Regarding the CAS poem Concupiscence . In volume 1 of The complete Poetry , line 12 contains the phrase "moon-warm hair",but in the poetry section of this web-site , the line reads "noon-warm hair" . Is it moon or noon ? Noon seems more logical in regards to warmth , but moon sounds better . As I have paid for the book , I hope it's the correct version !

I'm guess either one could be a typo... You'd hope that all the typos would have been fixed between the hardback and paperback editions, but I'm sure some have slipped the net...

As the English Assassin pointed out, either could be a typo. The first publication -- in Selected Poems -- has "noon-warm", but that is no proof.

My guess is that the correct must be "noon-warm". Only that makes sense, and it fits in the poem.

Knygatin Wrote:
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> My guess is that the correct must be "noon-warm".
> Only that makes sense, and it fits in the poem.

This is poetry we are talking about; it is not supposed to make sense. "Moon-warm" strikes me as very poetic.

Well, both are poetic and both make poetic sense, if sense is needed, but the question here is which is accurate to what CAS intended? I'd like to know. While I think either work well and neither diminish the poem significantly, yet, if this is a typo, then it is quite a major one as it does influence any interpretation that the poor reader may make.

I initially favoured moon-warm purely for romantic reasons. And the more I think about it the more I think moon-warm is correct. Firstly, the moon's tidal influence does somehow compliment the sea imagery. But more so, this is a poem about sex, right?! It is full of suggestive imagery and I think the clue is in the rest of the line: "loops of noon-warm hair" - I'm not convinced that CAS is talking about the curly hairs on her head and it could refer to a certain monthly cycle...

Also, forgive me if they seem very obvious, but my knowledge of archaic vocabulary is sadly limited and I'm also only an occasional reader of poetry, so I suggest this with an amount of caution: I asked myself what does CAS mean by "yerd" here? I assumed it meant yard, simply because it sounds similar... But I started to wonder if it could possibly mean head because it follows "nodding," but head doesn't seem to fit in with the rest of the line and I can find no reference to yerd meaning head in my Googling, so I'm discounting this. Apparently it can also be a Scottish word for earth, but that makes little "sense" to my mind in context to the poem. So I assume I'm right with my original reading, that CAS means yerd as in yard? Which suggests this is another one of the poems many double entendre... Which I think also might support the moon-warm hypothesis?

Just for convenience, here's the poem in full, with noon instead of moon:

Quote:

CAS
As the fierce faun, on the cypress-bearded cape,
Desires the sea-girl, seen with billow-drifted
Hair the color of kelp and shadowy-rifted
Vulva that only knows the slow sea’s rape,
And vainly stares, till the fair, unfondled nape
Goes down to ocean’s coral-crofted valleys:
Then, in a daylong dream, he swings and dallies
Through the close gulfs about her swirling shape
And turns not when familiar dryads come
To tickle his bowed neck with sharpening tips
Of laughter-lifted bosoms, or to snare
His nodding yerd with loops of noon-warm hair:—
Thus, Lais, am I fain for masterdom
Upon thy flown unparted thighs and lips.

"Yerd" is an archaic colloquialism for "penis," so there is not even a double entendre there.

Jojo Lapin X Wrote:
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> "Yerd" is an archaic colloquialism for "penis," so
> there is not even a double entendre there.

Oh, there you go then. I did say my archaic knowledge was limited. I think "moon-warm" it is then, unless she's sunbathing with her legs open...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 19 Jan 13 | 11:16AM by The English Assassin.

Jojo Lapin X Wrote:
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> This is poetry we are talking about; it is not
> supposed to make sense. "Moon-warm" strikes me as
> very poetic.

"Moon-warm" strikes me as insanity. For GOD'S SAKE, this is a dryad we're talking about!

Knygatin Wrote:
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> "Moon-warm" strikes me as insanity. For GOD'S
> SAKE, this is a dryad we're talking about!

Very good point, CAS would know as well as we do that dryads never warm their genitals under moonlight conditions, for it gives them warts!

"moon-warm" is more poetic and sensual, and gets my vote.

In 2007, my friends took me on a three-week tour of New England and New York. We spent four days in Providence, and by the sheerest chance S. T. was in town, doing some last minute work on the CAS poetry volumes. If memory serves me, he had three large white boxes that were filled with Smith papers. He shew'd us the page he was working on, which had a poem written in pencil. I stood there feeling like I was going to swoon. I don't know what it is about seeing these relics of a poet's work in his own hand, but it has a tremendous, an almost emotional, effect on me. I have photos of that moment on my Facebook photo album. In one, my friend and collaborator, Maryanne K. Snyder, has her hands lifted to her head, her face contorted with astonish'd ecstasy--so I'm not alone in experiencing these emotions!

"I'm a little girl."
--H. P. Lovecraft, Esq.

I will volunteer and go up to the Brown University Library (or wherever it is) and check the original manuscript, if someone will pay for my airplane ticket. You can transfer the sum to Paypal ("The Easy Way to Pay"). My email address is visible under my profile name.







(Oh, good GOD, please, please, please . . . I'm keeping my fingers crossed.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 19 Jan 13 | 12:00PM by Knygatin.

I'm e-mailing ST on another matter tonight. I'll ask him.

Just a note on the whole thread - While I have not seen the manuscript for this, I have had many in my possession for years (they are all now in Berkeley at UC -150 pages) - my sense is that "moon" would be the preferred word by Clark: first of all, in his cosmos, the moon and other celestial locales were rarely used in any conventional sense - I believe he may have been thinking of Byron's "Don Juan" in which the "warmth of the moon" plays a small part in young Juan's first or second conquest as I recall - could be mistaken, may be just mood - he also uses the moon frequently in sexually slanted phrases - the color of the lamia, etc. Just a thought -