White Fielf Green Sheep

[jeremyyoung]

White Field Green Sheep


he's gone wandering again yon down by the river
she think fear knows when the dog come back
with lead and red collar but no four fingered hand

the special is up calming her down nodding
whilst them as nosey agree to casually look 'afar
as they brave twice daily rain on the school run

he's gone yon again wandering lost int' a river
of landmarks and place names and places and
oh it's too much to be here he parks on a bench

waiting the brass bronze river is the same yet yon
dog is gone thither daily rain remind him of mother
to get up school gates for help and Julian and tea

wandering lost again by the yon river bank gone
away in a fairy ring yonder away with the tide
over not yet until a face he half recall greets him

takes him by the arm to yon waiting white car
bids the uniformed children shush talks all the way
friendly everyday familiar until they got home

[Tiger the Lion]

I tried my best to take something away from this besides a headache. I could not. At best it reads as a failed attempt at a Burroughs type cut and paste piece. The connections I can make are few. I am just one reader so take it as you will. Sorry to be negative, I just don't buy it.
Paul

[Leanne]

Is this about a child abduction? I really struggled through the convolutions of syntax, which in some ways adds to the mood of confusion/ being lost but I'm afraid that the use/misuse of yon in particular was just too much for me. Some of the grammatical play is good, e.g. think fear knows (I'd be tempted to make these into a single compound word). If it's a child, the archaisms really don't fit unless you're trying to set it in another time (I thought on the first read that it was a kind of slip through the fairy ring from one time to another, but then realised that there's a school run at the start and finish of the poem so that can't be it). There are good elements to this but those are buried by far too much trying-to-be-cleverness -- a lighter hand would serve your poem better.

[jeremyyoung]

leanne - it's about vascular dementia

[Leanne]

ah, ok, that explains the time shift. Perhaps make the old-to-young confusion a little clearer (that sounds a bit oxymoronic but I think you will probably know what I mean). I am still unhappy about the yons, even if it's part of his natural speech pattern -- if it is, then that too needs to be made clear.

[tectak]

leanne - it's about vascular dementia

No. It's not. Believe me.It's not. It may well be a character with VDem writing a poem...but to what end? It is eminently more germane to write ABOUT someone who has suffered, for example, a severe stroke leaving them unable to communicate intelligibly than it is to write the malformed words or sentences which they may struggle with. Of course, it is quite reasonable to write the clear thoughts of someone dreadfully afflicted with a severe speech impediment...but it has  been done. In fact, I  believe an Oscar was forthcoming.
Thank goodness it is in mild.
This degree of obfuscation is as pointless as cockney rhyming slang in peacetime.
If you want to say something about something then say something about something clearly.
I cannot reconcile the good bits with the rest.
Best,
tectak

Please remember that this poetry lark has some standards, and though I hesitate to say it, much the same grammar rules as any piece of well written work...you know, punctuation and all that.

[jeremyyoung]

leanne - tricky to make yon clear since it means neither here nor there, but somewhere other there, sort of.

tectak - obfuscation? grammar? cockanay?

" It may well be a character with VDem writing a poem" - which it isn't - "but to what end?" - perhaps to show the frustration of yon - " It is eminently more germane to write ABOUT" - no need to shout - " someone who has suffered, for example, a severe stroke leaving them unable to communicate intelligibly than it is to write the malformed words or sentences which they may struggle with." - the sentences and words are perfectly formed, plus they offer you different ways to read them - for instance, them as nosey, can be read, as those who poke their nose into other's business or those who know him - " it is quite reasonable to write the clear thoughts of someone dreadfully afflicted with a severe speech impediment" vascular dementia is not about speech impediments, and it is not about clear thinking - if it were the character in the poem would not be so confused by he familiar - "but it has been done. In fact, I believe an Oscar was forthcoming." - should he have knocked everything of a table or mantle piece or some other Hollywood cliche? No thanks, I watch the dialect original - "If you want to say something about something then say something about something clearly." I have, if you think about it.

[Leanne]

yon means yonder -- away in the distance, either in space or time but more usually in space. I have never heard or read it used in any other context.

[milo]

leanne - tricky to make yon clear since it means neither here nor there, but somewhere other there, sort of.

I think she means you are using the word incorrect idiomatically.  For example:

"he's gone wandering again yon down by the river"


would less awkwardly be:


"he's gone wandering again down by yon river"


etc,. etc.

[tectak]

leanne - tricky to make yon clear since it means neither here nor there, but somewhere other there, sort of.

tectak - obfuscation? grammar? cockanay?

