Down Slubbers' Row

[Ca ne fait rien]

dust devils skirl scrubbed steps
of cottages in Slubbers Row
skins spinning fingers
of worn out women
with red raw elbows
pinches tweedy faces of children
from half waking sleep


brass chimes tinkle
in the porches of t' bosses
tuneful as a ring
of cracked citadel bells
or the clatter of tankards
in the Drunken Slubber's Arms


a tattered wind
born of Pennine hills
and heather moors
lifts the skirts
of the pot-man's daughter Lettie Lee
she no better than she ought-a-be
ministering to the Minister's son
up against the Prims of Zion's walls.







Slubber
An occupation in the West Riding scribbling and spinning mills, whereby loose cardings were drawn out and slightly twisted so that they could be wound onto bobbins. The man in charge of the 30 to 50 spindles of a ‘slubbing billy’ was one of the most highly paid craftsmen. He was assisted by two or three children who fed in the cardings by rubbing fresh ones onto the end of old ones.

[billy]

a new word for me. "skirl" i had to look it up.

the 1st verse is one long image.
love the "t'boss" dialect
the 2nd verse continues with solid imagery.
and the last line is for me almost perfect, though i can't find a fault with it.
i know some poet use the minimum of grammar as you did with this stef, and i think with the right enjambment it works well.
i just wonder if grammar would have added something else to an already great little yorkshire poem.

but it is just a thought, nothing constructive to add apart from that. i did so enjoy the originality of the piece.
(jmo)
thanks for the read.

[Leanne]

Stef, I'm afraid I really just love this, sorry about that! Every bit of alliteration, assonance and very subtle rhyme is in the right place (I especially like "Lettie Lee/ought-a-be". At first t' bosses gave me pause, as the rest of the poem is in fairly elegant language, but then I imagined you reading it aloud and changing voice just slightly for that bit, bringing in the full accent to make it clear it's what the workers themselves are saying. Love the "tweedy faces of children" as well. I could probably go on... and shouldn't, of course. I genuinely think this is excellent stuff, and publishable as it is.

[billy]

yeah i have to concur about it being publishable, reading poems like this make the day worthwhile and the forum more so

[addy]

You had me at the first line. Both the imagery and the assonance in this piece is fantastic and so very clever. I believe "pinches" in line 6 ought to be "pinch" (if I am reading it right, with fingers as plural) but that aside, consider me wowed.

[abu nuwas]

It grieves me to see people not giving a proper crit, it truly does!

My own thoughts: I read it three or four times, each time being tripped up because I was trying to make it go, first like 'Good-bye Winter/The days are getting longer/Tea-leaf in a tea-cup/Is herald of a stranger', by Louis MacNeice I think, or Masefield's famous 'Quinquereme of Nineveh'.

Then I did my best with a Yorkshire accent, and found that whereas previously I had coninually been wanting to insert an extra syllable (like 'the'). now it came right because, in truth, before almost all the nouns, I was putting a ' t' ', just enough of a syllable to make it OK.

I also wondered about 'pinches', though.

Nice to see a salute to the mill-workers of old--- and confirmation of the adage 'Ministers' sons are sons o' guns'.

[Ca ne fait rien]

Thanks Billy, Leanne, Addy and Abu.
Re 'Pinches' - I think I may have missed out a line in transcription- must thumb through my notes and find it- either that or I edited it out before and didn't adjust the rest to match. Thanks for picking up on 't.

I am hoping at some point to get a collection of Yorkshire based poems together at some point, and they all need wokshopping editing and thrown out there to see if they can swim. I am glad I seem to have found the right place at last, where people are honest and constructive in the feedback.

[billy]

i hope you make use of the rich dialect used in that area chavi, in this poem the images work harder than the dialect.
which i like, but good old fashioned dialect can really add lots to this sort of poem. jmo