Travel Shorts

Frieda  

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Quarter sonnet: Frieda at noon

The watched kettle shrieks noisily.
Frieda has a lump in hers.
Silently, we debate:
What next?

This week we were set the task of responding poetically to the Ted hughes poem 'Full Moon and Little Frieda'. Only the title really responds to it, but it got me writing, which I can't complain about! The poem is shaped to resemble a sugar bowl to increase the ambiguity.

You might be interested to see the original Hughes poem, so I have put this below:

Full Moon and Little Frieda

A cool small evening shrunk to a dog bark and the clank of a bucket - And you listening. A spider's web, tense for the dew's touch. A pail lifted, still and brimming - mirror To tempt a first star to a tremor. Cows are going home in the lane there, looping the hedges with their warm wreaths of breath - A dark river of blood, many boulders, Balancing unspilled milk. 'Moon!' you cry suddenly, 'Moon! Moon!' The moon has stepped back like an artist gazing amazed at a work That points at him amazed.  Ted Hughes

Posted in ambiguity, cancer, silence, sonnet, ted hughes by Unknown