On a theme of Apollinaire

by Alex Smith

Friday 20th February 2009 12:45 pm (first posted 1st May 2009)

This month's poem was chosen by Julia Deakin who says of it,
"I don’t know much about Apollinaire, but because this poem is both clear and intriguing, it works for me with or without background knowledge. I like the way it frames the outdoor present against the church’s interior past. Santé, Alex! "

Find out more about Alex and his work at http://www.writeoutloud.net/poets/alexsmith

On a theme of Apollinaire

The saints along the nave
and crucifix at the end
are veiled in their Lent purple.

Outside, a girl is sitting -
knees wide apart - on a bench
enjoying a lunch-hour smoke.

Her unbuttoned coat
is spread open, its lining
a purple sheen

in the spring sunlight.
She is almost
of the same religion.

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More from Poem of the month

Poem of the month » Smoking Outside

1st Jun 2011

Poem of the month » Dad's Ladders

1st May 2011

Poem of the month » My Heart's Triumphant Cry

1st Apr 2011

Poem of the month » Wife and Mother

1st Mar 2011

Comments

Pete Crompton

Mon 11th May 2009 02:15

I was cooking some Quorn chunks today and noticed that the frying instructions were quite poetic.Statistically this poem is 250% more popular than any other poem of the month.

Pete Crompton

Mon 11th May 2009 02:10

dont quote me on that

garside

Sun 10th May 2009 19:26

i like this poem not for the conjecture but for its simplicity

i couldn't care for the deeper potential or otherwise significances - it is what is not said in this poem that makes me smile

as for the rest - well that's all egg bacon beans and a fried slice...

Cate Greenlees

Sat 9th May 2009 13:16

I think this is a clever poem. Very clever. Although it is short, and seems simplistic, the imagery of the juxtaposition of saint and sinner is quite poweful.
Purple has long been used as a reference to sexuality in women {aka the highwayman "riding riding over the purple moors"} Her open coat and open legs are an invitation in..... as are the purple veiled statues into the Church leading to the alter. Lent being a time of abstenance, is over when the fast is broken.
Both the girl and the Church are offering the promise of filfillment, bliss and a new "spring" renewal.
Well thats how I would interpret it!!
Cate

<Deleted User>

Fri 8th May 2009 14:20

We need to remind ourselves that POTM is the choice of ONE person. I have seen and analysed many poems like the above in anthologies....nothing wrong with being simple : )

From one publishing house to another, choice, interest, style , readership and quality varies and from my conversations with editors in these organisations, I have learned that it is all very subjective. So, when I receive a rejection slip, it often means that my poem was not suitable (in terms of taste).

The same is happening here. We do not really have any objective points to follow in order to choose a poem - which opens it up to criticism, which is not a bad thing, but it is the choice of ONE individual.

I still see the poem as a simple observation. Also, the question of what constitutes a poem has been raised ......what is poetry these days anyway? It is so diverse in terms of style now and that is the richness of contemporary writing. Look at John Cooper Clarke, a highly skilled performer whose work is very simple yet carries a strong rhythm and rhyme and he is often criticised for being less of a page poet. For those who admire him, he is a sociological commentator and much needed in the poetry world....

The verses of the Quran are poetic and I use it to form the basis of some of my poems - I see that as poetry ( and I know I will be criticised for saying that by fundamentalists : )

This, for me is a glimpse of a world I do not know, so has enriched my thoughts, not greatly, but delicately..

Julian (Admin)

Fri 8th May 2009 12:29

Well, what a fuss, eh? Brill!
Thank you, Julia, for choosing this simple, inoffensive :-) poem. Thanks, too, to Alex and all your critics and supporters for this absolutely fascinating set of exchanges.
Mal, your thoughts about translation are worthy of a separate debate, topical, too, as we have just had a small grnat to do some translation work with francophone African migrants. I was advised some time ago to consider whether Apollinaire was better in the French and whether translation does it justice. It doesn't, but then I can only read Yehuda Amichai and Neruda in translation, and am grateful that I can.
Moxy, I agree with you that Alex's <<...reworking of Apollinaire changed a delicate observational poem into something voyeuristic and lecherous>>
Yes, I liked it for that, too.
I am sorry if Alex feels criticised by some self-confessed-naif critique, but it has sparked some real quality debate, innit?
Poem of the month? Well, we could have an audience vote and have debates about how democratic it is to get all your online friends to vote for you, thus skewing the result.
But, sure let's have a debate about how (or if, Peter) we continue with POTM, or of the week as some have asked.
Thank you, for your kind comments, Malcolm, about my ditty. A bit Tourettish, really.
Enjoy!