" It may well be a character with VDem writing a poem" - which it isn't - "but to what end?" - perhaps to show the frustration of yon - " It is eminently more germane to write ABOUT" - no need to shout - " someone who has suffered, for example, a severe stroke leaving them unable to communicate intelligibly than it is to write the malformed words or sentences which they may struggle with." - the sentences and words are perfectly formed, plus they offer you different ways to read them - for instance, them as nosey, can be read, as those who poke their nose into other's business or those who know him - " it is quite reasonable to write the clear thoughts of someone dreadfully afflicted with a severe speech impediment" vascular dementia is not about speech impediments, and it is not about clear thinking - if it were the character in the poem would not be so confused by he familiar - "but it has  been done. In fact, I  believe an Oscar was forthcoming." - should he have knocked everything of a table or mantle piece or some other Hollywood cliche? No thanks, I watch the dialect original - "If you want to say something about something then say something about something clearly." I have, if you think about it.

Bluster, buster.
We, you and I, need to define "clearly". If you need to think about it, clearly it is unclear. I am now a little concerned. You think that this piece is written in "perfectly formed" words and sentences? Check your title.
In fact, check the whole piece. It's "cockney", by the way.
Best,
tectak

[Grace]

White Field Green Sheep


he's gone wandering again yon down by the river
she think fear knows when the dog come back
with lead and red collar but no four fingered hand

the special is up calming her down nodding
whilst them as nosey agree to casually look 'afar
as they brave twice daily rain on the school run

he's gone yon again wandering lost int' a river
of landmarks and place names and places and
oh it's too much to be here he parks on a bench

waiting the brass bronze river is the same yet yon
dog is gone thither daily rain remind him of mother
to get up school gates for help and Julian and tea

wandering lost again by the yon river bank gone
away in a fairy ring yonder away with the tide
over not yet until a face he half recall greets him

takes him by the arm to yon waiting white car
bids the uniformed children shush talks all the way
friendly everyday familiar until they got home

I strongly dislike this poem - especially the misplaced yons. I'd get the same feeling if I read a lop-sided poem about the gait of someone who had lost a limb. This is a poem written in cracked speech and splintered thought, attempting to mirror the mind of a person suffering vascular dementia. If I was that person, I'd rather someone write my soul shining through the cracks.  Sadly, this is missing - or maybe it's there but I missed it. Grace

[Erthona]

Since it has been brought up, but not quite grasped, I will speak again on yon, anon. All the uses of yon can be removed, or replaced by the word "the" and the poem will be better for it (if this were in serious I would delineate each one, but as it is not, I won't).  Two examples only.

"is the same yet yon dog is gone thither" --> "is the same yet the dog is gone thither" the thither already makes the "yon" redundant.

some of the other instances:

"he's gone wandering again yon down by the river" --> "he's gone wandering again down by the river"
"Down" already implies what yon would and it doesn't sound silly in the process.

I knew this guy once that people called Steve "fuck" Davis "fuck, because he would interject the word "fuck" anywhere he could, even in between the syllables of a single word. I guaran-fucking-tee-ya he would. This sounds like his type of dialect if he could just replace the word "yon" with the word "fuck."  

"he's gone wandering again fucking down by the river"   See, fits perfectly.

Regardless of the dialect, which the writer does not seem to handle well, "yon" and "down" would not be used together as they are obviously redundant. Even in dialects, phrase patterns follow certain rules, this would seem to violate one of those rules. Besides, outside of the use of "yon," there is little to tell that this is a dialect, unless you wish to cite awkward syntax and non-sentences. All dialects have their own internal beauty in terms of syntax, such internal consistency is no where present here. I would conclude that whatever dialect the writer is trying to approximate here, he has certainly missed the mark; Mark Twain that is and he ain't!  

The lack of punctuation is cute, and totally damaging to the poem. There can be no logical rationale for abandoning it here, nor the lack of capital letters at the start of sentences; I have already mentioned syntax. Also some other fun affectation. 'afar - afar is spelled afar, there has never been a letter that preceded it that a hyphen replaces. The hyphen is solely a matter of affection, or poorly structured dialectal word. The only time I have seen it used as such is in another language that uses a hyphen to signify a different thing than what it does in English, or in SciFi novels when trying to make a name or place sound exotic, often by bastardizing a French word (of course French is a bastard's language anyway). If one substituted a hyphen for the "a" that is already there as an attempt to show the lack of emphasis the dialect places in the "a", possibly something along the idea of a soft cough, or something similar the how someone with a Cologne dialect in Germany pronounces the "i" in ich, as almost a hissing sound, but from the throat. Unless there is a consonant that precedes the "a" such as a "c" making it "cafar" but the "c" not being hardly pronounced and dropping the "c" and putting in the hyphen to illustrate that, there is simply no reason to do so. This is especially true as the context definitely makes it clear that "afar" is in fact the intended word.

