Thread: The Cane Field

If we can't address one another politely by name, then there's no point, is there?

I have read again the Standing Orders of the House (Poetry Posting Guidelines) and see nothing there that says members may not address one another by name. I understand the reason for the no-name rule in Parliament. Addressing all remarks to the Speaker and referring to another member as, for example, 'the Honourable Member for Cayo South' or 'the Honourable Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries' is supposed to keep the debate from getting personal.

But we are not in Parliament. And I see nothing wrong with some argument, disagreement, frustration, on a personal level, so long as no one curses another person or uses foul language. All such argument is, ultimately, about 'the work in question'. That's what the disagreement is about.

Just for spite, I sent 'the work in question' to a Caribbean publishing house yesterday. The reply came this morning. They bought it. I just missed this month's issue of the publication I wanted to see it in, but it should be out next month in both print and on the publication's web site.

So cross me off the list. Cancel my account. Declare me persona non grata, excommunicated, disowned.

Hello Garza

This piece reads like an objective run through of a harvest and the following regrowth. You have an interesting theme, yet by describing every little bit of it, the emotion never finds its way. I thought maybe there is an overall metaphor hidden in this, but I didn't even bother to search for it, as everything is too pinned out and doesn't leave much room for my imagination.
I suggest you try and rewrite this. Stanzas would be good, to match the different prospects or periods, but most importantly, you should practise to implement imagery. 'Show don't tell', are the most preferred remark in this instance. Think that every reader will react differently to poems. It's not your job to give a complete picture of a scene, rather to convey emotions, that the reader will translate on his/her own.
Many here will suggest you to read more poetry by published poets, and sure that's a good way to get the gist of it, but as this is a work shopping forum, I'd rather you tried and rework this with my above advice. The theme definitely is interesting and holds much potential.

Best,
Martin

I agree with much of what Martin had to say. You have a piece here that has an exquisite metaphor in it. BUT ... I think you have hidden it too deeply

The most common criticism of my poetry is that I bury what I'm actually talking about two layers deep or more. 'The Cane Field' has nothing to do with growing and harvesting sugar cane. There is a just-under-the-surface metaphor of family, but you have to go deeper than that.

The poem is about the dissolution of society, about teen-aged druggies on the south side of Belize City killing one another, about Garifuna youth losing contact with their heritage.

If you read the poem in Somalia, or Nigeria, or Afghanistan, or Korea, or New York City, the message is the same. The ties that have held human society together are breaking, being broken, by the crab; the complex, un-natural industrial machine that's destroying the planet.

But forget all that. Read the poem again with a mind open to all the connections that are possible. See the cane field, feel the cycle of growth and loss, but see also families torn apart, see communities torn apart, nations, continents, a world torn apart.

And remember that cane does not renew itself forever. The time comes when the old roots no longer support new growth, and the ground must be plowed and new seed planted. So it is with human society. Our old roots have perhaps already lasted through all the cycles of regrowth they can support, and it may be time to plow the ground and plant new seed.

I know one publisher in the Caribbean who would take this without question just as it is. I may or may not send it. Most of my poems never have any exposure at all. After all, I'm a journalist, a compiler of hard cold fact. A metaphor infested poem dosen't fit the image.

I liked it quite a bit. But growing and harvesting is an often used metaphor for lots of things. Family, love, nurturing, diligence -- you name it. You seem a little frustrated that folks didn't see it as you intended, though. But people see things filtered through there own experience and/or what they know -- so it seems to me, if you want the poem to have a more universal message and appeal, you just might have to make it a little more obvious. Again, I appreciate it for what it is and I'm glad you posted it.

Thank you, JosephB. Poetry, more than any other form of writing, calls for a collaboration between writer and reader, and while the writer cannot dictate to the reader what the reader is supposed to see or not see in the poem, neither can the reader, with a cursory glance over the words, hope to catch the writer's vision.

But you are right. I felt a bit frustrated at the first reaction, that the poem seemed to be at attempt at a literal description of cane harvesting. Except to serve as a surface metaphor, the poem has nothing to do with cane farming.

I have written some lengthy articles about growing various crops, and am presently working on a 'Field Guide to Organic Agriculture in Belize' to go along with a series of videos I'm producing. There is no metaphor involved. From site selection to marketing, my object is to put organic agriculture, including backyard gardening and school gardens, into the Belizean context in a straightforward, easy to understand guide.

