"California Spring" by Albert Bierstadt‘Up Beat’ by Damian Robin The Society May 24, 2021 Beauty, Poetry 8 Comments . I met the Sun this Maytime morning, it stunned the outside wall. Across the day I watched it yawning, make dangling shadows crawl. No curtain clouds closed down its shining. Its single brilliance beamed. All day I caught the hot sun ironing the mayhems I had dreamed. It pressed their wailings down to nothing, made apprehension clear. It ate away, with sunset mothing, my now redundant fear. Though dread in darkness had begun, We don’t have shadows without sun. . . Damian Robin is a writer and editor living in the United Kingdom. NOTE TO READERS: If you enjoyed this poem or other content, please consider making a donation to the Society of Classical Poets. The Society of Classical Poets does not endorse any views expressed in individual poems or commentary. Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)Trending now: 8 Responses Tonia Kalouria May 24, 2021 Good reminder in these troubled times! Love the end couplet. Reply paul buchheit May 24, 2021 Well-constructed sonnet, Damian. I enjoyed the ing-ing rhyming patterns. Reply Paul Freeman May 24, 2021 ‘sunset mothing’ – inspired! Thanks for a pretty amazing piece of poetry. Reply Margaret Coats May 24, 2021 A spirited May song, Damian, with the cheer we miss when this little lyric subgenre, so vibrantly characteristic of English literature, gets lost. Thanks for mayking an excellent example! Reply Cynthia Erlandson May 25, 2021 Lovely! This strikes me as quite reminiscent of Emily Dickinson, with its tetrameter-trimeter pattern; the somewhat mysterious imagery (“ironing the mayhems” — a great phrase!); and the interesting slant rhymes like morning/yawning; shining/ironing; nothing/mothing. Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant May 26, 2021 Damian, this mellifluous marvel of a poem, with its sunny wonder and timely reminder in the message of the closing couplet, really does lift the spirits. The sun you describe reminds me of the fierce beams we have here in Texas, and, having lived here for ten years, I am very grateful for its presence all year round. Whenever I’m a bit low, I swathe myself in backyard sunshine and I’m soon feeling much better. Wonderful stuff! Thank you! Reply James Sale May 28, 2021 Well done Damian, I like the clipped and compressed quality of this poem; it’s also lyrical, so the combination is powerful. Reply BDW June 25, 2021 This superb, May lyric has many excellencies. Ms. Erlandson and Mr. Freeman noted the inspired Dickinson metric, rhyming, and phrasing, “ironing the mayhem” and “sunset mothing”, and others noted the closing couplet’s fine delivery. Its Hopkinsesque opening with alliterative m’s, capitalization of Sun (which I would have liked to see at the end as well), internal rhyme (Sun/stunned), its brilliant use of verbs, and, as Mr. Buchheit noted its remarkable use of gerunds throughout, all combine to make it a poem worthy of an anthology of New Millennial poetry. Although Mr. Buchheit called it a sonnet (ostensibly because of its fourteen lines), I would call it a “clipped tennos”. Everywhere, the poem bursts / out with / artistic energy. This is striking thematically, as Mr. Robin is the author of such dark works as “Organ Harvest”, etc. What I like most about “Up Beat” is its PostShelleyan clarity, certainly Yeatsian, and almost Dantesque. It is one of the many voices I have been striving for, throughout my poetic career [which Mr. Salemi calls “endless, witless charichording”], from my predominantly free-verse years, through the creation of manifold forms, up to my recent experimentation in the tennos, dodeca, etc. I have often found this voice in my studies of Spanish and Italian art, even in the philosophy of Bertrand Russell; and every now and then—indirectly—one gets glimpses of it @ SCP in works of Ms. Coats and Mr. MacKenzie; but it is fairly rare in English literature. Despite Milton’s latinate and italianate knowledge, it is not a voice he allows to arise from his powerful, resonating poetic voice. Briefly, then, “Up Beat” has become my favourite Damian Robin poem, because of its distinctive, transcendental clarity. Reply Leave a Reply Cancel ReplyYour email address will not be published.CommentName* Email* Website Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. Δ This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
paul buchheit May 24, 2021 Well-constructed sonnet, Damian. I enjoyed the ing-ing rhyming patterns. Reply
Paul Freeman May 24, 2021 ‘sunset mothing’ – inspired! Thanks for a pretty amazing piece of poetry. Reply
Margaret Coats May 24, 2021 A spirited May song, Damian, with the cheer we miss when this little lyric subgenre, so vibrantly characteristic of English literature, gets lost. Thanks for mayking an excellent example! Reply
Cynthia Erlandson May 25, 2021 Lovely! This strikes me as quite reminiscent of Emily Dickinson, with its tetrameter-trimeter pattern; the somewhat mysterious imagery (“ironing the mayhems” — a great phrase!); and the interesting slant rhymes like morning/yawning; shining/ironing; nothing/mothing. Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant May 26, 2021 Damian, this mellifluous marvel of a poem, with its sunny wonder and timely reminder in the message of the closing couplet, really does lift the spirits. The sun you describe reminds me of the fierce beams we have here in Texas, and, having lived here for ten years, I am very grateful for its presence all year round. Whenever I’m a bit low, I swathe myself in backyard sunshine and I’m soon feeling much better. Wonderful stuff! Thank you! Reply
James Sale May 28, 2021 Well done Damian, I like the clipped and compressed quality of this poem; it’s also lyrical, so the combination is powerful. Reply
BDW June 25, 2021 This superb, May lyric has many excellencies. Ms. Erlandson and Mr. Freeman noted the inspired Dickinson metric, rhyming, and phrasing, “ironing the mayhem” and “sunset mothing”, and others noted the closing couplet’s fine delivery. Its Hopkinsesque opening with alliterative m’s, capitalization of Sun (which I would have liked to see at the end as well), internal rhyme (Sun/stunned), its brilliant use of verbs, and, as Mr. Buchheit noted its remarkable use of gerunds throughout, all combine to make it a poem worthy of an anthology of New Millennial poetry. Although Mr. Buchheit called it a sonnet (ostensibly because of its fourteen lines), I would call it a “clipped tennos”. Everywhere, the poem bursts / out with / artistic energy. This is striking thematically, as Mr. Robin is the author of such dark works as “Organ Harvest”, etc. What I like most about “Up Beat” is its PostShelleyan clarity, certainly Yeatsian, and almost Dantesque. It is one of the many voices I have been striving for, throughout my poetic career [which Mr. Salemi calls “endless, witless charichording”], from my predominantly free-verse years, through the creation of manifold forms, up to my recent experimentation in the tennos, dodeca, etc. I have often found this voice in my studies of Spanish and Italian art, even in the philosophy of Bertrand Russell; and every now and then—indirectly—one gets glimpses of it @ SCP in works of Ms. Coats and Mr. MacKenzie; but it is fairly rare in English literature. Despite Milton’s latinate and italianate knowledge, it is not a voice he allows to arise from his powerful, resonating poetic voice. Briefly, then, “Up Beat” has become my favourite Damian Robin poem, because of its distinctive, transcendental clarity. Reply
