Thank you for your kind review. I love the old style of writing very much, I adore the likes of Ted Hughes and Elizabeth Barrett Browning and these people have influenced my writing in many ways. I sat one day looking at the competition rules which stated I had to write a poem of any length about the garden. I recalled a day out at the local mansion house where there was a wedding going on that day and simply wanted to convey the wedding through the flowers and trees. I chopped and changed many things about it and eventually came up with a piece that reflected what I wanted to say. I am an old fashioned english girl at heart and so I thought that it also reflected my love of the countryside. I am so pleased that you liked the style and wanted to know more.
Poetry / Summer at the mansion house
Smart hats
Adorn slender stems
Of ladies dancing
To the grasshoppers tune
Elderly gents stoop
And tip their hats
Toward each other
Their shadows shaking hands
Wildflowers sway
Like petticoats
Billowing from washing lines
Of twine and twig
Lady lavender hovers
Over rickety wooden fences
Spreading her scent
Like Gossip on the breeze
© 2006 Shelley Phillips all rights reserved
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It’s alright. The imagery is superb! It just isn’t the kind of poem that piques my interest…So don’t go thinking your poem was a total flub simply because I don’t like it much. The funny thing is, I love nature, and this is a wonderful tribute to her. Like I mentioned, I’m just not caught in by it. How did it do in the contest?
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The has a good use of imagery, It seems so familiar, Like I have been these words. I fell like I have lived this in a different time. Written upon a scented parchment and quill pen. The same thoughts. I would like to no more about this poem and how you came to write it. Very well done.
Very descriptive. I liked a lot of the words you chose to describe things, such as “rickety” describing wooden fences and “billowing” from washing lines. Very creative and original word choice and I think that made this poem yours and not someone elses. Good work, keep it up.
I think this is lovely. Your visuals are great, and I think the personification of the plants works really well. Also, I like that you don’t rely on rhymes or cliched images, as garden/nature poetry often does; it really sets this poem apart from many other on the same subject. Great work. May just have to favorite this. :)
October 28, 2006
Deleted User
I. GOT. CHILLS becasue of the fact that it was so well done. Literally not enough adjectives in my brain to describe how much I liked this.
Even if you had excluded the title, your “smart” and amazingly appropriate word use sets the tone and scene via crystal clear imagery. I mean, “smart hats ADORN slender stems…” for the high class females…
Even “grasshoppers tune” shows time of day, color, brightness…
Gents…tip their hats…shaking hands (not them but their shadows)...I could go on…and on and on.
BRA-VO!
well i would love to know how you did or do in the competion. I think it flows really well. to many really cool lines to name one. But I like the smart hats. It reads like an old poem, in a positive way. The last two lines go perfect together too.
I like the personification of flowers in this piece…petals as hats, etc…
However, I think you really weaken the piece with the inconsistent third stanza, where you go from metaphor to similie. All of a sudden you aren’t talking about flowers as something else, but rather like something else…like petticoats. Why not just straight up “petticoats”?
Beyond that one minor quibble, this was an enjoyable read and a pretty creative derivation from as broad a parameter as “the Garden”.
I have spent many a summer recently at mansion houses all over England, the wedding season seems to demand them, and this piece is wonderfully evocative of the social hubbub in a old stately home. There is something magical about evenings in such places and this piece captures that very well. I love the image of shadows shaking hands in the second stanza, by taking that one step away from the subject of the image you have lifted it from the mundane. I wish more modern poets would take a similar approach rather than being so very immediate and obvious and demonstrative with everything that they write. Nice work.
October 09, 2006
Deleted User
It gives me the image of an English cottage garden. A few points…
grasshoppers should be a possessive
don’t capitalize gossip
I like it a great deal
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