<Deleted User> (7790)

Fri 8th May 2009 11:31

I agree with Christine, Winston and Malpoet. Anthony's response was obviously considered, passionate, genuine and not intended to be rude. It just wasn't the response you expected or hoped for. As for Anthony's 'poetic education' which you mock as clumsy and inaccurate phrasing, may I respecfully point out that Hesiod wrote at great length about 'poetic education.' Besides, it was blatantly obvious what he meant and your derision seems a tad supercilious. For my part I found your reworking of Apollinaire changed a delicate observational poem into something voyeuristic and lecherous.

Malpoet

Fri 8th May 2009 10:51

I have read Anthony Emmerson's review again. It is not rude. There is some mild irony in it, but primarily it is doing the poem the justice of detailed analysis by a poet who is interested in poetry and cares about what they are reading and writing.

The fact that a poem is published by a magazine is something for which the poet can reasonably feel pride and I would not want to take that away, but I am afraid that it means nothing other than that the editor considers it suitable content for their publication. It does not validate the poem in any way.

Now that I have been told the relationship to Apollinaire it diminishes the poem for me and I am afraid there is no other way of saying it, but it diminishes the author for engaging in such an exercise.

I have explained a number of times on this site why I do not feel that translation of poetry works well or serves much purpose. What is worse, and why I have criticised Pound, Eliot and others, is to try to establish a kind of superiority over others by a pretentious use of references that are well known to a 'cognoscenti' group of like minded poets, but meaningless to others.

This poem is doing exactly that. Apollinaire was one of those artists who was interesting, died tragically and had very 'good' connections. This gives him a glamour beyond the worth of his artistic creation. As I have discovered over the last couple of days his poetry has been repeatedly reworked and translated along with huge amounts of discussion about the merits of different translation approaches. The same stuff as we have covered here quite thoroughly. Should there be literal word substitution, should you recreate rhyme and metre to the sacrifice of precision in meaning, etc. A lot of this stuff has nothing to do with the enjoyment of poetry. It is a kind of 'mine is bigger than yours' among a clique who do this stuff.

'On a theme of Apollinaire' has just taken the trivial observation by Apollinaire of the coincidence of buttons missing from a coat and the Mennonite refusal to use buttons and added a play on purple. I cannot help but see the main purpose of the poem being to tell us that its author knew 'Annie' by Apollinaire. It is clear from Julia Deakin's words introducing her choice that she does not know this. Quite enough for some readers of Poetry Review to snigger behind thier hands and rejoice in their superior knowledge.

I have learned more about Apollinaire and his followers than I want to know while spending a few days that might have been better used writing; and enjoying poetry which grew out of the original thoughts of the author.

All credit to Julia who picked a poem that caught her imagination. To me it is a pity that it didn't prove to be quite as worthy. On the positive side it did generate Julian's excellent response. His poem is worth returning to to see the many precise and well worked links he made. Parody is more powerful than pretention.

<Deleted User>

Fri 8th May 2009 09:46

I have considered Christine Dawson's comment and take on board what she has said. I have absolutely no doubt that her French is superior to mine (I wouldn't dare try to speak it in public). But, yes, I do find Mr Emmerson's comments rude; his rhetorical comment that he is 'badly in need of some poetic education' fools no one. And does he really mean 'poetic education'? That would provide for some amusement. I can imagine an incidence of 'poetic education' of physics, for example.
Sufficient to say that Poetry Review considered my poem worth publishing. I commend that venerable journal to Mr Emmerson.

winston plowes

Fri 8th May 2009 00:42

Hi Alex

Well... This is a run away train. Ihave been following the thread without commenting (As I am sure many have). I felt compelled to join in tonight as amongst the humour and appreciation expressed in the discussion was also analysis. Considered analysis at that by A.E. Quite a few people (All from different backgrounds,some academic and some not) have disected my work and I believe it is the better for it.
I liked your poem Alex, for me it did the two simple things that all good poetry does. It painted a strong picture and made me think.
Keep posting Winston

Chris Dawson

Thu 7th May 2009 23:06

I'm at a loss as to understand why Anthony Emmerson's remarks appear rude? They seem to me just to express his opinion, an opinion which appears to have been considered carefully.
What qualifications are needed now to comment? I am reasonably educated, and I speak French, is that sufficient?

