#AusReadingMonth2020 Penelope Layland (poet)
- Title: Things I Thought To Tell You Since I Saw You Last
- Author: Penelope Layland
- Genre: poetry
- Published: 2018
- List of Challenges 2020
- Monthly reading plan
- Bingo card: ACT
- #AusReadingMonth2020 @Bronasbooks
- #AWW2020 @AustralianWomenWriters
- Trivia: Winner 2019 ACT Book of the Year
- Trivia: 2019 Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry – shortlist
- NOTE: After having read all the poems
- I finally discovered the impact of the title.
- Ms Layland’s skill in exploring mourning, grief and loss is captured in the
- Things I Thought To Tell You Since I Saw You Last
- #Bravo to a great poet!
Introduction:
- This book contains 64 short poems…very readable!
- The poet gives us poems dealing with:
- quizzing memory
- understanding the concept of time
- deep human connections
- exploring mourning and loss
Future anterior – very good, cleverly done!
- I start by investigating the title…future anterior.
- …an action/event that will be completed ind the future.
- Ms Layland cleverly writes a poem about trees
- …mentioning the Huon (Pine)
- If you read about the tree that only is found in Tasmania
- before you read the poem you will discover
- the poet’s skill jusing the Huon as as an example of ‘future anterior’!
- Huon Pine….the oldest tree in the world!
In Miss Havisham’s Garden – …description of garden after owner is gone…
Calendar
- Very good!
- things that must be done after death of loved one,
- poem will linger in my mind.
A modern offer
- I found this a strange title. What does ‘modern’ mean?
- occuring in the present
- recently developed style
- characteristic to the present-day
- ahead of its times
- This was a difficult poem to understand.
- The poet speaks of a ‘harp-and-cord version’
- …then compares it to a ‘contemporary rendering’ (version)
- Words like corporeality, merging of essences, eternal life
- …made me think Ms Layland was making a case to accept a
- ‘Modern offer’ (cremation) instead of a burial death (….harp-and-cord version).
- I would love to hear if somebody had any thoughts on this poem
- …it was a hard nut to crack!
Rising of the Lights (London 1665)
- It took time to figure out the layout…
- …poem is just an summation of dreaded historic diseases.
- Depressing….not lyrical content at all!
- Now, what happened in London in 1665?
- The Great Plague, lasting from 1665 to 1666,
- was the last major epidemic of the bubonic plague to occur in England.
- Structure: shape and visual rhythm is the first thing I noticed.
- Title: The disease “Rising of the Lights” was a standard entry on
- bills of mortality in the 17th century.
- Lights is an old name for lungs.
- The poem is 6 stanzas with 1 or 4 word sentences.
- This has a staccato effect to impress on the reader
- a list of diseases that competed with the Bubonic Plague!
Aubade
- Aubade, a poem or song evoking the daybreak, greeting the dawn.
- This is a 10 lines poem that radiates beauty!
- Dawn ” thread of incadescence”
- …that “ruptures into morning”.
- I watch with a ‘indrawn breath’.
- This is exactly what happened when
- I watched many sunrises this summer during a pandemic lockdown!!
- Leeuwarden, The Netherlands, July 02 2020
Several more poems….quickscan:
- Irregular – average...poem of 10 lines….no impact on me
- One Tree Hill – average...poem of 13 lines….no impact on me
- By Request – average...poem of 12 lines….refers to flowers at a funeral, prefer poppies.
- Breath – Relief – stunning…..poem of loss and how a breath, sigh, relief can alleviate the grief.
- Pearl – Ms Layland says it is NOT love poem, but I disagree. Absolutely beautiful….
- Cowries – ….the sea shells of New South Wales. Description of shell: “an almond unzipped”.
Cold zeal (strong feeling of eagerness)
- This is a poem about aging.
- We read “eyesight fails“
- ….the “compass of the immediate world shrinks.”
- Ms Lalyland with her power of observation
- ….reminds us of the beauty that is there to see:
- — ice etchings on a fence
- — oily swirl on a river’s current
- — brief looks of interest from strangers
- — complexities of mist.
- This is one of the poems that will linger in my mind, exquisite.
Last Thoughts:
- Poems of loss, grief just go straight through my heart.
- pg 21 “Pre-Ceremonial“, pg 24 “This Loss….
- Grief never leaves you…it alters you.
- Ms Layland has given me some excellent poems to read
- and expresses her grief and mourning in very short 1-page poems.
- How does she compress so much emotion in 10 – 20 lines?
- Yet, these poems do not leave you downtrodden
- …but strangely lift one’s spirits up.
- Grief is part of life.
- I cannot discover is she has lost a husband, child or parents
- …but no one can write about loss and grief as she does
- …without out experiencing it.
- Please, if you never read poetry
- …give this 68 page book a chance.
- It will alter you.
- With poetry…..you don’t have to go through a windshield to
- ...realize that life is precious.
- Poetry keeps tapping you on the shoulder with that same message.
- #MustRead….and #MustRe-Read
5 Comments
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How beautiful! Thank you for highlighting a new-to-me poet.
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I remembered you were interested how authors processed grief…
…well, this Ms Layland just knocked my socks off. Emotions bubble up….I could not stop them.
That is the true sign of a great poet.
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