Policy

[geoff]

V. 2

Policy (thanks to tomoffing, milo, christopher, jeremy, tec, and abu)


When an employee asks about bereavement,
removing the splintered wedge from the door
and sitting before the computer stands by,

the radio puts down its saxophone for the news.
A family member has died.
She is hoping to travel back

a few days to settle the house and service.
When an employee asks about bereavement,
the foreigner with a familiar face,

the mind trickles down cobble stones
since paved over—to a church;
casket handles gnawing

grooves into a younger palm
that surrenders the shuttered shell
to the arms of a hearse—

before returning to the question.
When an employee asks about bereavement,
the first response is a breath of memory,

inhaled and quiet like a candle
spent after the shudder of a heater
within a waking house.

Then a manual is grabbed from a top shelf
and a distant page is found, already
sanitized and prepared to be shared.






_______________________________________________
V. 1

Bereavement Policy

When an employee asks about bereavement
removing the splintered wedge under the door
and sitting before the computer stands by

the radio puts down its saxophone for the news.
A family member has died. She is
hoping to travel back a few days

to settle the house and service.
When an employee asks about bereavement,
the foreigner with a familiar face,

it sends the mind bumbling down cobble stones
since paved over, to a church;
lifting a casket, handles gnawing

grooves into a younger palm,
surrendering the shuttered shell
to the arms of a hearse

before returning to the question.
When an employee asks about bereavement,
the first response is this breath of memory,

inhaled and quiet like a candle
spent after the hum of a heater is heard
again within a waking house.

Then a manual is grabbed from a top shelf
and a distant page is found, already
sterilized and prepared to be shared.

[tomoffing]

When an employee asks about bereavement
removing the splintered wedge under the door
and sitting before the computer stands by

the radio puts down its saxophone for the news.
A family member has died. She is I can't find anyway to justify this enjambment.
hoping to travel back a few days

to settle the house and service.
When an employee asks about bereavement,
the foreigner with a familiar face,

it sends the mind bumbling down cobble stones both visually and sonically this is excellent, however the clumsy/awkward connotations of bumbling conflict slightly with the clarity of image you go on to create. That said, I cant think of an alternative right now.
since paved over, to a church;
lifting a casket, handles gnawing

grooves into a younger palm,
surrendering the shuttered shell
to the arms of a hearse beautiful funeral description

before returning to the question.
When an employee asks about bereavement,
the first response is this breath of memory,

inhaled and quiet like a candle
spent after the hum of a heater is heard
again within a waking house.

Then a manual is grabbed from a top shelf
and a distant page is found, already
sterilized and prepared to be shared.

Excellent piece Geoff. The parallels drawn between the imagery and the experience of loss are subtle and profound.

In particular,

"removing the splintered wedge under the door"
it wasn't until second reading, that I grasped this as the first opening of memory.
"the foreigner with a familiar face"
A great personification of bereavement while also expanding on the employee's character.

The sterilized manual as a blueprint for the act of consolation.

thanks for a truly enjoyable piece.

[milo]

When an employee asks about bereavement
removing the splintered wedge under the door
and sitting before the computer stands by

It seems you want to avoid punctuation here or at least substitute line breaks for punctuation. It isn't quite working. Maybe at least a dash after bereavement. Also, the break on "by" really doesn't work IMO. The expression "sitting before the computer stands" creates a strange comical bathos. Have you considered replacing your participle phrases throughout here with active verbs?

the radio puts down its saxophone for the news.
A family member has died. She is
hoping to travel back a few days

there is a grammar problem in the sentence, " . . . before the computer stands by the radio puts down its saxophone for the news" that I found quite disruptive. Instead of "She is hoping . . " did you consider "She hopes . ." with the line break on "hopes"? "Is" is a particularly bad line break.

to settle the house and service.
When an employee asks about bereavement,
the foreigner with a familiar face,

grammatically, your commas delineate "the foreigner with a familiar face" as a subjugate clause of "bereavement" but I think you mean for it to be of "an employee", no?

it sends the mind bumbling down cobble stones
since paved over, to a church;
lifting a casket, handles gnawing

"it" has an indefinite antecedent. What is lifting the casket here, the church? the mind? Could it be rearranged to state "lifts a casket" "handles gnaw" to get rid of some of the participles that seem to be over running here?

grooves into a younger palm,
surrendering the shuttered shell
to the arms of a hearse

You could switch to "surrender" as well. "Shuttered shell" is some rather unpleasant alliteration. As well, I think "shell" gives us shuttered so you may not need both anyway.

before returning to the question.
When an employee asks about bereavement,
the first response is this breath of memory,

inhaled and quiet like a candle

do you need inhaled? Also, "this" makes me think which?

spent after the hum of a heater is heard

the alliteration is particularly intrusive and unpleasant here

again within a waking house.

