a young girl, limping edit #1

[just mercedes]

A young girl, limping


along the city street towards me
wobbles legs and ankles
like a new-born foal.
Her sandals'
inches-thick wooden soles
almost hobble her, so she takes
tiny steps and teeters
at the start of each one,
testing the surface.

Three men working
in a hole in the road
all look up at once,
gazes locked on her,
their web of wires ignored.

Her walk mimics a wounded animal,
has alerted some cortical reflex
in the predator brain.

Around her, men turn to stare
and they’re spiders, tensed to watch
while the butterfly with damp wings
struggles at the surface.


a young girl limps first draft
 
 
along the city street towards me
all legs and wobbly ankles, like a foal
new-born;
her sandals, with their inches-think soles
of clunky wood
almost hobble her, so her steps are tiny
and she teeters at the start of each one,
testing the surface
 
three men working in a hole in the road
all look up at once, all gazes locked
on her, their web of wires ignored
 
her walk mimics
a wounded animal, has alerted
some cortical reflex in the predator brain
 
all around me, men turn to stare
 
and they’re all spiders, tensed
to watch the butterfly with damp wings
struggle against the surface
 

[Brownlie]

a young girl limps
 

along the city street towards me
all legs and wobbly ankles, like a foal
new-born; -- There is a sort of linguistic inversion here, and I think a foal already implies that the animal is young.
her sandals, with their inches-think soles  -- Did you mean thick?
of clunky wood
almost hobble her, so her steps are tiny
and she teeters at the start of each one,
testing the surface
 
three men working in a hole in the road
all look up at once, all gazes locked
on her, their web of wires ignored
 
her walk mimics
a wounded animal, has alerted
some cortical reflex in the predator brain
 
all around me, men turn to stare
 
and they’re all spiders, tensed
to watch the butterfly with damp wings
struggle against the surface
 

I'm not sure about the contrasting images of butterflies and spiders. If she's newborn, wouldn't she be a caterpillar? However, butterfly vs. spider seems to paint ogres or Saracens against the holy damsel or Unas. If this is a real scene though, I think it's quite a thing to have witnessed and should be described.

[just mercedes]

Thanks - spelling mistake! A new-born foal is a gangly, clumsy beast. Within hours he can move properly - I wanted to stress the girl's new-born, and therefore not practiced, sexuality.

And yes, ogres indeed, primal responses.

[Keith]

The title threw me off this so it took a couple of reads for it to sink in, my first read was one of built up shoes and cerebral palsy and the human instinct to stare at something different, something struggling. My second read was one of a young girl in a tight skirt struggling in high heels and the human instinct to stare at the white flash of a bunnies tail. The caught butterfly in a spiders electrical web is a great image on the close.

A couple of points:-
Her sandals, with their inches-think soles...is a bit of a mouthful and needs some attention / shortening
the internal rhymes of tiny teeters testing are a lesson to us all.
Thanks Keith

[QDeathstar]

a young girl limps
 
 
along the city street towards me //i think that this line is a bit wordy. why along?
all legs and wobbly ankles, like a foal
new-born;
her sandals, with their inches-think soles
of clunky wood
almost hobble her, so her steps are tiny
and she teeters at the start of each one,
testing the surface
 
three men working in a hole in the road
all look up at once, all gazes locked // I didn't like the repetition of all in this line, or the word locked. Locked is kind of liked trapped which makes it seem like they are being tricked/trapped, but If they are the predators, that can't be.
on her, their web of wires ignored
 
her walk mimics
a wounded animal, has alerted
some cortical reflex in the predator brain. //I like how her hobbled walk looks like a wounded animal, easy prey. I can pretty much picture it. This is feminist garbage though, all men aren't predators.
 
all around me, men turn to stare
 
and they’re all spiders, tensed
to watch the butterfly with damp wings
struggle against the surface
 

The poem has some interesting imagery, but lacks punctuation and generalizes too much to be taken seriously.

[just mercedes]

Where is punctuation missing? And what generalization did you read in the poem, please?
Predators can be trapped by their imperatives, just as we all are.

Oh - the 'along' is in there for the meter as well as for repeated 'l' sounds.