Malpoet

Thu 7th May 2009 20:53

Thanks for the information Alex. Now that I understand the Apollinaire link I'm afraid it doesn't give me a more favourable view.

Apollinaire's poem is not great and I do not see that the theme was developed beneficially

I have spent a lot of time wading through English translations of Apollinaire's poems. I have learned a lot more about him and his love for Annie Playden, but I do not think that translating all his work was a particular service to poetry.

To think that having a couple of buttons missing from your coat made you almost a Mennonite just about sums up this work. I don't feel greatly enriched by my increased knowledge of an English view of Apollinaire.

Pete Crompton

Thu 7th May 2009 20:07

Hi Alex
I dont think that M Emmerson was being rude, a lot of us are uneducated on here and are looking to learn, myself included, I have spent a long time reading thru this thread as Im sure has Mr Emmerson. The ability to comment is a feature available on 'poem of month' in order to express different view points. I cant see where Mr Emmerson is being rude. He has offered up a fair critique. A large portion of which I agree with. This does not make me rude or dislike your poem, it just means im trying to, perhaps I just dont like this style. A lot dont like my style, heck my poem of month was rubbish, I was shocked it was picked and wished upon something better, I was lucky but I felt I deserved to be dissected the same way your poem has. I think you may hold the record for most replied poem / discussed, that is a victory and must mean something

<Deleted User>

Thu 7th May 2009 18:57

Here is the Apollinaire:
'Annie'

On the coast of Texas
Between Mobile and Galveston there is
A great big garden overgrown with roses
It also contains a villa
Which is one great rose

Often a woman walks
In the garden all alone
And when I pass on the lime-tree-bordered road
We look at each other

Since this woman belongs to the Mennonite sect
Her rose-trees have no buds and her clothes no buttons
There are two missing from my jacket
This lady and I are almost of the same religion
...
Translated by Oliver Bernard

Dudley Fitts has the last verse as:
As this woman is a Mennonite
Her rosebushes and her frocks are buttonless
There are two missing from my coat
The lady and I profess almost the same rite
...

Apollinaire has the original as:
Comme cette femme est mennonite
Ses rosiers et ses vetements n'ont pas de boutons
Il en manque deux a mon veston
La dame et moi suivons presque le meme rite
...
(Please excuse the lack of accents as I cannot locate the symbol insert function using this response box).

Please note that my poem is On a THEME of Apollinaire; it is not AFTER Apollinaire.

As far as Monsieur Emmerson is concerned, perhaps he has not heard of vers libre or even syllabics (used with some freedom here). As for prose, I wonder if he has read any of the prose poems of Apollinaire or Baudelaire? But then other readers will no doubt say 'Je te l'avais bien dit!' pointing to the gratuitous rudeness of M. Emmerson's comments, a sure mark of the uneducated.

Alex Smith

Alex Smith

Isobel

Thu 7th May 2009 18:12

I used to wear purple hot pants and a poncho when I was a girl. Maybe similar attire would have echoed the religious theme even better. I mean - who knows what goes on under that surplice?
I do think we are all being a tad mean to Alex though - it was an interesting poem - we just need something more heavy weight for this spot. Speaking of which - has anyone read Emmerson's 'Lifelines' - such a good read. Could we not have a system where readers can vote for their poem of the month. That would avoid all the back biting and hurt. Think I'd hate to be chosen - just couldn't handle the criticism.

Gus Jonsson

Thu 7th May 2009 10:35

Mal
May be she was just Craven A need for company...she'd never be alone with a Strand...

Malpoet

Thu 7th May 2009 10:26

I am beginning to feel that she should button her coat and cross her legs.

I am tempted to take up smoking, but selecting the brand is going to be a problem.

Sobranie may be suitably poetic.

<Deleted User> (7790)

Thu 7th May 2009 10:00

Saturn/Khronos -- connected with time and old age -- mortality. And corona cigars. Cigarette smoke aka incense. Lent is thrift and chastity. She smokes but she is sexually unavailable (shag is a type of tobacco).

