It quickly detriorated into a slanging match of epic proportions.  Next month Write Club returns, but in a better regulated fashion.

The following exchange ocurred in the first incarnation of Write Club

The Search

With a wing fingertip quiver
The kestrel craves stasis. The ground
Is sheep-shorn in this realm not bounded
By the slow sliding river

Or the brittle, turbulent scree,
Nor by the lines of dry stone walls
Which hunker down when the bird calls
Its mate across the next valley.

Rodent prey is pinned by its sight,
Nervous, quick-hearted, impotent.
Wings are drawn in to aid descent -
More controlled falling than real flight.

Gravity and talons combine,
Impact is fatal, spine-snapping;
A tiny mammal caught napping
In fields denuded by ovine

Teeth. Distorting evolution,
Humanity’s search for its meat
Feeds the kestrel’s search for its meat.
The field-mouse finds oblivion.

REVIEW BY DG:

“Now, Siren, I think you already know my feelings with regard to these old-fashioned "isn't the natural world awe-inspiring" poems. The countryside is just a convenient place to put gurning in-bred yokels with bad teeth who need to wake up, smell the coffee and invent fire - and other rubbish such as landfill, prisons, badgers and kestrels.

Really, there is no relevance here to my life - I'm not one for hovering over fields looking for rodents; life's too short. And, as for the: “Ooh! Crikey! I need to tag on an ending that sounds like a message for mankind at the end” - I used to hate assemblies at school for precisely that reason. I always used to sit there looking at the member of staff delivering the assembly thinking “Come on, cut to the chase so that I can find out what you have been wasting my morning with and disrespect you for it.”

From a technical point of view, this can't be faulted, although I would expect no less from you. You also know my view on these short, prepositionless phrasings that have become so trendy these days; need I say more than Nervous, quick-hearted impotent. Which brings me to capital letters at the starts of lines that are not concurrently beginnings of sentences.

In short, apart from the technical skills (which you have in abundance and have utilised expertly - of note is the descriptive term "sheep-shorn" - bet you limped on blood-shod before stumbling across that one) and the coherence of the narrative, it embodies so much that I dislike in poetry. It's old fashioned, it's away from modern urban living, the ending doesn't slap me around the chops and leave me surprised or appalled at the sheer effrontery. Annoyingly, all of the foregoing is down to personal taste rather than being something I can argue as reasoned academic criticism.

Things that I can, on the other hand include the following
I know I should probably get behind the home team, but you haven't got me rooting for the mammal in this one - it's vermin!

The kestrel craves stasis. I'm not sure you can really ascribe that motivation to its hovering flight. The kestrel is concentrating as hard as its bird brain can on the strike. It's also a heavy-handed phrase, to my ear.

Not sure that squawking for its mate is one of its better ideas in verse two - for one it might alarm the prey animal, and for two, they may have to fight each other for the spoils.

Fields denuded by ovine... - ow my ears! You and your blinking enjambment! There you were trying to construct a slow-paced suspenseful atmosphere to suit the subject matter and then you blew it with a word that you put in for the rhyme with combine.

Distorting evolution? Rubbish! Whether conditions change due to man's activities or any other natural phenomena, the individuals best-adapted to the new conditions will propagate.

... finds oblivion - as stated above, the deep and meaningful seems tagged on, and fairly "urghh!" and fairly predictable, and the rest of it is not of our times, so... you have a perfect opportunity to wake us up with a bang. What really doesn't belong in this poem? Whatever it is, put it in there quick and it will redeem this thing in my eyes. "the field mouse shits its kecks.", for example. I'd fall off my chair if I suddenly read that at the end. Just... something - maybe not that per se, but something to lift the piece at the end.”

REVIEW BY DG:

“Having thought about it a lot more today, here is a more constructive review. I will start with a direct question for you:
Whose narrative am I reading here, and what's his or her state of mind during these events? (Two sentence answers only, remember).

You see, if I was a kestrel, I'd read it and say "Nice one; bit of the old hover, hover, hover, splat - we've all been there mate - you been reading my diaries or what?". If I was a field mouse I'd say "Scary stuff! Edgar Allen Poe meets Peter Benchley - be looking over my shoulder on the way up to bed now." The trouble is they're only 10% of your potential market (if that).