But 'The Cane Field' is not a 'Field Guide to Raising Sugar Cane in the Corozal District'. It's about the cycles, not of individual lives, or even the lives of families, though that is a pretty obvious surface metaphor.

My first reply to Martin, which somehow was lost somewhere in cyberspace, included the information that in my opinion 'An Ordinary Evening in New Haven' by Wallace Stevens was the best poem of the 20th Century. It is certainly my favourite. An if you think the poem has anything to do with spending an evening in New Haven, you need to go and read the poem again. Best thing is to read all of Stevens, then come and look at how simple and obvious the metaphorical layers in 'The Cane Field' really are. That was another bit of frustration, the suggestion that I should go and read some poetry. In standard one I could quote great swaths of Shakespeare, and in first form I memorised 'The Waste Land'.

Anyroad, if the poem has any meaning for you at all, whether or not it's the meaning I intended, than it has served a purpose.

Garza, here's something to think about. It's an allegory that I have used here before, as well in several other places. I repeat it because it is very fitting in your case.

I had a friend who decided to learn to paint. He practiced his craft and put much effort in. Indeed, he felt that he put in more hours than many so-called successful painters. He knew that hard work and dedication were an essential element, and thus his craft consumed him.

He eventually fell into a style which he declared a style of his own. He painted pictures of horses. These were not your typical horse paintings, and he declared that the horse was a metaphor for various aspects of life, dependent upon the other elements in the picture.

He held a show. A few people came. While I was there offering support, one lady liked what she saw, and asked him how much the large painting of the cow in the burning barn was. He reacted badly, cursing her and her ignorance. It was so obviously a horse, and what did she know about art? Rather than selling the painting and moving on, he told her to fuck herself.

I met a mutual friend a few days later. It seemed that the artist had cancelled his show because nobody could see the message in his paintings. A few people had mentioned that all his paintings included cows. The friend told me that the painter was depressed and drinking heavily. I liked the sound of that so I went to visit him.

Over a bottle of vodka he explained just how ignorant people were, how they gave his paintings little more than a cursory glance and reacted to the images rather than the deeper meaning. After all, the really thick ones thought his horses were cows. He explained how he could simply paint an obvious image, but that there had to be a convergence of thought between the artist and the admirer. He raged about how he – and many other artists – were misunderstood. He argued that people needed to become more intelligent to enjoy and understand his work. The fact that many people thought his horses were cows underlined how little attention they spent on his work.

I tried to explain that people might not be getting what his message was because he wasn't presenting it correctly. He was outraged, and dragged me towards a canvas. With a paint-splattered hand he gesticulated violently to show how the horse, by riding in the cart, was a metaphor for the enforced subservience of women in certain religions.

Here's the thing.

It looked like a cow.

I think that the suggestions and Pete_C's metaphor story are pretty accurate. The change to make this work could be very simple. Just a few words would need to be added to make the connection clearer.

Here is a possible way:

Originally Posted by garza

They stand, clustered,
circles of descendants
a family
joined at the roots
waiting for the crab.

Originally Posted by garza

Poetry, more than any other form of writing, calls for a collaboration between writer and reader, and while the writer cannot dictate to the reader what the reader is supposed to see or not see in the poem, neither can the reader, with a cursory glance over the words, hope to catch the writer's vision.

Garza,

This, too, is my frustration with writing poetry today. What one considers out of date, others still hold on to. And IMO, another problem can be the difference in language across the ocean and even here in America, in the north and south, east and west. Plus, we are all entitled to our own interpretations, what does not flow easily with one writer, may with another. And none of us are mind readers, are we? Do we know what they are trying to say? So how can we tell another writer how they need to write to get the point across. Maybe that writer doesn't like that particular style of writing or perhaps it doesn't sound right in the piece they're trying to write. So to tell the writer to do more reading of poetry is somewhat of a pre-conceived notion that the writer has never done much reading or writing of poetry before.

Garza, supurb language. I've just read your poem and all the comments. Went back to your poem, reading it with your intent and rated it an A. But this was like cheating for me. I was already armed with much information. I don't know what else I can say here but that my ear took very well to it's entirety.

I actually said I'd rather you reworked it. 'Read more poetry' is just what you hear a lot on these forums, so I thought I would address it in advance. Sorry if I was clumsy, I think it might have come off a little rude then...

And as well, I did suspect an overall metaphor, but implied that the piece didn't invite a search for it. I haven't much more to add really: the piece lends very little to the imagination, and so it doesn't really matter how open my mind is, as all the imagery is way too precise. Why I actually would call it descriptions rather than imagery.