<Deleted User> (7790)

Thu 7th May 2009 09:34

Regal? Another brand of cigarettes.
I also think the poem might reference Saturn. The planet has purple rings, and the god Saturn ate his own children (Purple People Eater). Saturn is supposedly the earliest blueprint for God and the trinity. The girl appears to be melancholic -- the humour associated with Saturn.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_(mythology)

Pete Crompton

Thu 7th May 2009 00:49

Poem of the month should be scrapped.

Malpoet

Wed 6th May 2009 22:25

This gets more interesting all the time.

Purple in lent is about mourning and royalty for some churches. Should we mourn for the smoking woman or is she regal. I certainly never considered her to be representing Silk Cut cigarettes, but then I didn't think of a purple people eater either in relation to this poem.

Anthony raises many points that are worth answering in detail. That might best come from Alex Smith, but he may not wish to do so.

However, I do think it is a poem and that it does scan.

<Deleted User> (7790)

Wed 6th May 2009 19:49

There used to be a series of magazine advertisements featuring pieces of slit purple silk. I believe the girl is smoking the brand of cigarettes they alluded to.

Anthony Emmerson

Wed 6th May 2009 19:35

Well guys I have to admit I'm struggling with this - on several levels. Firstly I ought to say that I know very little of the technicalities and intricacies of poetry; I'm not too well read and I have never been published. That probably tells you that I shouldn't comment at all on this piece - but I'm going to anyway.

Firstly, I've read this several times but still have no idea what qualifies it as a poem - except for the fact that it has been chopped up into convenient three-line stanzas. If it wasn't arranged so, but just presented as a piece of prose, ought I still be able to recognise it as a poem? Can any piece of prose be chopped up and called a poem? If so, then what's the point of trying to write poetry? We could just all write prose and chop it up to suit.

First stanza:

The saints along the nave
and crucifix at the end
are veiled in their Lent purple.

This doesn't work for me as a sentence - or an idea/description. The word "along" has no particular meaning in fixing the position of "the saints", and are they also "along" the crucifix? This seems grammatically and punctuationally clumsy. Not sure I like the word "veiled" - too much like a cliche in this usage.

Second stanza:

Outside, a girl is sitting -
knees wide apart - on a bench
enjoying a lunch-hour smoke.

This stanza pushes us in a direction that I'm not sure is entirely intentional. Without the inclusion of the "knees wide apart" qualifier it is an unremarkable observation. Is it included just for that faint whiff and promise of erotica?

Third stanza:

Her unbuttoned coat
is spread open, its lining
a purple sheen

Again, this for me is just an observation. Her coat would have to be "unbuttoned" to be "spread open". Not sure about "purple sheen." Sheen is one of those words like "shards" - greatly overused in modern poetry to add that "in the know" credibility. So, we're three quarters of the way there and we know that in the church the saints and (presumably) the crucifix have been covered in purple fabric. Outside a girl wearing an unbuttoned coat with a purple lining is sitting smoking with her legs apart. Now I'm at the stage where I'm really hoping this last stanza is going to deliver - revelation, surprise, a smile, a neat juxtaposition, original thought whatever.

Fourth stanza:

in the spring sunlight.
She is almost
of the same religion.

The same religion as what? The bench? Her coat? Oh, I get it - I'm supposed to make my own connection! Well I'm sorry, but if that's what I wanted I would have struggled with a cryptic crossword instead. Yes, I'm the kid who just saw the Emperor naked. This could have been two polaroid photographs for me; one of the inside of the church and one of the girl. Would I have looked at them and still have been expected to make some kind of connection, apart from the colour purple? (Is there a connection?) I guess all this proves just one thing; that I'm badly in need of some poetic education. All that I have admired over the years about poetry just isn't there - no clever word-play, no underlying rhythm or meter, no original similie or metaphor, no new or original viewpoint. My personal litmus test for whether a poem appeals or not is "did it move me in any way?" This didn't. It could have been a random passage taken from a newspaper or magazine article. It leaves the reader to do an awful lot of work to get anything (other than the words contained within itself) out of it.
OK, I admit it, I'm thick. So come and educate me guys. I don't wan't to miss out on what you are all getting from it, and I'm keen to expand my knowledge and perception. Is this what I should be aspiring to?
Regards,
A.E.

John Stuart

Wed 6th May 2009 17:37

I can't find the reference in Apollinaire but will continue looking. I only have Alcools, though, and if it's not in there, I won't find it. (And if I don't find it quickly, I just might give up ...)