I'm a human and we make up a much larger share of the poetry reading public, and I can't relate to this on any emotional level. Someone is watching that scene and telling me about it in a poem, but I have no notion of that person. Has he/she gone out there specifically to watch the kestrel and is he/she excited or fascinated (and if so, why hasn't he/she got a job/life/etc). Is the person watching it thinking this is a metaphor for life and stating their inference about the farming and meat thing? If so, then why so dispassionate a commentary? These last are rhetorical questions by the way.

If I am sitting there staring at Kestrel, it is either because I am stuck in a traffic jam on the motorway through a semi rural area or because I am stuck in a queue at the off-licence. In either event I'm daydreaming with my internal monologue interjecting various things related and unrelated to what my eyes appear to be watching. I think if you do the exercise of getting into that mind set, you can deepen this poem significantly by having that monologue in there, and link it in various ways to the images.”

ANSWER TO THE REVIEWER’S QUESTION BY SIREN:

“The narrator is omniscient, a dispassionate observer, merely noting that kestrels have inadvertently profited from sheep farming. As for 'emotional engagement' (why the hell does everyone want that from poetry?), I am often accused of writing emotionally cold verse and indeed I do prefer to think of poetry as a series of beautifully written statements.”

REVIEW BY CHRIS DAWSON:

“A question: If you are not trying to engage your reader emotionally - why are you writing poetry? - isn't that the whole point of it?
 

My dictionary gives the definition: Poetry - the art of rhythmical composition, written or spoken, for exciting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative, or elevated thoughts.

Personally I don't feel that the emotion incited has, necessarily, to be pleasure - but if your aim is not to engage your reader but merely 'to think of poetry as a series of beautifully written statements.' - wouldn't you find writing instruction manuals more satisfying?”

REVIEW BY MALPOET:

“The story is that a predator gets an easy kill in short grass. This could be very effectively conveyed in prose. What poetry could do which prose might not, is to create a strong emotional feeling, build more powerful imagery or convey meanings by making the main story a metaphor for something else. I haven't got anything from the poem that convinces me that it is really doing more than prose could.


“The Search”

This title suggests that that there might be something profound in here for a human. Meaning of life and so on. It is a bit of a let down to just be an easy search for a mouse in short grass. If the search is about greater insight into the impact of people on the environment and a consequent distortion of the evolution that would otherwise have occurred it doesn't work. I will come to that later.


“With a wing fingertip quiver
The kestrel craves stasis.”

This just doesn't work I'm afraid. Finger tips don't quiver. Wingtips could. Joining them is not an effective image. The anthropomorphic craving is wrong. You could infer a food craving to the Kestrel, but not a craving for position to efficiently collect the food. Stasis is wrong too. There is always movement in maintaining a hover, but anyway, what the kestrel is doing is getting a good fix on the prey. That is the objective rather than obtaining stillness.

“The ground
Is sheep-shorn in this realm not bounded
By the slow sliding river

Or the brittle, turbulent scree,
Nor by the lines of dry stone walls
Which hunker down when the bird calls
Its mate across the next valley.”

A very long sentence. It is a bit ponderous and I find it rather difficult to read in a decently flowing way. For me the flow in reading is inhibited by capitals at the beginning of each line. For example, as your eye scans over the poem on first reading it is easy to miss the absence of a full stop after river and, seeing the capital at the beginning of the next stanza, make a pause which should not be there. I cannot see that any purpose is served by these capitals other than sticking to an obsolete convention.
In making the prey search area a 'realm' you confer monarchy on the kestrel. A fairly traditional 'animal kingdom' type reference. The thing is that a monarch has sovereignty and a kestrel doesn't have any exclusive control over prey here. The mouse could be snatched by a stoat or mink before the kestrel makes its swoop. The fact that the kestrel isn't confined by the river boundary is fine and we get the point that the grass is short.
Sorry, but rivers just don't slide. I know you want something other than flow, but liquids do flow. Solids slide when the friction between them is low enough to permit it.
Although scree can't be turbulent, this image does work.
When the bird calls I can imagine the mouse flinching (and in fact making it's escape, but there you go), but dry stone walls hunkering down just will not work for me.


“Rodent prey is pinned by its sight,
Nervous, quick-hearted, impotent.”

This sentence doesn't read smoothly to me and I can't properly understand it. Is it the mouse seeing the kestrel that pins the mouse? I suppose it must be because the kestrel doesn't pin the mouse by looking at it. The rest of the sentence obviously refers to the mouse. All of this suggests that the mouse is aware of the impending strike, has time to fear it, but doesn't have the ability to move away from it. Pretty questionable I would have thought. Anyway, the aesthetics of the language use are more to the point. Too many commas close together to read it smoothly.

