entre chien et loup

[milo]

I am posting this here as a continuation of a discussion in the intensive forum about using foreign idiomatic phrasing to create English poetry.

This poem was created based of the French idiom entre chien et loup


between a dog and wolf

When I first heard the scratching at the door
I knew I shouldn’t answer
but I opened it and the night rain growled
and the thunder was my father’s face
in the dark sky and the wolf limped through
smelling like sour milk and old tires,
muddying the carpet with its blooded paws.
He took his place on the couch in the great room.

My daughter’s whimpers shake
her small body as she sits on my lap.
We watch her cartoons together now
on the floor pretending not to notice
the low snarl that gurgles up behind us.

At dinners, we keep the lights low
but the shadows are worse
and the pulse of its lungs scrapes
the air between us. We cannot leave
and we cannot speak of it
for it is one of us now.

[dukealien]

I am posting this here as a continuation of a discussion in the intensive forum about using foreign idiomatic phrasing to create English poetry.

This poem was created based of the French idiom entre chien et loup


between a dog and wolf

When I first heard the scratching at the door
I knew I shouldn’t answer
but I opened it and the night rain growled
and the thunder was my father’s face
in the dark sky and the wolf limped through
smelling like sour milk and old tires,
muddying the carpet with its blooded paws.
He took his place on the couch in the great room.

My daughter’s whimpers shake
her small body as she sits on my lap.
We watch her cartoons together now
on the floor pretending not to notice
the low snarl that gurgles up behind us.

At dinners, we keep the lights low
but the shadows are worse
and the pulse of its lungs scrapes
the air between us. We cannot leave
and we cannot speak of it
for it is one of us now.

When critiquing (which I'm not doing here) I sometimes say a poem is "atmospheric" because it's heavy on description but doesn't make much sense.  Here you're playing with the idea of "dog and wolf" and the play is with descriptions.  One nice thing about a work like this is how *not* telling leaves space for interesting ambiguities:  does the last line mean the guest is one of three, or (in) one of (us) two?

The obvious way to assemble the images is two people, father (or mother) and daughter, plus the awful wolf their visitor/tenant.  But reassemble it in other ways (it's a dog house, but the old nature returns) and it changes.  Turn it around:  the hour of dog and wolf is not so much when it becomes impossible to tell them apart - even by posture and the way they move, something like the ur-commando morning moment when it becomes possible to tell a black thread from a white - but the hour when the nature of what you meet changes from domesticated to feral.  As a cop said, at night "the complexion of the streets changes."

And turning it around further, what does the wolf feel as it enters its element?  Can that even be described in words?  And what about leaving it (actually, I think that's been done)?

[milo]

I am posting this here as a continuation of a discussion in the intensive forum about using foreign idiomatic phrasing to create English poetry.

This poem was created based of the French idiom entre chien et loup


between a dog and wolf

When I first heard the scratching at the door
I knew I shouldn’t answer
but I opened it and the night rain growled
and the thunder was my father’s face
in the dark sky and the wolf limped through
smelling like sour milk and old tires,
muddying the carpet with its blooded paws.
He took his place on the couch in the great room.

My daughter’s whimpers shake
her small body as she sits on my lap.
We watch her cartoons together now
on the floor pretending not to notice
the low snarl that gurgles up behind us.

At dinners, we keep the lights low
but the shadows are worse
and the pulse of its lungs scrapes
the air between us. We cannot leave
and we cannot speak of it
for it is one of us now.

When critiquing (which I'm not doing here) I sometimes say a poem is "atmospheric" because it's heavy on description but doesn't make much sense.  Here you're playing with the idea of "dog and wolf" and the play is with descriptions.  One nice thing about a work like this is how *not* telling leaves space for interesting ambiguities:  does the last line mean the guest is one of three, or (in) one of (us) two?

The obvious way to assemble the images is two people, father (or mother) and daughter, plus the awful wolf their visitor/tenant.  But reassemble it in other ways (it's a dog house, but the old nature returns) and it changes.  Turn it around:  the hour of dog and wolf is not so much when it becomes impossible to tell them apart - even by posture and the way they move, something like the ur-commando morning moment when it becomes possible to tell a black thread from a white - but the hour when the nature of what you meet changes from domesticated to feral.  As a cop said, at night "the complexion of the streets changes."

And turning it around further, what does the wolf feel as it enters its element?  Can that even be described in words?  And what about leaving it (actually, I think that's been done)?

First, thanks for the discussion, I appreciate it and, while it was not the discussion i was originally going for, it reminds me of another discussion I had on this site (tried to search it but it didn't come up, might have been lost in the purge)

That discussion is about titles and what they add to a poetry.  Now I slapped the "between a dog and wolf" title on it right before posting it to facilitate the discussion easier as the original title was "Entre Chien et Loup" but of course that doesn't change much.

Also, I am not big on discussing meaning as a function of authorial intent as I don't actually believe it, if that had value, the author would need to travel wherever the poem was read to explain it and that's just silly.

But let me ask you this, if this poem was titled "Domestic Abuse" how would that change what you think about when you read it?

Thanks

[dukealien]

...

But let me ask you this, if this poem was titled "Domestic Abuse" how would that change what you think about when you read it?

Thanks

Nothing - I wouldn't have read it (I'm assuming it would have been without the explanatory introduction).    As it is, I saw that as a possible interpretation and discarded it - not because it's an unimportant subject but because it's been done to death.  With "Domestic Abuse" as title I might have scanned to see if the title was ironic or even facetious, but not for an exploration of that subject.

So (and this may be your point) a title can snake-bite a poem.  It can also induce some to read through what they'd pass up with a different one - though they may feel cheated having done so.  Personally, I always (1598/1600 or so) title poems - it's part of the work, IMHO.  A useful part?

[milo]

...

But let me ask you this, if this poem was titled "Domestic Abuse" how would that change what you think about when you read it?

Thanks

Nothing - I wouldn't have read it (I'm assuming it would have been without the explanatory introduction).    As it is, I saw that as a possible interpretation and discarded it - not because it's an unimportant subject but because it's been done to death.  With "Domestic Abuse" as title I might have scanned to see if the title was ironic or even facetious, but not for an exploration of that subject.

So (and this may be your point) a title can snake-bite a poem.  It can also induce some to read through what they'd pass up with a different one - though they may feel cheated having done so.  Personally, I always (1598/1600 or so) title poems - it's part of the work, IMHO.  A useful part?

Ya, I think you may be right here.  I usually tend to avoid any titles like that both in my own reading and in my own writing as they are invariably either mawkinsh, sappy or both.

I don't know if I had a point.  I just am generally interested in listening to people and seeing what they think about subjects.  Poetry is sometimes a good vehicle for that

[busker]

 if this poem was titled "Domestic Abuse" how would that change what you think about when you read it?

Domestic abuse is implied in the poem, and making it the title would be an insult to the reader's intelligence.
Even without knowing the French idiom, the dog / wolf symbols are apparent, and don't need to be explained further. The full import of the idiom might be appreciated better by a French speaker, but there is enough here for a translation. Not all foreign idioms translate so readily, of course.