It's easy to overinterpret a poem that is so reticent. It is the last two lines which invite the speculation and indeed turn it from unremarkable to worth taking note of.

It's good to have poems that open up rather than close down at the end. If I have a criticism, it is that the language is underplayed. Not by a lot.

I would not like to see it made any longer. I don't see anything else to say. And there is always a danger that expanding will mean explaining and that would actually detract from its effect.

<Deleted User> (5923)

Wed 6th May 2009 12:33

Can't add much as it's mostly been siad above, but must just say that I definitely do not think it should have said more. It says just enough to stir things up -- as shown by all discussion here. I think it's excellent.
Daffni

<Deleted User> (7790)

Tue 5th May 2009 16:31

Could be a viral ad for Cadbury's chocolate. A continuation of the dancing-eyebrow children and superceding the gorilla on drums?

<Deleted User> (7790)

Tue 5th May 2009 16:20

"I said Mr Purple People Eater, what's your line?
He said eating purple people, and it sure is fine
But that's not the reason that I came to land
I wanna get a job in a rock 'n roll band"
Yes, Sheb Wooley adds to the references and inferences. The girl could be a groupy or a snack.

Cynthia Buell Thomas

Tue 5th May 2009 11:29

Absolutely brilliant ... a shaft of insight to be interpreted as the reader alone is capable

Malpoet

Mon 4th May 2009 11:39

Sorry Isobel I am not ready for a last word on this yet.

It is true that Julian has upstaged Alex by his clever miscehievousness. However, Julian's piece does not stand alone. It needs Alex's poem to work so let us give credit to Alex for that.

Although I am an atheist I am interested in religion. I too go to churches, not to pray, but to appreciate the beauty and craftmanship displayed there.

In many cases there is ambiguity in the imagery. Although claims are made to depiction of unreal things such as human form god, virgin mother, ascendance into a heaven, etc., other things can be drawn from them than what they purport.

These two poems bring about a very strong linkage of the sacred and profane. That is the woman who belongs outside the church (profane) having attributes in common with the sacred.

Julian has changed very much my first impressions of Alex's poem. With his clever punning, use of 'figurative' to presage the introduction of his fig metaphor and at the same time take us inside the woman as well as inside the clothing and inside the church from the woman outside are all related to conversion in the Pauline sense.

Paul came from being an outside oppressor of the church to an inside creator of the fundamental elements of christianity such as the resurrection.

I am probably taking this much too far, but the use of Damask, being a silk weave of a single warp thread with a single weft, as a pun on the conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus speaks to me of a weaving of the threads of sacred and profane (inside and outside the temple or church) and the weaving of images of idealised purity with the realities of desire and gratification displayed by the spread legs and smoking.

I have changed my views on Alex's poem several times. I still think that the title sits oddly with the poem and that it handles its subject rather superficially. Julian's piece has very obviously sent me off on a whole deeper journey which begins with the Smith poem, but introduces so much more.

I feel grateful to both of them. The relationship of the church to the rest of the world has many complex layers. What Julian did was a little cheeky, but it developed so many layers which were not probed in the first piece.

Isobel

Sun 3rd May 2009 18:50

I'm a woman - so can I have the last say? I think we would all agree that this is a good, well balanced poem that has worked because it prompted enough discussion. It is probably not the poem to eclipse all others for the month of April but there you go. Being chosen poet of the month must be like being given a poisoned chalice. Who on earth would want to wade through hundreds of profiles and blogs? Much as I like poetry, one can overdose. Even when you've chosen, you'll never please all and it's probably only the malcontents who bother to comment. The ones who agree are too busy writing their own poems, or maybe they are off exploring churches, or having a fag or sitting somewhere more interesting with their legs wide open.... mmm on that note...

Pete Crompton

Sun 3rd May 2009 13:49

I disagree with myself.
I keep reading it back trying to find something I'm missing.

I think I'm lacking in literary critique.
I just don't understand the religious references as religious history bores me chronic.I do love churches and like Nabilya I will also walk in sit, pray and absorb, my own spirit is always on a different path. The girl on the bench outside, well smoking cigarettes and open legs, I see that Alex may be putting these 2 images in comparison, the girls personal religion whether atheist or not, perhaps she is sending messages deliberate in her body language...you could extrapolate all of this........the very fact that the poem has me thinking means that it has worked..is this like one of those songs that grows or?

my opinion of the poem keeps fluxing.

