One More Sonnet

Tag: writing

  • SummerNats

    SummerNats

    Each year they arrive in seasonal swarms;
    they work in car-size packs of four or five;
    one driver, one chick and his social norms:
    Lead-foot Larry, Sheila, Kevin and Clive.
    They stand over engines, argue the make;
    they ogle the curves with reference to style;
    they kick the rubber and burn-out the brake;
    allude to perfection with a wry smile!
    It’s a rev-heads pilgrimage – SummerNats.
    It’s a week away with the girls at home.
    A petrol-fuelled assemblage of cool cats.
    A homage to fresh ‘tats’ and polished chrome.
    . Driven by the piston, the muffler’s grunt!
    . It’s all about horsepower, and what’s up front!

    © Tim Grace, 8 January 2012

    To the reader: Culture’s a construction built upon common codes of practice. So, once again, I’m drawn to write about people and events in time and place. In this case, the annual gathering of motor enthusiasts (rev-heads). The Summer Nationals (SummerNats) are an Australian celebration of the car at its ultimate best; it’s all about performance – and with that comes theatre. The car, the driver and the entourage are all on display – and don’t they love it!

    To the poet: A small and dense narrative, unfamiliar to a reader, needs a strong and sequential thread. This sonnet reads like a list of snap-shots; each line transitioning to the next with a quick dissolve. As a series of frames the story develops – one line at a time – each line being responsible for explaining and expanding upon those that surround it. In keeping with the style, it was important to have a final couplet that summer-ized the plot.

    summernats SummerNats
    Picture Source: http://youtu.be/Oyy8zEOMfP4

     

     

  • Fine Lines

    Fine Lines

    By the end of childhood I learned to draw
    fine lines (with keen eyes and measured skill).
    I learned to draw what mattered; to ignore
    the distractions (there were no marks for frill).
    How to overcome the errors of sight?
    How to foreshorten an odd perspective?
    These were the problems you had to get right:
    minimal tolerance for technical give.
    All things became parallel, rightly squared;
    they had to marry-well to plot or grid;
    they had to tally-well or be repaired;
    they had to mirror what the real world did.
    . After childhood there are no wonky lines;
    . they neatly straighten and become designs.

    © Tim Grace, 6 January 2012

    To the reader: At school I enjoyed technical drawing classes, they appealed to my style of measured sketch; where objects take shape according to long-held principles of linear geometry. Tools of the trade were important and taking care of them was critical to achieving a clean result. Of all the lessons I learned at school it was through technical drawing I best understood myself. I freely gave away my naive interpretation of the visual world and adopted rules that enabled me to draw what I see.

    To the poet: Between naivety and mastery lies frustration. It’s unfortunate that we abandon our fresh expression of life through naive art… but understandable. Expression, in all its forms, is a social tool that evolves to meet expanding needs. The licence to communicate has rules that can be stretched and personalised but ultimately an audience will accept or reject the value of art. Selecting an appreciative audience is one solution… avoid criticism; create your own applause.

     

    fine lines
    fine lines
  • Pallet of Paint

    Pallet of Paint

    A child’s painting is made without restraint:
    it’s vivid and vibrant, it’s bold and bright.
    A child’s canvas holds a pallet of paint:
    a bucket of brilliance and sheer delight.
    She paints a garden under sunny skies;
    dabbles the brush over petal and stem.
    She gently strokes the wings of butterflies;
    and so imagines she is one of them.
    She paints her world on a borderless page;
    with abundance her landscapes grow and stretch;
    colours explode, shapes expand; there’s no cage
    that can contain the wonders of her sketch.
    . In a child’s garden there’s room for belief,
    . a world of wonders for adult relief.

    © Tim Grace, 5 January 2012

    To the reader: We out-teach the artistic instinct in children and then hanker for its return throughout our adult years. A child’s interpretation of the world is a fairly spontaneous imitation of experience; translated using naive means. The young artist (untrained in tricks and tools of the perceptive trade) makes-do. Without mastery, a child is free of restrictions; free to draw upon raw imagination. This medium has no separation; this medium is the closest we get to living art.

    To the poet: The irony of this sonnet is its tight control over the thematic centrepiece – naive liberty. It’s an adult’s carefully scripted celebration of a child’s artistic freedom. Unfortunately, there’s a trade-off that comes with age and mastery: skill becomes an interpretative filter. The more skilled I become the more capable I am of manipulating my experiences; consequently, inspiration is overwhelmed by technique. The redeeming feature is freshness … did inspiration survive the productive ordeal?

