Weird world
Recently I got an email asking permission to use one of my poems in a church service. The poem was probably written when I was in college - I don't remember the circumstances. However, despite the title, Grace, and a touch of religousesque imagery, it was probably inspired by a young woman, and not of the Beatrice sort. But ok, even if I'm as rabid an atheist as I can be, and tend to think religion has been a malign influence in history, these seemed like nice people and I said ok.
I haven't really managed to learn the important writerly craft of distance - most of my work still gives me pleasure. The verse in question however doesn't seem like something I wrote - it may be sappy, or just bad, or just something tossed off by a young man in windy Ithaca. I include it for anyone reading to mock or mend, if they feel the urge:
Grace
She asked me why I was crying.
I said, "It's just the wind
Blowing across my face
Fierce as if I had sinned."
I asked her why she was smiling.
She said, "The wind on my face
Touched the corners of my lips
Like the wingtips of grace."
I haven't really managed to learn the important writerly craft of distance - most of my work still gives me pleasure. The verse in question however doesn't seem like something I wrote - it may be sappy, or just bad, or just something tossed off by a young man in windy Ithaca. I include it for anyone reading to mock or mend, if they feel the urge:
Grace
She asked me why I was crying.
I said, "It's just the wind
Blowing across my face
Fierce as if I had sinned."
I asked her why she was smiling.
She said, "The wind on my face
Touched the corners of my lips
Like the wingtips of grace."
posted by rilkefan at 17:38
1 Comments:
The thing I do like about the poem is the internal rhyme of "lips" and "wingtips", which gives a little oomph to the last line.
I think the poem needs me to care about grace or to at least know enough about it to make the lines that aren't doing their share (1/2 and 5/6?) richer.
Of course one of the sad things about poetry is that you just can't improve bad material into something good - I suspect that's possible in e.g. music.
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