"fountain" named Poem of the Week

"fountain" which first appeared in wordcurrents on March 16, and was redrafted and posted on April 12 in a new version in WILD Poetry Forum, has been selected as Poem of the Week for the week of April 14 in Wild. The version of the text posted in Wild is different, and appears below. Here follows the text of the proclamation at Wild, posted yesterday.

Please join the administration, staff, members, and guests of WPF in congratulating Douglas Hill on the selection of his poem "fountain" as Poem of the Week. You may follow this link to the Hall of Fame to familiarize yourself with Douglas' work. What most appealed to us about Douglas' poem is his very unusual choice of subject matter and the fine craftsmanship of this poem. Douglas gives us many strong images to visualize and with this poem, proves that any subject matter can be poetic in the right hands. The final line is both touching and evocative. Thanks for sharing this one here with us Douglas. We appreciate the chance to recognize such an excellent poem.

Our Honorable Mentions have quite a variety of subject matter to offer you as well. In no particular order, they are:

"Monarchs" by Sarah Sloat
"A Dear John Letter to Zeus from Hera" by Brenda Morisse
"Restless" by Laura Ring
"Horse in the Yard " by M. Kathryn Black

What an excellent line-up of talented authors and we count ourselves very lucky to have their work gracing our forum. Our thanks to all of them and all of you!

Fountain

I spiral down the spit-fountain
in my father’s dental boutique:
stare into the circular drain,
spitting, hoping it is almost over,
his gentle hands wielding mysteries
of pain and precision and finally relief.

Now, leaning back in a hard barbershop chair,
I wonder if the same company made
both scrolled fantasies of wrought iron
and black leatherette—a place to fix
your hair your teeth your smile.

The mortar sang a soft tuneless rhythm as he
deftly urged it against the pestle, mixing
the silver-mercury amalgam I would years later
pay to have replaced by less poisonous acrylic, then
we would share a moment of bonding closer
more intimate than anything else in our lives:
his soft warm fingers in my mouth.

My niche of the St. Lawrence River

Some nostalgia for better weather: here are some photos from October, taken the day we closed our cottage. I found them stored as a draft in my Blogger account, so: better late than never. I notice that my camera's optical sensor needs cleaning. Anyway, these sunny shots show our dock up on shore, and views around the island as we left. The white thing in the view of the shoreline is a crash wave roaring by the beach. It was caused by a passing freighter, as usual breaking the speed limit during the off-season. These waves cause serious shoreline erosion, but nobody really polices this issue. Another example of a wonderful resource being damaged in an atmosphere of apathy. Getting grim; better stop.

Blue

This trip inspired "Blue"; as you can see, there is a lot of blue in the photo.



This is a view downstream (towards the north-east) at the head of Lake St. Francis in the St.Lawrence Seaway. To starboard is one of the green winter stick-buoys marking the south (Quebec) side of the channel. What a beautiful day this was. All of the land masses visible in this shot are islands. Below is an enlargement of the horizon, showing the little floating islands that really seem to inhabit a never-land between earth and sky.

Wet snow

Here is the photo of one of the scenes that inspired "Wet snow", the little poem that I just published in wordcurrents. We were driving home from an afternoon with friends, playing bridge, when the rain turned to snow. Back home, I took this photo with flash off the deck in our back yard. You can see the snow on the horizontal leaves. There is a fragility to this delicate scene; you can see why trees with leaves have to be deciduous in our climate.

About "Four percent"

"Four percent" is a screed and a sort of a poem that I published yesterday in wordcurrents. As I was writing it, I was thinking of the Star Trek the Next Generation episode in which the Enterprise crew captures a warrior who has been genetically modified into the perfect fighting machine; and after he and his brethern have won the war for his civilization, they are exiled to a moon. They are only dangerous when threatened. Like so many SNG plots, this one is related to actual human archtypes, in this case, the psychopath, whom research has shown was necessary for human survival in more primitive times (and, I would argue, today and tomorrow), but is unacceptable in present "civilized" society. I suppose John Rambo is another example, or just about any lost veteran who can't fit in after the fighting is over.

I see "Four percent" as a template for some future poems that are more like poetry, because I think there is a lot of pathos and therefore poetic subject matter in such a subject. The psychopath has several characteristics of the tragic figure: alienation, isolation, a tragic flaw — all built in.

Another current literary example of the interesting psychopath is the main character in HBO's new series on the Movie Network: Dexter. This is CSI is Jack the Ripper is Sherlock Holmes *shudder*. Here is a serial killer who works to solve crimes by day and secretly hunts down and kills serial killers by night. The interesting twist on this is that Dexter himself is being stalked. It would be even more interesting if the stalker were his sister, an apparently not-so-smart police woman he helps progress through the ranks by giving her clues that make her appear smarter than she is.

Swamped

The CBC Literary Awards deadline is November 1. I have just realized, upon reading the rules, that I cannot submit any of the 260+ poems I have published so far this year in wordcurrrents, nor any of the other poems I have published in the three poetry forums I post in.

Interesting limitation; interesting complication. Fortunately, I still have time to work on my entry of 1,000 - 2,000 words of verse. But, in the meantime, I am trying to learn the music for our concert November 18, and work on the playscript. If I still had a job, I would probably have time to do this; but since I am retired, it is quite hopeless. Now we know what a job is for: to protect one from the demands on free time.

I had better get going on writing todays' poem for wordcurrents; I haven't even decided yet what it will be. I drove the boat down river to the marina for winter storage today. Beautiful bright calm day for a ten kilometre trek by boat. Maybe I'll write about that.