     

    Pallet of Paint – Picture Source: http://youtu.be/RfOOAUiKFew

     

     

     

     

  • Love and Art

    Love and Art

    It’s all about connecting the connections.
    It’s making sense of senses; aligning
    touch to a feeling, heart with affections.
    It’s the dance of life; all things combining.
    It’s rhythms giving meaning to a twist.
    It’s the whisper appealing to a wish.
    It’s the invitation too tempting to resist.
    It’s the meal shared, prepared as though a dish.
    It’s all about the partnership of play,
    making time to pay attention, closing
    doors, opening minds, as moments melt away;
    it’s harmony: love and art composing.
    . The art of love is appreciation.
    . The love of art is its imitation.

    © Tim Grace, 3 January 2012

    To the reader: Love is an artful relationship. By mutual agreement love reveals its simple beauty. Interpretation of love is a critique of responsiveness. Shakespeare’s measure was “fair, kind and true” (s105). The mutual creation of love is organic; full of context and meaning – adding pleasure to mere survival and existence. We fall in love to fully appreciate the art of life; to make life an art.

    To the poet: Sometimes we write of love as a subject, about which characters and events revolve and intermingle. Other times, we write of love as an object, about which we describe its parts and possibilities. The ‘art of love and love of art’ is a neat palindromic phrase that finds itself interpreted in the final couplet of this sonnet… art for art sake, love for love sake; together bound.

     

    love & art
    love & art:
    picture source: http://youtu.be/KbmHMCA4lNI

     

  • Happy New Year

    Happy New Year

    Standing on the other side of last year.
    I’m yet to move, or even lightly tread
    upon the surface of a new frontier;
    I’m yet to commit to the days ahead.
    I’m debating the size of the first stride,
    contemplating its gravity, its weight
    and direction. I am yet to decide
    upon its meaning – and there’s the debate;
    there’s the question, that has me standing still:
    am I to leap forward without reserve,
    throw caution to the wind, let milk spill,
    and in its flow, let go this timid nerve?
    . The first step is steeped with expectation,
    . bound to itself – gripped with hesitation.

    © Tim Grace, 1 January 2012

    To the reader: Happy New Year – reassurance really – in the face of hesitant acceptance. We charge our glasses, count down the seconds and gaze skyward; fireworks outshine the brightest constellations – a new year is born! As decreed, it’s with resolve we all step forth, each with our own bundle of wishes and aspirations for the coming year. But old habits die hard… too soon this fresh stride becomes last year’s steady gait; and the stroll through life continues its wanderous way!

    To the poet: Playing with words is the joy of poetry. Interlocking syntax and semantics. Wrestling word against word, phrase against phrase until a truesful fit is found; one surrenders its meaning the other its virtue; tension and abeyance ever present. The fight can be brutal (not brittle) always honest; best of all bloody and bruising. A good poem reflects the good fight; nothing comes easy so it’s best we enjoy the struggle.

     

    happy new year
    http://youtu.be/ayA95XsbJeU

    Photo Source: http://youtu.be/ayA95XsbJeU

     

  • Steady State

    Steady State

    As weeks become months, so months become years;
    and so it is that all things become one.
    It’s why things merge as distinction nears,
    It’s why things flow and with rivers run.
    Between two points we imagine spaces,
    and yet between two trees a forest grows.
    We invent voids between distant places;
    recognise columns, but ignore the rows.
    For convenience sake we subdivide
    the river of life into segments small,
    then wonder why the stream cannot provide
    baskets of abundance; plenty for all.
    . current – a ready date, that’s here and now.
    . current – a steady rate, an endless vow.

    Tim Grace, 31 December 2011

    To the reader: Systems within systems. A constant stream of energy feeding the fire from within. The onward flow is effortless. The complete constancy of life is the travellers joy; being at one with the journey is the real destination. Too much concentration on the stop-start details and we become distracted; events become activities; life becomes staccato: “signifies a note of shortened duration, separated from the note that may follow by silence”.

    To the poet: The flow of any poem is important; all the more so if your poem is about flow itself. In writing a poem, the internal voice is constantly providing feedback on the inner and outer workings of a script. Most of my sonnets develop over a few days of working. In that time, the lines are re-read hundreds of times until I’m happy with every element of connective tissue. To some extent, through rehearsal and revision, my spontaneity is contrived.

     

    steady state
    steady state