Then a manual is grabbed from a top shelf
and a distant page is found, already
sterilized and prepared to be shared.

"distant" seem the wrong adjective. Do you need "then"?

Overall, I liked the concept, thanks for the enjoyable read, I hope you find some of this useful.

[jeremyyoung]

I'll start with what I like about this poem.

It has a marvelous sense of hurried feeling, of panic to say and do the right thing, of embarrassment at asking, of past and present colliding. The pacing, and the word placement is excellent. As is the absurd incongruity, the smashing together of imagery...
"sitting before the computer stands", "handles gnawing", "inhaled and quiet like a candle" etc
At first this line, "the radio puts down its saxophone for the news", had me reaching for the punctuationhammer, because given what goes before it is too breathless, but the enjambments give the pause for air, and... well there is just something so comedically perfect about the saxophone.

I would have prefer 'sanitized' to 'sterilized' - but that could just be my castration complex kicking in again - or more seriously, the handbook is there to offer procedures and platitudes to clean matters up - though I suppose depending on the handbook it is also a guidebook on dis-empowerment of the individual and Kafkaesque entrapment - so they both work. And there is that sense of firing blanks - so maybe I'm wrong - and it's your poem - I am just nick picking for sake of trying to find something I don't like.... the title?.... meh, now I am nit-picking....

[ChristopherSea]

When an employee asks about bereavement
removing the splintered wedge under the door
and sitting before the computer stands by

the radio puts down its saxophone for the news.
A family member has died. She is
hoping to travel back a few days

to settle the house and service.
When an employee asks about bereavement,
the foreigner with a familiar face,

it sends the mind bumbling down cobble stones
since paved over, to a church;
lifting a casket, handles gnawing

grooves into a younger palm,
surrendering the shuttered shell
to the arms of a hearse

before returning to the question.
When an employee asks about bereavement,
the first response is this breath of memory,

inhaled and quiet like a candle
spent after the hum of a heater is heard
again within a waking house.

Then a manual is grabbed from a top shelf
and a distant page is found, already
sterilized and prepared to be shared.
[/quote]

Geoff, You use an intriguing device, inserting the employee inquiry into company bereavement leave policy through the poem. It creates an unsettling disorientation that would befall a loved one suddenly burdened with the emotional loss, arrangements responsibility and taking leave from work. By the way, I don't think you need bereavement in the title, it may be a a redundant spoiler for your repeats. Company manual, policy or something akin would suffice. Back to your repeat, you may want to delay the deployment in the first stanza. Shouldn't the news of the death come first (not that the time line has to be sequential)? In that first stanza, I found myself confused, but that could be your design: ...bereavement/...door and employee sits by the computer/stands by/radio puts down sax for news (which, I love). I think it might just be a matter of commas between the slashes for me. The remainder reads good. However, the 'and prepared to be shared.' closing seems off (is it the rhyme?). Maybe something like sterilized for the next employee or inquiry. Hopefully, this helps with your next edit. Thanks for sharing your work./Chris

[tectak]

When an employee asks about bereavement
removing the splintered wedge under the door
and sitting before the computer stands by

the radio puts down its saxophone for the news.
A family member has died. She is
hoping to travel back a few days

to settle the house and service.
When an employee asks about bereavement,
the foreigner with a familiar face,

it sends the mind bumbling down cobble stones
since paved over, to a church;
lifting a casket, handles gnawing

grooves into a younger palm,
surrendering the shuttered shell
to the arms of a hearse

before returning to the question.
When an employee asks about bereavement,
the first response is this breath of memory,

inhaled and quiet like a candle
spent after the hum of a heater is heard
again within a waking house.

Then a manual is grabbed from a top shelf
and a distant page is found, already
sterilized and prepared to be shared.

Hi geoff,
Death of a concept methinks. Good stuff in this parcel, but it gets broken in the unwrapping.What good reason, no...just any reason...can you give to justify the fragmented enjambments and bitty breaks, the atrocious lack of explanatory punctuation, the stumbling gait?
I took the trouble to write this whole thing out as prose, then introduced the novelty of sensible meter. I will not print it out here, as there are glaring grammatical googlies...try it and repost. Look, we are all entitled to whimsical wanderings but if you post it here then expect boring requests for conformity...get it right then write it wrong. Don't write it wrong then expect others to right it
Best,
tectak

[abu nuwas]

It is an excellent picture or cameo of one of those little awkwardnesses which beset managers. S/he would probably prefer it to be one of the more usual irritations ''I'm pregnant'/ ''I have to go to the dentist/doctor/hospital''/ ''I am off on holiday on Monday -you remember, I booked it in January''/ ''I have got a job elsewhere''. Out of the blue, it is not easy to react, but it naturally does bring back a chain of such memories, of one's own.