At least I hope you'll give the critique some thought...

Pete C - Before you put me in the category of your painter friend, please note what I said just ahead of your reply.

'Poetry, more than any other form of writing, calls for a collaboration between writer and reader, and while the writer cannot dictate to the reader what the reader is supposed to see or not see in the poem, neither can the reader, with a cursory glance over the words, hope to catch the writer's vision....if the poem has any meaning for you at all, whether or not it's the meaning I intended, than it has served a purpose.'

I was frustrated by Martin's first response because he seemed to have missed entirely the fact that the entire poem is metaphor and has nothing to do with harvesting cane. Frustrated, and a bit amused, but certainly not angry.

vangoghsear - Such a change would destroy the sense of community. A village is not one family, even if all are related.

Nellie - Yes, I still hold on to a style that others consider out of date. That style has served me well for many years, and in its prose non-fiction form has kept me well fed, decently clothed, and comfortably housed for well over half a century. I do not know what IMO is, so I'm maybe missing a point, but I can tell you that in my part of America, Central America, the great variety of human cultural expression can cause misunderstanding. Belize has a population of just over 300 thousand people. We have more than half a dozen ethnic groups and a dozen languages. We manage to understand one another most of the time, but much of the time it's a struggle. So even though you and I both read, write, and speak English, we each bring a totally different set of experiences. A friend from Orange Walk was coming to see me and called to ask how to find my house once he was in the village. 'There's a crab in the yard', I told him. That's all I needed to say.

SilverMoon - Thank you. Your words are all the payment I need. Please don't tell any publishers I said that.

Martin - As with all my writing, the poem was reworked over a period of about two weeks. I tell people, 'I don't write, I re-write', and it's true. Whether the final result satisfies everyone or justifies the effort put into it is often in question, but as a general rule once I have laid a piece out for anyone else to see, it is finished and I move on to something else.

You say the piece 'lends very little to the imagination' and that the imagery is too precise. Now stop and think of all the poems you've read that are very precise in detail, and yet are extended metaphors. One brilliant example is Frost's 'Death of the Hired Man'. It's pure narrative, loaded with precise detail, yet, surely, you can not say it's about the death of one old man. In fact, everything Frost ever wrote was layers deep in meaning. Stevens' style is altogether different and is, for me, more powerful. Opening up a Stevens poem is like peeling an infinite onion.

Your piece on Afghanistan is excellent, by the way.

Garza, in my very first reply I said that I suspected an overall metaphor, so that point I certainly didn't miss! As you already seemed to know from others, you have buried it too deep. As a metaphor, this piece could be about the creation of the universe. There's no hint as to where you are going.

Regarding the imagery or descriptions, let me exemplify a bit with some of your lines:

Bundled, but no longer connected, (bundled would be sufficient, or at least something less implying than "no longer connected")
tossed high to the waiting truck. (this is okay I think except from "waiting", it's rather obvious it is waiting isn't it?)
The field where dawn
found the proud stand of cane - (again okay, you give the cane personality)
The field now cut holds only stubble. (that's usually what a cut field does! So this is where my imagination would like to do the work itself.)
But the roots live. (This could be okay, as an emphasis, yet the next 5-6 lines explicitly explain the regrowth, so again, no room for imagination.)

I hope you see better now what I mean. Also note, that these forums are for improving and not just showcasing your pieces. If you don't want to receive critique, please let us know, so me and others don't spend our time writing comments to your work.

Thanks for your compliment regarding the Afghanistan piece.

I really like the refrain 'waiting for the crab'. I think it holds the poem together, cements it if you like. It creates an satirical tone, a commentary on the society, of life. And after-all, you say you're a journalist, which I suppose is what you do, although maybe in 'cold fact' usually, but it's commentary all the same.

The cycles can be almost tiring, not to read, but the sense of the approaching outcome. The inevitable strain.

Good work.

Martin - Please do not stop writing comments about my work. The critiques are valuable, though it would be a rare thing for me to change a work already 'published' in any sense of the word. Once I push it out the door, it has to make it on its own, though I do enjoy discussing it with others, hearing their comments and suggestions. Those comments and suggestions are filed away for future use. That file is pretty big now. I started the collection about 55 years ago and your comments are the latest additions. The start of that file came about in this way:


When I was 14 a neighbour suggested I start sending articles and pictures to the two local newspapers, one a typical small town daily, the other a weekly that was more magazine than newspaper. I laughed at the idea, but the neighbour pointed out that I had a Speed Graphic camera (bought in a pawn shop for 25 dollars) and a typewriter (Underwood, ca.1925 bought in a pawn shop for ten dollars) and he knew I was constantly writing and taking pictures.


