Paraphrasing a poem...
(Prompt 1)
Birth of A Colt
By Linda Hogan
When we reach the field
She is still eating
The heads of yellow flowers
And pollen has turned her whiskers
Gold. Lady,
Her stomach bulges out,
The ribs have grown wide.
We wait, our bare feet dangling
In the horse trough,
Warm water
Where goldfish brush
Our smooth ankles.
We wait
While the liquid breaks
Down Lady’s dark legs
And that slick wet colt
Like a black tadpole
Darts out
Beginning at once
To sprout legs.
She licks it to its feet,
The membrane still there,
Red,
Transparent
The sun coming up shines through,
The sky turns bright with morning
And the land
With pollen blowing off the corn,
Land that will always own us,
Everywhere it is red.
REWRITE:
We go to the field
Lady is still eating, her nose is yellow from the plants
Her stomach is large
We wait with our feet in the water trough
Goldfish are in the trough
Parturition begins, we see legs first
The mare cleans her colt
It is now morning
Pollen is blowing off the corn
Everything looks red (because its dawn)
This poem was not particularly difficult to figure out what was really going on… it was fairly straight forward. A mare gives birth to a foal. However, towards the end of the poem there is something symbolic going on. Something that seems significant to me is the repetition of pollen; why does it appear at the beginning and the close of the poem? There is also the repetition of the color red. Initially red makes me imagine bold, passionate emotions, or something sinful even. But in this poem, where the color red is placed, I get the sense of “rebirth”. Red is associated with the birth of the colt and the beginning of a new day. Yellow is another color that comes to my mind as I read through this poem. I don’t have a particular emotion that I associate with yellow, other than happiness or cheerfulness maybe. In this sense, I would say that yellow images help bring the poem to life, or help the reader get a good image of what’s going on in the poem. I don’t see a deep hidden meaning to the use of yellow images in this particular poem.
Both the poem and your analysis created a sense of peacefulness for me. I really enjoyed reading how you interpreted the poem and phrased it into your own words. I like how simplified it is, and how you took a beautiful poem and made another beautiful poem out of it.
ReplyDeleteI was also surprised at the use of the color yellow in the poem as well. Perhaps it is meant to create imagery--possibly to create a feeling of warmth and comfort. It may be used to make the reader imagine being on a hot summer day. Either way, I really enjoyed your perception of Hogan's poem.