I see Milo's point about the 'Foreigner with a familiar face' line (although it is a phrase, not a clause, subjugated or not). I took it as seeing someone who still looks the same, yet is somehow different, suffused with these sad feelings, ,but you may have intended it to mean a real foreigner, or, to describe the bereavement bit, which would be logical. I don't like deliberate obscurantism, or self-consciously laid down layers, but perhaps there is no harm in letting this telling phrase linger over the man, and the emotion.

I had the feeling that this was far from a 'paperless office'. When he reaches for the Manual which will liberate him from his fix, you have the impression that on its cover would be ''Personnel Manual'' but with the ''Personnel'' covered up with a sticker with ''H.R'' written on it.

[geoff]

thanks to all for a variety of fast and helpful responses!

tomoffing

-thanks for your time and kind words. I'll have a look at bumbling" for sure, as well as the line breaks.


Chris
-I'll take a look at the title; adjusting it could lessen some of that confusion you encountered initially. For now, I'm not sure if I want to reorder the lines in the first stanza to switch the "bereavement." I'll also examine the rhymes at the end to see if I want to adjust. Thanks so much for letting me know how you connected with the piece/ your interpretation

milo
-going to take some time to consider your points. The ones that I am aiming to tackle most involve line breaks, punctuation, and referencing. Thanks for your thorough feedback and time

jeremy
thanks for the kind words and for letting me know your interpretation! I found it all very helpful. I'll consider your "sanitize-sterilize" suggestion

tec
haha I knew the line breaks would get to you, and these are slightly longer in places that I prefer usually. I'll take a look, but if there are specific lines that got to you most, I'd like to know which. thank you for taking the time to read and respond

abu
you expressed a lot of my own thoughts when writing the piece and when reading others' feedback. I appreciate your words and time

[Truerenigma]

V. 2

Policy (thanks to tomoffing, milo, christopher, jeremy, tec, and abu)


When an employee asks about bereavement,

removing the splintered wedge from the door
and sitting before the computer stands by,

the radio puts down its saxophone for the news.

A family member has died.
She is hoping to travel back

a few days to settle the house and service.
When an employee asks about bereavement,
the foreigner with a familiar face,

the mind trickles down cobble stones
since paved over—to a church;
casket handles gnawing

grooves into a younger palm
that surrenders the shuttered shell
to the arms of a hearse—

before returning to the question.
When an employee asks about bereavement,
the first response is a breath of memory,

inhaled and quiet like a candle
spent after the shudder of a heater
within a waking house.

Then a manual is grabbed from a top shelf
and a distant page is found, already
sanitized and prepared to be shared.






_______________________________________________
V. 1

Bereavement Policy

When an employee asks about bereavement
removing the splintered wedge under the door
and sitting before the computer stands by

the radio puts down its saxophone for the news.
A family member has died. She is
hoping to travel back a few days

to settle the house and service.
When an employee asks about bereavement,
the foreigner with a familiar face,

it sends the mind bumbling down cobble stones
since paved over, to a church;
lifting a casket, handles gnawing

grooves into a younger palm,
surrendering the shuttered shell
to the arms of a hearse

before returning to the question.
When an employee asks about bereavement,
the first response is this breath of memory,

inhaled and quiet like a candle
spent after the hum of a heater is heard
again within a waking house.

Then a manual is grabbed from a top shelf
and a distant page is found, already
sterilized and prepared to be shared.

removing the splintered wedge from the door
and sitting before the computer stands by,

the radio puts down its saxophone for the news.

Did the radio remove the splintered wedge, etc? Or was it the employee?

Have you considered replacing your participle phrases throughout here with active verbs?

Best bit of crit in the world, ever.

I'm here to second it. You have a bit of a dangler. I find the majority of the poem to be enjoyable. The added dash is effective.

When an employee asks about bereavement,
the foreigner with a familiar face,

Something odd here. Is bereavement a foreigner with a familiar face? If so it is an interesting metaphor, but not quite fleshed out. It is a bit abstract, and foreigner with a familiar face offers no visible image. I'm also wondering if you meant the employee was the foreigner. You might want to take another look at the syntax.

[jeremyyoung]

I liked the original, I like the revisions, I like the poem.

The revisions tighten it. And give it a beautiful somber tone.