He pointed out that the newspapers would not send a reporter to cover a camping trip by my Scout troop or a flower show by my mother's garden club, but if a story with picture landed on the editor's desk on a slow news day he would probably use it.


So I did, and both papers began to use what I sent. Then they started paying me. Not much, but it was enough to show me the future. I haven't worked since.


After I'd been sending in stories for about six months the editor of the daily called me to come see him. 'How old are you?' he said. 'Just turned 15,' I said. 'You are a teen-ager who has started trying to write like a college professor. Stop it. Just tell the story. Now go home. I'm busy.' And that was my introduction to literary criticism and the beginning of my file of comments on what I write. I went back to just telling the story, and have tried not to deviate from that for the past 55 years. Comments leveled at one piece of writing have a way of influencing the next piece I write. I like to think that at age 70 I continue to be capable of learning, so that's why I say not to stop with the critiques of what I write.


Now the editor's advice to ''just tell the story' is the best possible advice for the kind of writing that has kept me well fed all these years. It's not so good for fiction, and it's no good at all, in my opinion, for poetry. Poetry, even narrative poetry, should do more, much more, than tell a story.


As regards 'The Cane Field', you say that 'As a metaphor, this piece could be about the creation of the universe.' Now you've nailed it. The dissolution and regrowth of family, of community, of the wider society, of, yes, of the physical universe; when you peel the onion all the way down, that's where you end. As you peel, you should pause along the way and think of your personal relationships, your family, neighbours, each stage of the widening circle that surrounds each of us.


Then you get specific.


'Bundled, but no longer connected, (bundled would be sufficient, or at least something less implying than "no longer connected")'
Objects may be bundled with or without the bit of string that might, however loosely, bind them together. Here I did want the image to be precise, unambiguous. The individual stalk of cane is alienated, no longer a part of any larger entity. Think of yourself pushing your way through the crowd on a busy city sidewalk. Maybe in front of Brodies on Albert Street at Christmas time. You and those around you are 'bundled, but no longer connected'.


tossed high to the waiting truck. (this is okay I think except from "waiting", it's rather obvious it is waiting isn't it?)
I wanted a four-beat line here as a sort of drum-roll signaling major transition. The 'waiting' not only re-enforces the meaning, but provides the extra beat I needed.


The field where dawn found the proud stand of cane - (again okay, you give the cane personality)
No personality intended. If it came across that way, that is a weakness of the line. 'Proud' as used here is in the sense of the fourth definition in Oxford's Concise, '4.(of a thing) imposing, splendid' Some other word, stately, perhaps, would have been better.


The field now cut holds only stubble. (that's usually what a cut field does! So this is where my imagination would like to do the work itself.)
Well, not necessarilly. Whether there is stubble depends on the kind of crop and the cultural practises of the farmer. In this case, the stubble is meant as, yes, a precise image to contrast with the 'proud stand of cane'. I hit you in the face with the image, and leave the meaning hiding there amidst the stubby remains. But in this case I can't see that the meaning was hidden very well.


But the roots live. (This could be okay, as an emphasis, yet the next 5-6 lines explicitly explain the regrowth, so again, no room for imagination.)
Sugar cane is a funny sort of crop. You plant corn, the seed germinates, the plant grows, you harvest, plow the field, and plant again next season. Sugar cane only needs to be replanted every six or eight seasons. Very soon after harvest you can walk through a cane field and see the grass blades (remember that cane is a grass) sprouting in a circle around the centre of each root cluster.


Never think that your critiques are not welcomed by me. All your comments are kept and used, though, as I say, rarely applied to a piece already declared finished. Or dead, whichever you choose.


Poetry has never played a part in my earning a living. Most of the poems I've had published have been in the pages of the little literary magazines. For each poem published in 'Backabush Review' I get two free copies of the magazine. I think you know what I mean, and I'm sure you've been there.


Essays on rural development and magazine articles on the sins of the Three Sisters (WTO, IMF, WB) are for bread and butter, though they too are fun to write, while poetry is mostly for the pure enjoyment of seeing how words can work together, something I've been fascinated by for over 60 years. I've been fortunate in being able to put that fascination to good use, so I've never had to work for a living. .