Hallsands

A found poem

 

Darkness came early to Hallsands that afternoon

The war raging in Europe -

The pending storm blew down

the Channel, a rare, strong, easterly wind.

 

The tide exceptionally high

fierce onshore winds,

the sea surging over the pebble ridge

crashing across a wall into the houses,

smashing through windows

bursting open doors,

flooding the ground floors

enveloping them in cold swirling water.

 

By midnight four houses had gone.
From the cliff tops above, inhabitants watched.

Even the dawn was not to relieve their anguish,

the following day brought another high tide,

houses were felled one by one by the pounding waves.

At the day's end only one house was left standing.

The devastation was complete.

 

All to build Devonport Dockyards.

The story of Hallsands

Is a tale of greed, deception and slow death.

 

Today Hallsands lies largely under the waves.
A new village built higher up the cliff face,

overlooks the shells of a few houses,

the ruin of the chapel

which perches on the edge of the cliff top.

A sad testament to man interfering with nature.

Author's Note

Found poetry is poetry created by taking words, phrases, whole passages from other sources and reframing them as poetry by making changes. Coast is a BBC Documentary programme. I want this extract to sound as poetic as possible. This actually homework for a writing group I belong to. Are there too manhy "ofs"?

Reviews

[Siddhartha]

Oh, I haven't watched that show but this was a great write.'Ofs', blend nicely into this piece and thus remain inconspicuous.Really nothing wrong at all with this piece. A sad and haunting piece about mankind's transgressions.Good luck with the writing group too. How I wish we had one here as well..

[emmajoy]

A fine concept in twisting long pieces of prose into poetic form: making music out of notes. Not only have you carried out an exercise, you've created mind pictures in a very empathic way .. especially at the end. Needless to say this sort of happening has occured in far too many places and yes, with greed, deception and inevitable slow death.

[Aidz]

Kewl write.. I have watched that show here in Oz :)