Now, we have that boring stuff out of the way, on to the poem. Here are two truths about the poem. The narrator is the relative or caretaker of the person with dementia. If the poorly worded phrases are an attempt at a particular dialect by the writer, it is clearly seen that translating that dialect to the written word is beyond the writer's current abilities. There are few dialects that I feel comfortable attempting, and this is after many years of studying them. Still to this day I still stumble time and again over how to translate what I have heard into words in such a way as to accurately capture those sounds. Writing in dialect in not for the causal participant. Not only it extremely difficult to translate the sounds into readable words, it is also just as necessary to write in such a way as to give an approximation and not overwhelm the reader with to much technically difficult minutia. For an excellent way dialect should be handled I recommend studying Samuel Clemens' (aka Mark Twain) "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."

As to the plot: This is a poem story. It tells the story of an unnamed male with moderate to sever dementia. He has again wondered off and not returned, as the dog has returned without him. Evidently, he is generally cognitively on the ball enough that he makes it back or why would anyway allow him to go down to the river. This time however he has become confused and wondered off. Panic ensues, however he his eventually found. He is obviously in an agitated state, as one would expect, as demonstrated by having to be spoken to in calming manner "shush talks".
All of this is well traveled ground, nothing of any original insight is put forth. One could glean the same story by reading a few of the thousands of stories out on the internet on the topic.

That this is an attempt at dialect I will not dispute, however passages like the following would generally make me suspect there was an attempt at stream of consciousness, but not just from speaker to speaker, but from thought to though.

"takes him by the arm to yon waiting white car bids the uniformed children shush talks all the way friendly everyday familiar until they got home"

I will say one thing, if this is an accurate portrayal of an actual dialect, I will be glad if I never have to encounter it. I have heard some very strange and obscure English dialects, most of them originating in some kind of hilly or mountainous region and I have never heard anything near as meaningless as what is written here.

Regardless the two primary aspects of this poem, as the writer does not seem to avail himself of much else, the dialect and the story, appear to fail in whatever it was they were suppose to accomplish.

The writer may respond that I have no idea what I am talking about, that it is a perfectly decent portrayal of the dialect. That may be. What I do know is that as the reader, that I would get less than halfway through this before I would discard it. If that is the response the writer is seeking, he has certainly achieved it.
__________________________________________________________________________
OK, the test of Asgard, or Ripple, or what-the fuck-ever you wanna call it. It's time to fess up, what dialect is this actually suppose to be? Sure we'll probably laugh, what dews you 'spect after you bean such a Nuss-rod about it. So sit rear-wise downt-hare, an speard your protolaxes ona dis sher log and popoutta answer. No squirmen and squiblim and getten spars in yer butt, no onesa gonna think yer a pork-u-pine an feel sorrow fer ya. So turn round and face da music. Thar ya go, nayer doen et lika hog in wet clay!   

Translation (jus n'case): Sure we'll probably laugh, what do you expect after you've been such a snob about it. So sit here on this log and give us the answer. Don't be trying to get out of it through misdirection, or trying to get people to feel sorry for you: own up to what you've done. That's correct, now you are slowly doing it.

Dale                      

[tectak]

Since it has been brought up, but not quite grasped, I will speak again on yon, anon. All the uses of yon can be removed, or replaced by the word "the" and the poem will be better for it (if this were in serious I would delineate each one, but as it is not, I won't).  Two examples only.

"is the same yet yon dog is gone thither" --> "is the same yet the dog is gone thither" the thither already makes the "yon" redundant.

some of the other instances:

"he's gone wandering again yon down by the river" --> "he's gone wandering again down by the river"
"Down" already implies what yon would and it doesn't sound silly in the process.

I knew this guy once that people called Steve "fuck" Davis "fuck, because he would interject the word "fuck" anywhere he could, even in between the syllables of a single word. I guaran-fucking-tee-ya he would. This sounds like his type of dialect if he could just replace the word "yon" with the word "fuck."  

"he's gone wandering again fucking down by the river"   See, fits perfectly.

Regardless of the dialect, which the writer does not seem to handle well, "yon" and "down" would not be used together as they are obviously redundant. Even in dialects, phrase patterns follow certain rules, this would seem to violate one of those rules. Besides, outside of the use of "yon," there is little to tell that this is a dialect, unless you wish to cite awkward syntax and non-sentences. All dialects have their own internal beauty in terms of syntax, such internal consistency is no where present here. I would conclude that whatever dialect the writer is trying to approximate here, he has certainly missed the mark; Mark Twain that is and he ain't!  

