.
Fireworks punctuate my thoughts, then car alarms.

The image of the N recalling the eyes of the woman who might be his next love while fireworks and car alarms punctuate his thoughts is one of the hints of humor I mentioned enjoying in the poem. For me those lines add more texture and nuance. IOW, I might drop the first two lines but not the whole stanza.
 

Last edited by Katlin, Apr/6/2012, 7:59 am
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ineese Profile
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Re: New Year Dispatches


Sam,

a stunning read. Now I'm really intimated
to post my divel. Kidding some.

There's little here to change.
The narrative is highly controlled.

The interest undeniable. The opening, soft,
sleepy eyed and the read as rewarding as a late morning sleep in. I just offer some suggestions through

but minimal really. For you to take or leave. HOpe it is
of some benefit.

 

Four days since Chinese New Year,
firecracker detritus still blows across
the pavement. The sun is late to emerge
from the smog but when it does
its warmth suffuses everything.
People are back at work though the streets
retain a carnival vibe, kids walking arm-in-arm,
old men on roadsides slapping chess pieces
like they’re swatting flies. This morning,
I pulled out a fifty to give the old man
who drives the peddle/petrol powered taxi
I sometimes take and he couldn’t break it,
instead saying pay me next time,
I know you’re honest.

*

My windows run with condensation
and I drink too much green tea. (**perhaps as I "brew" too much tea)
Sleep arrives slow as a village bus
so I replay old conversations in
my head, a recent Beijing morning
when I woke looking into the eyes
of a woman who might be my next love.
Fireworks punctuate my thoughts, then car alarms.

*

Australia again, soon. Until then
I spend my days in cafes, long since
having given up on work. My colleagues
don’t notice I’ve left. So I’m now drinking
a point at the menu and see what arrives (I didn't understand
the phrase "a point at the menu"

green tea, which looks like clover and tastes
like clover and no matter how much
I tell myself it’ll grow on me, it doesn’t.
Everyone here owns a dog, the new status
symbol. In the distance I almost hear surf.
Sand shifts beneath my feet.




Thanks for the read.
Apr/4/2012, 3:51 pm Link to this post Send PM to ineese Blog
 
sambyfield Profile
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Re: New Year Dispatches


Thanks for stopping by Opie, and welcome to the site, good food for thought.

Thanks for playing devil's advocate, Katlin! I will probably keep the second stanza as you say, but enjoyed the lightbulb moment Tere's comments gave me.

Thanks as well for your comments and suggestions, ineese. 'Point at the menu and see what arrives' is meant to indicate my language difficulties and the 'luck of the draw' element of ordering from a menu i can't read properly.

cheers

sam

Apr/5/2012, 9:15 pm Link to this post Send Email to sambyfield   Send PM to sambyfield
 


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