Talking Pictures

Published on by Laura Bloomsbury

“the rocketing wind will blow…
And the scythed boulders bleed, and the last
Rage shattered waters kick
Dylan Thomas 

Nature that once impelled past poets
to scratch and scribe the Wordsworthian way
is pock-pock-pock* apocalyptic versed.
Yet eco-poetry's just one strand 
for there's Heaney, Hughes and Mackay Brown
Oliver too with a naturalist's knack
they drip impressions on the page
spattering simile, cooking up smells
pungent, rank, festering, foul
sweetness of rain, fresh fallen flower.

Intently they whaam! their readers 
with  visions, in tones much more graphic
than mere imitation. For Oliver hears 
in a Halcyon's flash, pure happiness splash 
and Heaney slobbers in frogspawn clots, 
dreads the fearsome slap and plops.
There's a gale of psalms,  a tumult of rooves
when Mackay Brown's father passed that day
whilst battle-shouts, death-cries sound around Hughes
there amongst the dragonflies
  • title from Pliny’s poesia tacens, pictura loquens (‘painting is mute poetry, poetry a talking picture’), 
  • epigraph from “Poem on his birthday” -Dylan Thomas – that audio-visual master of poetry!
  • pock-pock – Mary Oliver’s onomatopoeic oak trees flinging their fruit into pockets of earth in “Fall” –
  • halcyon is a kingfisher – from old Roman
  • poems cited: Mary Oliver ‘The Kingfisher’; Seamus Heaney ‘Death of a naturalist’; George Mackay Brown ‘Hamnavoe’; Ted Hughes ‘To paint a water-lily’

For Bjorn’s MTB prompt: Meet the bar soundly with Onomatopoeia, we are sounding out our poetry with such words and here I’ve considered how much sound there is in poetry and how even the mimicry of onomatopoeia can be, and has been used imaginatively

38 thoughts on “Talking Pictures”

  2. This is expertly wrought, Laura! Wow! I especially admire this part; “Intently they whaam! their readers with visions…”💖💖💖

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  3. Thank you for provided the references for the various lines, Laura; I love how you wove them into your poem. I agree about Dylan Thomas being the audio-visual master of poetry; that’s what drew me to him at quite a young age, especially Under Milk Wood! I especially love your lines:

    ‘they drip impressions on the page
    spattering simile, cooking up smells
    pungent, rank, festering, foul
    sweetness of rain, fresh fallen flower’

    and

    ‘…Heaney slobbers in frogspawn clots,
    dreads the fearsome slap and plops.’

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    1. many thanks Kim for picking some of those sounds as I tried to slip them in as unobtrusively as possible lest they shout!

      p.s. yes we both love DT and his radio play is one I have listened to (Burton as narrator) and read many times

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      1. I have the CD as well as the film and a cartoon version! I remember seeing it performed at The Mermaid Theatre when I was in sixth form, with Richard Davies and some other quite well-known actors sitting on stools and film slides at various points on a screen behind them. I’ll never forget it!

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  7. Such a deft skill of writing that understated sound and deft feel for the words. It will take a lifetime to master such a skill. Love the notes too.

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  10. Though familiar with and fond of Hughes, your tour de force makes we want to dig deeper into the other poets you cite Laura…

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  11. Wow, an amazing onomatopoeiac tribute to poets past! It’s memorable to both see and hear their words…and yours, Laura 🙂

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  15. I don’t know how you do it…some wonderful phrases here (not to mention the whole) like pock-pock-pock apocalyptic, which could so easily be a song. I love the way the final line turns things around. The fact that there are so many references to other poems in your poem boggles my mind. Wow. 🙂

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