[Erthona]

JM,

I give some examples here to illustrate what I mean, these are not suggestions about how this poem should be written, it just happens with this particular poem, it is the easiest way for me to critique the poem. You are of course perfectly able to ignore anything I say. I only wish to give you so alternate ideas. I think this is a very good idea, but I don't think you have brought it to fruition yet. Personally I would like it If you used capitals and periods to denote sentences, it makes it much easier to read and not doing so does not seem to benefit the poem in anyway, same with the large amount of white space. I saw where you were responding to someone about the meter which I find confusing. I see a few feet of iambic here and there, but nothing consistent. I noticed only one end rhyme, and no internal rhymes, although some could have gotten by me. The point is I am not treating this as a formal format, as meter not rhyme seem to play no part in moving the poem along.

On to the poem.

I think that the disembodied narrator perspective would be enough. When the "me" viewpoint is interjected it confuses the subject. As you only use it twice, it does little for the poem, and could easily be written out.

along the city street she walks
all legs and wobbly ankles, like a foal
new-born; (I would probably reverse the order to new-born foal, although new-born is probably redundant, as foal means within the first year, and generally implies recently born.)

"some cortical reflex in the predator brain

men turn to stare

and they’re all spiders"

If you insists on keeping the "me" in this maybe add some necessary verbs:

"along the city street coming towards me..." I'm all for terseness, but not at the sake of readability.

"inches-think soles" Do you mean "inches-thick"?

"almost hobble her" consider "nearly" instead of "almost".

Perhaps drop the first "and", seems to read smoother.

"so her steps are tiny;
she teeters at the start of each step,
testing the surface Does this line need to be here. What does it add to the poem. It does not really seem to extend the
of the sentence. It simply act as a dependent clause that has little to do with the sentence it is attached to.

"three men working in a hole in the road
all look up at once, all gazes locked
on her, their web of wires ignored"

possibly "they look up, gazes locked on her, their web of wires ignored."

I see how you are using web to dovetail with spiders at the end, very clever. I'm not quite sure you pull it off, but a clever idea.

"her walk mimics
a wounded animal, has alerted
some cortical reflex in the predator brain"

This appears to be an ungrammatical sentences? You can say "her walk has alerted", but not "mimics a wounded animal has alerted".

You could say, "her walk, which mimics a wounded animal has alerted..."

"some cortical reflex in the predator brain" --> "a cortical reflex in their predators' brain"

"all around me, men turn to stare" this seems almost redundant. I understand that it first was three men, and now it is more men, but I'm not really sure that, that is a worthwhile point to make.

and they’re all spiders, tensed
to watch the butterfly with damp wings
struggle against the surface" I think this could be rephrased in a better way to up the readability. It would help if one knew where your sentences are.

Just an example, not a suggestion:

...cortical reflex in their predators' brain,
spiders, staring, tense,watching this butterfly
with damp wings struggle against the uneven surface.






Well that's my two cents,

Dale

[tectak]

a young girl limps
 
 
along the city street towards me
all legs and wobbly ankles, like a foal
new-born;
her sandals, with their inches-think soles
of clunky wood
almost hobble her, so her steps are tiny
and she teeters at the start of each one,
testing the surface
 
three men working in a hole in the road
all look up at once, all gazes locked
on her, their web of wires ignored
 
her walk mimics
a wounded animal, has alerted
some cortical reflex in the predator brain
 
all around me, men turn to stare
 
and they’re all spiders, tensed
to watch the butterfly with damp wings
struggle against the surface
 

Hi merc,
everything that can be said has been...but though mentioned a couple of times I think you should take credit for concept if not for execution.
How many times is the same advice given....read your own work OUT LOUD, or better still, ask someone else to do so...and LISTEN.
Punctuation by pensive pursuit only works for the writer....line breaks and gappy stanzas and missing periods leave the reader flailing about for meaning because unknown rules are no rules at all.
Consider:

her walk mimics
a wounded animal, has alerted
some cortical reflex in the predator brain

Just read it....out loud. Where the hell do I pause at close of clause? What "has alerted some..."? Why does a mouse when it spins? If you had just read it through you would immediately see/hear:

"Her walk, mimicking a wounded animal,
has alerted some cortical reflex in the predator's brain."

OK. Some may argue physiology/ psychology but we are talking GRAMMAR here. This is Serious Workshopping. You, yes you, are supposed to put in the squiggly marks, check syntax, apostrophes....dare I say it, spelling for Pete's sake. Think-soled shoes indeed....but you know all this. Does that make it better or worse?
I love the concept, the cameo observations and even your peregrinations into relatively esoteric territory....but without loading the barrow too much, you would find it easier to carry off the load if you structured it and tied it up with more care.
That is all....and a very Merry Christmas,
Best,
tectak

---

Where is punctuation missing? And what generalization did you read in the poem, please?
Predators can be trapped by their imperatives, just as we all are.

