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"It's over: here's the train fare home: a de-mob suit will make them feel you're looking good. Extra ration cards?...no problem..stuff them in your top pocket. That's the way: there'll be a pension somewhere down the line, but in the meantime, bugger off and find a job".







Heroes


The children's section in our library
was stacked with adventures: Biggles books
the patriotic stuff for boys like me.
We'd devour every danger, fly
all compass points from North to South.

My uncle Fred arrived one night,
caught me reading by torchlight, said
It's good to study; here's some money.
Two shillings dropped from his pocket,
landed between the pages where Bertie
and Algie helped Biggles rescue
Chinese slaves. His breath smelled of beer,

his clothes, coal-dust. He died before
they told me he'd flown a Spitfire.




Andrew McGeever.

Hi Andrew~

I am always reluctant to comment (critically) on YOUR poems, but fool that I am, do so anyways....


First off, as a Real poet, you always share pieces that are much more than the sum of their space on the page. So much is said and not said here beyond the literal. However, I think the condensation is a bit thick in parts. And for reasons you can probably explain I found some bits to be a bit on the fluffy side-like filler.

We get a good feel for the boy (and his kind); his love of books and adventure. I get the feeling (not having first hand experience) that maybe the Biggles series was borderline propoganda? Regardless, the narrator's passion takes him so far as to be reading ("caught") under a flashlight.

The loss is profound. The narrator has an uncle who Lived the 'adventures' and I get the feeling was also damaged by them too. Of course had the boy known this, he would have shut the book and met his uncle on terms he did not know existed. But the information came too late for them both.

Below are some notes:

Heroes


The children's section in our library
was stacked with adventures: Biggles books
the patriotic stuff for boys like me.
We'd devour every danger, fly
all compass points from North to South.

I like the term "stacked" for its dual connotations. This stanza reads as if the ONLY 'adventures' in the library were the "Biggles" series, exclusively. I don't know if that is what you intended.

Line 3, ending in "fly" doesn't work for me. I think "flying" brings the action needed to carry it to the next line.
Line 5 is where it seems a bit "fluffy."
I don't understand the specific N/S references, when you have already state, "all compass points". It seems overdone.

My uncle Fred arrived one night,
caught me reading by torchlight, said
It's good to study; here's some money.
Two shillings dropped from his pocket,
landed between the pages where Bertie
and Algie helped Biggles rescue
Chinese slaves. His breath smelled of beer,

Here, I took "caught" to be literal. The inline rhyme from the uncle's statement is a bit odd. The only quote in the poem and it rhymes. (Just an observation.)
Line 4 takes a bit of effort to digest. The shillings did not drop from his pocket. They had to have dropped from his hands. I had to work through the phenom of the coins magically leaving the trousers, to get to your real meaning. Maybe something along the line of "warm" shillings...would relay what you mean without the confusing picture?
Line 5: maybe consider "landing." As it is, it seems like you are condensing it a bit much
My lack of history education (and Biggle ingnorance) leaves me believing there is something going on over my head with the specific Chinese slave reference.

his clothes, coal-dust. He died before
they told me he'd flown a Spitfire.

A sigh inducing, brilliant ending.

Thanks for the read.

Laurie

Hi Laurie! I'll read your crit in a second, and I'm sure I'll love it. For now, I just want to go with the poem.

I don't know anything about poetry, therefore, I can't give you what could be called an 'informed' crit. However, I can give you what I, as the reader of a poem by someone I don't know, can only express by an innate feeling.

I felt a hopeful heart, a watchful eye and a killer ending. To me, it made an otherwise 'ordinary literary' experience, an experience worth remembering. A sort of 'I can feel the dust, where's the hope, and then...he died before they told me he'd flown a spitfire'...heroes, indeed. In the eyes of a country? Or in the eyes of a kid? He died before they told me he'd flown a spitfire...don't we all?

Good read, thanks,
Linda.