“Wings are drawn in to aid descent -
More controlled falling than real flight.”

This just grates with me too much. The strike of a bird of prey is neither falling nor flight. Falling is an uncontrolled event and the action of this predator is extremely precise in diving from considerable height to such a small target.

“Gravity and talons combine,
Impact is fatal, spine-snapping;
A tiny mammal caught napping
In fields denuded by ovine

Teeth.”
Another long sentence which I find a bit clumsy. Nothing new is being said except the detail of the death. Restatement of 'sheep-shorn' with 'denuded by ovine teeth' is contrived.

“Distorting evolution,
Humanity's search for its meat
Feeds the kestrel's search for its meat.”


The distortion of evolution by sheep farming is just wrong. Riversides would be grazed by large mammals whether farming existed or not. The 'search for its meat' repetition in this sentence doesn't work well. Repetition can be very powerful in poetry. It will often enhance rhythm, it can drive home a continuing motif, and it can add to a hypnotic type beat in the work. This repetition is different. For it to have meaning you need to emphasise 'its' in the second use. That breaks the rhythm and feels clumsy in a single sentence.

“The field-mouse finds oblivion.”

Finishing on another false piece of anthropomorphism. The mouse wasn't seeking oblivion, it was just standing in a field.”

REVIEW BY DG:

“You see, this attitude is part of the reason why I'm not well read and not looking to remedy that any time soon. You're competing with television for my attention, remember. And, with David Attenborough we're spoilt in this country. It's opportunity cost in terms of time - if I sit there and read and digest your dispassionate poem, it's done no more to me than life on earth, and I would argue it's done less because I have the facts delivered with great enthusiasm (that itself is emotionally engaging) and I also have the brilliant wildlife photography.

Steven King pioneered (and teaches) this approach - cut the interesting and characterful stuff out, and just tell the story as simply as you can. In that case, the books no more interesting or characterful than the movie, and I don't have to hold the thing, turn the pages, decipher the peculiar combinations of symbols (letters and words) and try and motivate myself to generate an picture of what's happening when I don't much care because there's no character that I can latch onto, attach myself to and care about.

By contrast, I shouldn't care about Anthony Trollope's storylines because they're so mundane and kitchen sink/soap opera-y (my other option is just to live my own mundane existence and I would do many of the same things as happen in such things and would have the added pleasure of being an active participant). However, his narrative style, which turns the voice of the narrator inside your head as you read it into a gossipy Kenneth Williams reading Will 'o the wisp character is superb - you probably couldn't do that in a film, so the books are worth bothering with because you can't get the same experience for less effort elsewhere.

In short, people want emotional engagements, because literature and art appreciations are escapist by their very nature and if you don't draw people in and amuse/horrify/outrage/sadden/etc them, they will not escape into your writing.”

ANSWER TO THE REVIEWER’S QUESTION BY SIREN:

Revised answer to Chris's question obeying the Write Club Imperial Manifesto - I write poetry for my own pleasure and if other people like it (which they usually don't) that is an incidental bonus. The first sentence of 'The Search' is a good example of what I try to achieve when I write verse - every single word relates to the next either by rhyme, alliteration or assonance.

REVIEW BY CHRIS DAWSON:

I too like cryptic crosswords, I get satisfaction from decoding the clues and a mild feeling of superiority over those who can't even spell cryptic; I also like foreign languages, reading in general, song lyrics etc. - my appreciation of the written, spoken, and even sung, word is pretty wide-ranging - however - they are quite different in what they achieve (or seek to). If you just like pretty words then by all means do a crossword or learn a foreign language - I'm learning Greek at the moment and that has some crackers - ramatosima or apopse, for example - but I would still question why you would want to write poetry that has no emotional connection? Without a reader you might just as well have a list of interesting words, and without an emotional connection you won't have readers, surely?
And if you truly don't care about an emotional connection - why are you posting your work here and inviting critique? - which is, by its very nature, subjective and emotional. Otherwise - aren't you just asking; have I put the commas in the right places?
Is that too many questions for one post?

ANSWER TO THE REVIEWER’S QUESTION BY SIREN:

“I have an intellectual interest in what others think of my work but I shy away from 'emotional' poetry. Probably because I am such an emotional man that I worry that it would spill over into schmaltz or manipulation.”