The lack of punctuation is cute, and totally damaging to the poem. There can be no logical rationale for abandoning it here, nor the lack of capital letters at the start of sentences; I have already mentioned syntax. Also some other fun affectation. 'afar - afar is spelled afar, there has never been a letter that preceded it that a hyphen replaces. The hyphen is solely a matter of affection, or poorly structured dialectal word. The only time I have seen it used as such is in another language that uses a hyphen to signify a different thing than what it does in English, or in SciFi novels when trying to make a name or place sound exotic, often by bastardizing a French word (of course French is a bastard's language anyway). If one substituted a hyphen for the "a" that is already there as an attempt to show the lack of emphasis the dialect places in the "a", possibly something along the idea of a soft cough, or something similar the how someone with a Cologne dialect in Germany pronounces the "i" in ich, as almost a hissing sound, but from the throat. Unless there is a consonant that precedes the "a" such as a "c" making it "cafar" but the "c" not being hardly pronounced and dropping the "c" and putting in the hyphen to illustrate that, there is simply no reason to do so. This is especially true as the context definitely makes it clear that "afar" is in fact the intended word.

Now, we have that boring stuff out of the way, on to the poem. Here are two truths about the poem. The narrator is the relative or caretaker of the person with dementia. If the poorly worded phrases are an attempt at a particular dialect by the writer, it is clearly seen that translating that dialect to the written word is beyond the writer's current abilities. There are few dialects that I feel comfortable attempting, and this is after many years of studying them. Still to this day I still stumble time and again over how to translate what I have heard into words in such a way as to accurately capture those sounds. Writing in dialect in not for the causal participant. Not only it extremely difficult to translate the sounds into readable words, it is also just as necessary to write in such a way as to give an approximation and not overwhelm the reader with to much technically difficult minutia. For an excellent way dialect should be handled I recommend studying Samuel Clemens' (aka Mark Twain) "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."

As to the plot: This is a poem story. It tells the story of an unnamed male with moderate to sever dementia. He has again wondered off and not returned, as the dog has returned without him. Evidently, he is generally cognitively on the ball enough that he makes it back or why would anyway allow him to go down to the river. This time however he has become confused and wondered off. Panic ensues, however he his eventually found. He is obviously in an agitated state, as one would expect, as demonstrated by having to be spoken to in calming manner "shush talks".
All of this is well traveled ground, nothing of any original insight is put forth. One could glean the same story by reading a few of the thousands of stories out on the internet on the topic.

That this is an attempt at dialect I will not dispute, however passages like the following would generally make me suspect there was an attempt at stream of consciousness, but not just from speaker to speaker, but from thought to though.

"takes him by the arm to yon waiting white car bids the uniformed children shush talks all the way friendly everyday familiar until they got home"

I will say one thing, if this is an accurate portrayal of an actual dialect, I will be glad if I never have to encounter it. I have heard some very strange and obscure English dialects, most of them originating in some kind of hilly or mountainous region and I have never heard anything near as meaningless as what is written here.

Regardless the two primary aspects of this poem, as the writer does not seem to avail himself of much else, the dialect and the story, appear to fail in whatever it was they were suppose to accomplish.

The writer may respond that I have no idea what I am talking about, that it is a perfectly decent portrayal of the dialect. That may be. What I do know is that as the reader, that I would get less than halfway through this before I would discard it. If that is the response the writer is seeking, he has certainly achieved it.
__________________________________________________________________________
OK, the test of Asgard, or Ripple, or what-the fuck-ever you wanna call it. It's time to fess up, what dialect is this actually suppose to be? Sure we'll probably laugh, what dews you 'spect after you bean such a Nuss-rod about it. So sit rear-wise downt-hare, an speard your protolaxes ona dis sher log and popoutta answer. No squirmen and squiblim and getten spars in yer butt, no onesa gonna think yer a pork-u-pine an feel sorrow fer ya. So turn round and face da music. Thar ya go, nayer doen et lika hog in wet clay!   

Translation (jus n'case): Sure we'll probably laugh, what do you expect after you've been such a snob about it. So sit here on this log and give us the answer. Don't be trying to get out of it through misdirection, or trying to get people to feel sorry for you: own up to what you've done. That's correct, now you are slowly doing it.

Dale                      

I think that's wot I said.
tectak

[Grace]

Yon.

In Celtic dialect -  he or she:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=yon


In Cumbrian  - 'that':

http://www.thedialectdictionary.com/view...w=enhanced


Here endeth my yon search. Beats counting sheep.

[billy]

right guys, get back on yon topic/ mod