Poetry workshop: Exploring a poem with a message

A significant sighting

THE MESSENGER

I saw her in the dusk light a shadow between the trees. I sensed something watching me, then the snap of a twig, rustling of leaves and there she was those large innocent eyes as bright as the north star. A silhouette so beautiful, it was as if every line, every contour of her body had been sculptured In the hands of an old master. And for a moment, in the stillness before she turned and disappeared into the night I imagined she was a messenger from folklore, myth or legend. A messenger of hope.

explores a poem with a message

Some poets find that a new piece of work always begins in the same way, but for most of us different poems arrive along their own unique route. It can be a nugget of an idea that scratches in the mind, accumulating words and phrases the way a speck scratches in the oyster until it ’ s covered in nacre and becomes a pearl. Sometimes an idea flashes, and a poem writes itself. It can be an academic exercise, or an incredible flight of fancy. It can be inspired by another piece of writing, and that ’ s the experience of poet Jill

Stanton Huxton of Buckingham.

When Wordsworth wrote his world famous poem about the daffodils, it was clearly based on an account in his sister ’ s diary that concerned coming across the flowers. Some phrases are lifted straight from the diary, or tweaked just a little, such as the tossed and reeled and danced becoming tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

Jill also has a diary at her disposal, but this is in her own words. She describes how she started to write it.

‘I spent a few months last year staying with my twin sister and mother, who live in a converted barn on the edge of a wood. When I say the edge of a wood what I mean is the wood is literally on the doorstep. ’ A family of deer lived in the wood, and she was able to see their antics. ‘It was magical to watch. I decided to keep a diary. ’ One of the entries fuelled the poem, recording how ‘It had been a beautiful mid-summer day, not long before the summer solstice, the longest day and shortest night of the year. ’ It reads:

‘I sensed I was being watched so turned my head to look towards the wood. In the dusk light, amongst the shadows of the trees there was a young fallow deer looking at me. For a few moments, in the stillness and calm of the fading light we watched each other – and something passed between us. It was almost as if she understood what I

was going through and she was telling me everything would be okay. Then she turned and disappeared into the night. ’

The diary entry describes a spiritual experience, and already has a poetic ‘feel’ to it, but there was still some work to be done to convert the wording into a poem. It needed form and shape. The delicacy of the free verse form Jill chose, and the long, slender shape of the poem on the page, seem ideal to convey the ethereal character of the moment.

It was a good idea to start with a specific image rather than the more abstract I sensed I was being watched. Opening with the direct monosyllabic description has immediacy and engages the reader instantly. Then backtracking to the something watching me allows the fuller picture to be drawn without losing impact.

After the initial visual images, the sounds introduce a new dimension, enriched by the onomatopoeic quality of snap and rustling. Then the powerful simile bright as the north star brings us back to the sense of sight with an out-of-thisworld comparison.

This is followed by a curiously whimsical thought, that the creature ’ s silhouette is too stunning for natural beauty, and she looks more like a sculpture than a flesh and blood animal.

All this build-up about the deer leads to the poem ’ s climax. The poet is in need of help and hope. The deer has a mystical quality, from folklore, myth or legend, that insists its final description: A messenger of hope.

This is a gentle poem, a descriptive piece that conjures the moment for readers to enjoy alongside the narrator. It isn ’ t until the last three lines that the added dimension, the import of the message, becomes apparent. Then a re-reading reveals clues in the descriptions. Words like shadow, silhouette, contour and sculpture suggest shapes that loom in the dusk. This hints at shapes that loom in the mind, on a conscious or subconscious level. Three lines into the poem, we see I sensed and then three lines from the end, I imagined. Instinct is being overtaken by active thought – a point that might be missed at a first reading but shows itself on further study.

Such subtle clues may not be obvious on an individual basis, but their combined weight adds to the communication of ideas through the poem. The same is true of the slant rhyme, those similarities of sound that could be mere chance of pronunciation when found individually, but combine to create a network of interlinking effects. Look at the assonance at line ends in the first few lines. Trees, me and leaves chime together, and matched with the consonance of trees, leaves, was and eyes, those similarities start to join up and knit themselves into the fabric of the poem.

In the middle of the piece, we find a repeat in every line, / every contour –and there ’ s another subtle coherence of the text, just as the use of in / in / into starting the following alternate lines implies an enclosing within the situation, an intimacy the reader can share with the narrator.

There is just one point that the poet might address in The Messenger when she continues with its revision, and that ’ s the placing of punctuation. Adding a comma at the end of the sixth and seventeenth lines would aid the logical flow of the reading, while changing the full stop on the penultimate line to a semicolon would include the final line within that highly significant sentence. This would, of course, suggest a lower case letter to open the last line – and lower case could also be used at the start of the thirteenth line, to keep to the pattern most poets prefer nowadays, of using capitals only to start a new sentence.

These are tiny tweaks, but attention to such details adds to the general delight of the reading. If every aspect of the poem fits together perfectly, and even the smallest issues have been addressed, the overall effect is a complete and clear picture.

The Messenger is all about communication. A poem that communicates something to the reader satisfies its writer ’ s desire to share thoughts, emotions and experiences. The Messenger speaks out with clarity and intimacy, and its subject ’ s message of hope can be inferred by the reader as well as the narrator – a true feel-good poem.