tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1815203981220831859.post5424178366180480052..comments2024-02-15T23:43:42.179+11:00Comments on poetry & ideas: THE MERRI CREEK #8, 2008/09 : POEMS & PIECEScollectedworkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10768731698615085925noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1815203981220831859.post-71418571668414570282009-01-03T19:57:00.000+11:002009-01-03T19:57:00.000+11:00Hardy's 'Afterwards' is well worth the...Hardy's 'Afterwards' is well worth the joust ... that last stanza with its bell and crossing resonates for me with Tennyson's 'Crossing the bar' .... 'Twilight and evening bell, and after that the dark.' And the hedgehog keeps popping up, doesn't he ... one appeared in our back garden in Poland one day .... he's in Spenser, and Shakespeare with his "thorny hedgehogs" ... Burns tells us "The priest and hedgehog in their robes, are snug" & in Wordsworth someone's dog "unearths" a hedgehog and barks at his "coiled-up prey" ... which sparks across to Plath's "balled hedgehog / small and cross" ... but I've skipped Auden's "hedgehog's gradual foot" & then of course there's Larkin's nasty accident with a lawn mower, mauling the creature's "unobtrusive world".David Lumsdenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04483172967435196277noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1815203981220831859.post-15047802947259162822009-01-02T17:51:00.000+11:002009-01-02T17:51:00.000+11:00Dear David, I've been reading & writing &a...Dear David, I've been reading & writing & snoozing in back-yard & front-room library, shook myself out of it finally and logged on to find your comment here! What can I say? Brilliant & spontaneous! I mean, we all read but you are one of those special people who dont only retain the gist but are able to quote verbatim,like blowing huge bubble-gum balloons! Thank you then for granting Clive Faust's walking ghost its siblings via Herrick, Todhunter & Yeats..."walking ghostly in the dew"...Actually, the previous line, "And still I dream he treads the lawn..." has me right back with the Hardy I've been playing with past week or so (--playing? i mean jousting with!),the last line of the last poem of a set of seven 14-liners, each line 12 syllables, and entitled After 'Afterwards' (--the other 6 poems dont relate to Hardy): remember Hardy's hedgehog that "travels furtively across the lawn"? Well, I finally got it, and it is uncanny given this particular conversation, but my closing is : "(...)Now here I am --out of line at last-- / ringed by the true meaning of Hardy's holy ghost." How's that?! Best wishes, Kriscollectedworkshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10768731698615085925noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1815203981220831859.post-53152138963157927672009-01-02T14:34:00.000+11:002009-01-02T14:34:00.000+11:00Great issue ... some quick first comments hereGreat issue ... some quick first comments <A HREF="http://sparksfromstones.blogspot.com/2009/01/walking-ghosts.html" REL="nofollow">here</A>David Lumsdenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04483172967435196277noreply@blogger.com