Oh - the 'along' is in there for the meter as well as for repeated 'l' sounds.

I cannot, in my wildest and most atavistic moments, imagine what it is like being trapped by my "imperatives"
What DO you mean? I really want to know!
Best,
tectak

[Leah S.]

Excellent!
Quibbles only....

I don't like "limps" in the title, she's not injured as the word implies. Break out the thesaurus.

Typo alert, somebody else caught it. The image of "inches-thick" is arresting, but the way the line scans, or the rhythm, or something (!) is difficult. As a single example, I don't like it, but I had a thought that you might be able to use it to imitate the rhythm of her walk in the actual scansion of the poem. You'd have to add a lot more awkward rhythms, and I'm not at all sure that it would improve the poem. It's a thought though.

Too many "all"s in the second stanza.

Consider changing the comma after "animal" to a colon or semi colon.

How about "all around her" instead of "all around me"? You have already placed yourself as present in the scene.

The "cortical reflex" is just perfect.

[just mercedes]

Thank you all - some I used, some I didn't - and I'll keep gnawing away at it.

[QDeathstar]

Where is punctuation missing?

start with the first letter of the poem not being capitalized[/b]

And what generalization did you read in the poem, please?

you might not have seen my line edits, because I didn't bold them, but the generalization in the poem is that all men are predators, at least that's the gist the poem leaves as it sits.

Predators can be trapped by their imperatives, just as we all are.

if that is what you meant then OK, but it doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the poem to me...

[just mercedes]

Where is punctuation missing?

start with the first letter of the poem not being capitalized[/b] The title is also the first line of the poem, it runs on.

And what generalization did you read in the poem, please?

you might not have seen my line edits, because I didn't bold them, but the generalization in the poem is that all men are predators, at least that's the gist the poem leaves as it sits. Not that all men are predators, but that all react to signals from the unconscious brain.

Predators can be trapped by their imperatives, just as we all are.

if that is what you meant then OK, but it doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the poem to me...

Thanks for your read and comments.

[QDeathstar]

yeah, the edit fixes the problem with the punctuation. But in the original version that wasn't clear.
If your entent wasn't to label all men as predators, then I suggested editing this part:

A young girl, limping
Three men working
...
all look up at once,
gazes locked on her,
....alerted some cortical reflex
in the predator brain.
Around her, men turn to stare
 

Based on that, It sounds like you are saying all men are predators.

All the men in the hole glared at her. Men all around stared at her. They acted like spiders to prey gawking at the young girl. She activated a "cortical reflex" in their "predator brains."


I mean, thats how I read it.

[just mercedes]

You said "All the men in the hole glared at her." but I didn't write "glare" - that's something you've supplied. I'm sorry you're uncomfortable with the idea that your body is activated by unconscious patterns. You wouldn't be human if it wasn't, though.

So it's the content of the poem, not the form of it, that bothers you?

[QDeathstar]

You said "All the men in the hole glared at her." but I didn't write "glare" - that's something you've supplied. I'm sorry you're uncomfortable with the idea that your body is activated by unconscious patterns. You wouldn't be human if it wasn't, though.
So it's the content of the poem, not the form of it, that bothers you?

explain the significant difference between gazes locked and glaring. I am not uncomfortable. I don't know if it is the content or the form.
if you mean that all men are predators, then it's the content
if you don't mean that, then it's the form.
it's up to you.

[tectak]

You said "All the men in the hole glared at her." but I didn't write "glare" - that's something you've supplied. I'm sorry you're uncomfortable with the idea that your body is activated by unconscious patterns. You wouldn't be human if it wasn't, though.
So it's the content of the poem, not the form of it, that bothers you?

explain the significant difference between gazes locked and glaring. I am not uncomfortable. I don't know if it is the content or the form.
if you mean that all men are predators, then it's the content
if you don't mean that, then it's the form.
it's up to you.

Play nicely, folks....it is Christmas, after all. This exchange is getting personal and it makes ME uncomfortable.
Mod

[QDeathstar]

I didn't intend for it to be personal.

[just mercedes]

I certainly didn't take this to be personal - I am interested in what the poem does to people.

[tectak]

I certainly didn't take this to be personal - I am interested in what the poem does to people.

Oh well. I guess it must just be sensitive 'ol me!

[just mercedes]

Sorry it upset you - Merry Christmas! I hope you have a great one.