Pete Crompton

Sun 3rd May 2009 13:38

Julian has written a superb alternative version but it seems unfair to upstage the original on the comments thread. I say that as his version did upstage the original. That said Alex's poem is good its just slight to be showcased I think, then again theres no choice in the matter.

Im like Malcolm in that what I get from the poem, I feel is not what Alex put in (though I may be wrong of course)

it is a very sexual poem, especially with the use of purple and knees wide apart, its only this implication that saves it for me.

"Outside, a girl is sitting -
knees wide apart - on a bench
enjoying a lunch-hour smoke.

Her unbuttoned coat
is spread open, its lining
a purple sheen"

this could be developed a little further, the religion thing just turns me off straight away.The religion thing makes me just want to be promiscuous in order to rebel against the implied authority.

Malpoet

Sun 3rd May 2009 11:26

Apollinarie
A Pauline Air
Appalling hair

Excellent

The purple innards of the ripe fig too. Much imagery and suggestiveness here.

Maybe not a Damascene conversion, but a delightfully executed one.

This is far better. Thanks Julian.

Julian (Admin)

Sun 3rd May 2009 10:44

A Pauline air
lent by
plain purple-shrouds,
so not Damask and,
thus, less figurative.

So, simply,
I am seduced by her
Sheening simplicity.
The purple lining
Lures like
a ripe fig’s innards.

And yet I know
her fag fumes
will give her
appalling hair.

C'est pas mal du tout, Alex!

Merci.

Jeff Dawson

Sun 3rd May 2009 09:51

I hadn't seen this before as I think it was just posted a while back in Alex's profile and hadn't seen any of his work as I recall, having said that it is intriguing even though I know little about Appollinaire.

I agree with Isobel, it could have said a little more, but maybe it wasn't meant to?

It also sounds quite voyeuristic with the girls possibly purposeful seductiveness, you can rely on me not to miss something like that!

An interesting choice, but could have been just that bit better, Jeff

Gus Jonsson

Sat 2nd May 2009 22:04

Can't really connect with the connection to surrealism... although Apollinaire's friend Picasso loved the colour purple too.. love the slightly contrasting images, I wonder the relaxed chick on the bench Is she a madonna with a fag? ..on the whole the poem nicely balanced.

Gus

Malpoet

Sat 2nd May 2009 21:42

I have had a think about it.

No it's not really very good. Superficial.

<Deleted User>

Sat 2nd May 2009 21:11

I like this a lot for its simplicity and clarity, yet strong sense of the link between inside and outside. It does have credit because the writer has observed and given thought to the link of colours and put it into words. Nice one. I like churches and often walk in just to absorb the atmosphere , so this really drew me in.

Steve Regan

Sat 2nd May 2009 09:09

Yeah, this poem works. It's neat; it paints a simple image, yet one that evokes ancient mystery and ritual as well as casual modern ways. Don't know that it has got much of a connection with Appollinaire except that churches and sex were among his themes, and that for all his avante-garde connections, he had a fascination with the ancient world. I like the poem but it is rather slight to be showcased in this slot.

Isobel

Fri 1st May 2009 16:07

Maybe it was chosen because of its understatement and simplicity. I also think it had potential to say a lot more - but then I am rather a rambly poet and have never been able to do short and sweet.
Congratulations Alex.

Malpoet

Fri 1st May 2009 12:04

Not sure what it has got to do with Apollinaire unless he thinks that the image is surreal. I don't.

The image is quite interesting. The girl with a purple lined coat and given a sort of halo by the sun identifies quite well with the guady imagery of some Catholic or high Anglican churches.

I quite like thinking of a girl with relaxed coat, sexually ambiguous pose and smoking fag in a stained glass window or in a stations of the cross series. It contrasts with and challenges the carefully contrived folds of Mary's cloak; the daintily contrived positions and strategically placed arms, leaves, etc. The effortless relaxation as opposed to all the suffering of tortured execution and grief of the observers.

She becomes more of a saint to me than those inside the church and she is anything but 'of the same religion'.

I am sure what I get from the poem is not what Smith put into it, but there you go.

For me it is worth being the poem of the month because it has given me what I describe above. Is it a good poem? Dunno really. I will think about it.

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