Wind Music

An Englishman dares to write about Bluegrass - but he loves it and it started here - or did it?

 

WIND MUSIC

 

 

I sit in a room at the sea's edge,

      hear a forming wave

          three thousand miles away

               Raised by a wind whose Appalachian beginnings

                     flying unhindered, over the eastern shore

                            break on an Irish beach

                                    beneath my cottage window.

 

My three thousand mile wave

       carries the sound

              of an American owl,

                   a coyote’s cry,

                          travelling with whispers

                                of banjo, guitar, fiddle and bass,’

                                      as an idiot genius in a mountain man hide

      sends Appalachian music

                                                 over an ocean,

                  back to its Hibernian origins

 

The distant wind,

      hums through taut wire strings,

              plucks the sea

                     To becomes a wave

                             Plucking pebbles

                                    At the end of a long, long, musical ride.

 

John L Berry   2002, re-edited 29 June 2008.

 

Author's Note

No doubt I have some of this wrong - tell me please. All helpful criticism welcome

Reviews

[Emily Elizabeth]

I can't see anything wrong with this! Such a simple idea and yet you've transported it to a whole new level. Your love for live shows in your poems, and inspires others to seek out the same picturesque vision that you write about.
I like how you've matched one of the themes to the style of poem- it almost seems like a song! This is a fantastic poem, one that really lets the reader live vicariously in one of your memories, and takes them out of the situation and into yours. You know how to use language effectively, and you're poems are beautiful homages to the things you love.

[Brette Medb]

Music is something usually hard to write about because unlike writing it involves all of the senses or at least invokes the mind to conjure so many emotions and feelings all at once and it is often hard to capture its essence but the way you did this was great. It had history, folklore, music and feeling. I'm not sure if the history or anything is accurate but this piece is wonderful either way. Great write.

Brette

[Emily Rose]

You use your words skillfully and with great care, the mark of a true poet. I believe you capture bluegrass quite well in only a few lines, and I'm impressed and intrigued by the form that you use - it really helps emphasize the words and it strengthens the "wave" metaphor.

As far as criticism I can come up with little. Only that I think the "to becomes" should be "to become" and the personal preference that a period should be added after the word "origins." Also, you may want to pick a different word than "plucking" in the phrase "plucking pebbles," as you just use the same word two lines before in the phrase "plucks the sea."

I would critique this more thoroughly, but I honestly can't find anything that demands change. Well done!