Scajaquada v4

[Knot]

.

Hi bbc.

It has moved forward, but it's still too long, I think, and too much emphasis given to detail one could find in guide books and not enough

(though more and better in the revision) on N's reaction.

The first two verses don't engage (in either their detail or language). There's nothing that invites me in, or makes me want to stay.

L24. I like the line, but it seems both misplaced and contradicted by the 'I confess' verse.

L31. I'm getting lost on the 'trinity delta, black rock and island (are all three necessary in terms of identifying the location?)

L32. Do you mean 'an', not 'and'?

S4. There's too much going on in this verse, I'm not clear on what N is trying to say.

Some suggestions ...


More than a Buffalo word                                 (makes for an interesting (and pronounceable ) title?)


I discovered it, here

in Moffett’s Grove

among the songs

of male finches

and cicadas,

far from the headwaters

of its quiet springs                                               I get what you're trying to say, but 'mitigated' doesn't work.

ska-dyoh-gwa-deh

“Beyond the Multitude”

more than an expressway

that segregates and divides

and more than a street

that marks like a headstone

ska-dyoh-gwa-deh

more than 76 spelling,

76 stories                                                                Any better phrasing for this?

more than a creek

whose pronunciation sets us apart

ska-dyoh-gwa-deh

fewer than 50 native speakers left

a defeated people becoming myth

two miles downstream

Philip Kenjockety

- refugee grandson

of the defeated Kah-Kwahs -

lived with his family

the site of their wigwams

just northeast of the trinity delta,                        can 'delta' be cut?

was later zoned “M-2”

General Industrial District

benzene, toluene, xylene, lead,

cyanide, and PCB’s soaked the soil,

leached the creek bed                                          leached into?

& settled the wildlife's flesh


ska-dyoh-gwa-deh

sitting on the bank below the falls,

I lift defiled water in my hand

the ritual of affusion suffices                            What and how does it suffice?

ska-dyoh-gwa-deh I confess                            I think this should be addressed directly to the creek. 'You' not 'it'

I thought of you as a ditch,

a sewer, of flood-control for the mall

that destroyed your wetlands

when I though of you at all.

It’s not that I despised you

the way the city did

when they buried you back in the '20’s

I just didn’t care

ska-dyoh-gwa-deh

we no longer need your grasses

for baskets and fishing nets

Your role in turning back the British

is ancient history We have moved on

so we don't see the ancestors

gathering at your terminus                                  what do you mean by 'terminus'?


in the absence of living water

can reclamation lead to resurrection?

on most days, I’m just grateful

you don’t burn                                     I think this would be a good place to end



Hope this helps

Best, Knot

.