[New-Poetry] from the Writer's Almanac

[Anny Ballardini]

Must apologize, I had to read her autobiography. Then yes, there are lesbian tones and the ending within this context has a different meaning. In my ignorance "cracked" referred to the body after a day you have been working in the fields or doing some heavy labor. 
  From: jforjames at aol.com 
  Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2008 2:30 AM


  The first part of the poem doesn't do much for me, until the tree frogs (likely Hyla, Frost has
  a poem on this Springtime noise, I first noticed since becoming a New Englander, though 
  may be its Midwestern feature too. I don't know that it's shrill or sweet but its definitely a sound
  that makes itself known just as spring sets in.). 

  The last four lines have lesbian and Dickinson undertones which redeem the slightness
  of it for me...

  And we lie on our beds
  Through the ecstatic night,
  Wide awake, cracked open.

  There will be no going back.
  --
  Finnegan

  -----Original Message-----
  From: Anny Ballardini <anny.ballardini at tin.it>
  Sent: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 5:02 pm
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] from the Writer's Almanac


  It's my turn Bob (never trust a woman _they just gave on Beethoven.com: La donna e' mobile):
  I like that line, all the s swinging through,

  what I did not particularly like and would have left out is the very last line, 

  cold, brown, twigs, dirty snow, dark flows, cracked open

  are already over the top in describing what she tries to summarize in the last line.

    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Bob Grumman 
    To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp;Views 
    Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2008 11:49 PM
    Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] from the Writer's Almanac




    Anny Ballardini wrote: 
      Poem: "April in Maine" by May Sarton, from Collected Poems: 1930-1993. © W.W. Norton & Company, 1992. Reprinted with permission. (buy now) 

      April in Maine 

      The days are cold and brown,
      Brown fields, no sign of green,
      Brown twigs, not even swelling,
      And dirty snow in the woods.

      But as the dark flows in
      The tree frogs begin
      Their shrill sweet singing,
      And we lie on our beds
      Through the ecstatic night,
      Wide awake, cracked open.

      There will be no going back.


    Nice poem, Anny.  I say that only because I've already gotten my daily disagreement with you out of the way.  I wonder, though, if anyone would agree with me that "Their shrill sweet singing" could have been dropped to the benefit of the poem.  It seems superfluous, and I personally don't like the near-rhyme of the instances of "ing" with "in."

    --Bob G.


       
      Anny Ballardini
      http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
      http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
      http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
      I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing star! 

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