TMA03 Commentary

The subject of this poem came from a notebook entry under ‘short story ideas’ which included an old memory about going on a terrifying ‘first date, at Taunton’s Market Square. I thought the ‘story idea’ would convert neatly into a poem believing it could be refined to focus on emotion, mood and reflection and would work well with the brevity of poetry. I’d read Hardy’s poem The Convergence of the Twain about the Titanic/iceberg and their (arguable) inevitable meeting and added the quote to my notebook after Workbook Activity 12.6. I wanted to develop this predestination theme to describe a ‘collision’ between a clock and me, (see epigraph), as this also had unfortunate consequences due to misreading the time with that ‘glance.’

Having read the Workbook activity about photographs and how they inspire ideas, I remembered some old table placemats depicting the Market House in various historical settings. I thought these images good sources to show back-story and ‘life’ to the clock and could link with the contemporary, slightly scruffy 70’s town, with its late buses and gruff bus conductors also providing opportunities for show over tell. I wanted the poem to begin with a breathless, incantatory, inner voice to convey the poet’s anxiety and the late bus not helping. Then a staccato, jittery rhythm in S2 to reflect the poet’s frazzled nerves. I drew inspiration from Auden’s Night Mail and Belloc’s Tarantella as both emulate the rhythm of events through language, punctuation and line. I used alliteration to help show mood and internal rhyme to bring in sounds, particularly some recurrent initial letters and language and line breaks in S4 to show the tense poet’s steps as they synched harmoniously with the clock’s imagined ticking.

The first draft was sketched out in free verse block as I thought too much metrical discipline would inhibit the richness of the ideas and language. Later I included a sprinkling of local dialect to add originality, (see glossary). I wanted to be free to introduce rhythmic changes to reflect some of the action: inner voice anxiety S1, nervous feeling of S2, the fidgety anxiety of S3, halting and striding, S4, and the slower reflective tones of S5 -S6. I structured it into broadly even stanzas to break the poem into story-like chapters and aimed at rhythmic flow whilst eschewing a rhyme-scheme which I thought might appear too jaunty.

After listening to Douglas Dunn’s critical comments about free verse on CD2 I tried to reverse the poem into iambic pentameter to demonstrate competence in the form, but thought too many of the lines looked ‘forced’ rather than natural. I wrote several lines in iambic pentameter based on Herbert’s ‘I think I’d rather like a cup of tea,’ which I’d pasted above the draft as reference; but this poem didn’t work well with iambic metrical feet given the language and the effect I wanted.

Finally having read the tutor recommended compilation volume ‘Saving Lives’ and noting the positive feedback between tutor and students during poetry tutorials, I felt more confident about free verse as both the book and the tutorials showed how versatile and effective freer verse can be. I tried to ensure however that despite the poem being in free verse the 10 syllable lines helped tighten its feel whilst not inhibiting its freedom. (550 words)