THis is an excellant poem. It has so many levels to digest. A man who saw and felt the horrors of war. I get the feeling of a man caught in moment where he met a mirror of himself as a child and not being able to stop and reconnect (with anyone ) The coins allowed himself to distract and run away. A childs imagination of being a hero and the price to be paid for being one...



gotta go

sorry customer.... I would like to say more..


I really liked it Andrew.


Switz

SWITZ!

Ha! I knoweth from where you cometh!

Linda.

I still haven't read Laurie's crit, but I've read the poem again, and I find that last line to be the sum of it. The sum of it all, really. I like this poem, Andrew, because I felt an honesty in there. I think you believe what you wrote - and it jumps off the page (to me). In that sense, it works very well. Also, it works well on a very personal emotional level. By that, I mean the honesty. The detail: he smelled of beer. The beauty, though, is the spitfire line. I like.

Thanks,
Linda.

Hi Laurie! I'll read your crit in a second, and I'm sure I'll love it.

I still haven't read Laurie's crit, but

For GAWD's Sake Linda!! Read my crit already!!!


L

Ha! Laurie! Guess what? I read your crit. Brilliant! It seems unanimous, Andrew, Spitfires are where it be at!!

Seriously, for me it was a good read. Perhaps one day, I'll find a way to say why (or why not). Like it's any of my business! ha!

Linda.

...M-M-M-M-...ANOTHER CAT FIGHT...





......No school room kept you grounded
while your thoughts could get away
you were taking off in Tiger Moths
your wings against the brushstrokes of the day....are you there?

Flying sorcery, Al Stewart

SWITZ,

Laurie and I aren't 'fighting'. Are you sure you have the right thread?

Linda.

Nice quote you left, though. Also, that last little bit that I said in the last post, really had to do with something else entirely - it just came off my fingers here. I wanted to read Andrew's poem before reading Laurie's crit. as I didn't want her opinion to influence mine.

Dear LaurieAK, SWITZ, Linda et al,
Thanks for the warm, encouraging replies: it may take me more than 1 post to give justice to Laurie's critical comments, but let me set down some initial thoughts.
I don't usually write a preamble to a poem, as I did in this case: it's better if the reader approaches it undirected by the writer. What I placed in quotes was roughly what I said to a (small) audience before I read Heroes in public recently.
Heroes, looking back on it, is a "rite of passage" piece, and, as such, sits alongside "My Father's Calliper".
How does society deal with the combattants after major conflicts? Those in power would rather they just quietly dissolve themselves into whatever the new order is. This is the case for the victors and the vanquished; this is the case now, as it was at the end of WW2.
Yet heroes are necessary, the more removed from reality the better. Readers could be reassured that Biggles never suffered from post-war stress disorder or depression or suicidal tendencies. Oh no, his biggest problem was boredom setting in between the actions.
Biggles books had titles like "Biggles flies North", "Biggles flies East", "Biggles flies South", "Biggles flies South West".........etc....hence the "all compass points from North to South".
But Laurie is probably right: I thought that line was a candidate for redundancy, and have never been 100% convinced by it.
However, I will defend the quotation in the second stanza....more to follow, but that's all for now.
Andrew.

but my favourite book in the series has always been "Biggles Flies Undone"

How come that does not surprise me mickey-one

hugs Cia

Dear LaurieAK,
I'll reply to your comments about the second stanza:
it was at night when the uncle visited the house: lights (for children) should have been out; yet the boy was consumed by the book, had to read the next chapter by torchlight (more exciting that way!). "Caught" fits. (Are there shades of Harry Potter ? )
The quote, "It's good to study; here's some money", is important, and has nothing to do with rhyme. (there's plenty of assonance already in the poem). The uncle thought the child was studying; something he never had the opportunity to do (too busy growing up in the crucible of war, then descending to the mines). The irony is that the child was reading for pleasure, exercising his imagination, as opposed to doing homework. For people like Fred, success deserved reward.

I'll reply to the next four lines of the second stanza; this will require a demonstration!

Andrew.