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Since posting my new "Frodo Art Travesty" manip...
Frodo and the Enamoured Woman (detail below), one of the Tolkien friends with whom I correspond, jan-u-wine, was inspired to write a poem to go with it. She is a writer of very perceptive, very fine LotR poetry (a link to her works appears below her poem).
What she wrote for this manip was so evocative to me of what might have transpired in the mind of Frodo when faced with the spectacle of such love for him in the face of another, I decided to edit it into my entry.
Here it is....
~ Frodo and the Enamoured Woman:
~ Jan-u-wine's Lord of the Rings-based poetry is featured at LotR Scrapbook.
~ Mechtild
View Frodo Art Travesties Table of LJ Entries page HERE.
View Frodo Art Travesties Album HERE.
Frodo and the Enamoured Woman (detail below), one of the Tolkien friends with whom I correspond, jan-u-wine, was inspired to write a poem to go with it. She is a writer of very perceptive, very fine LotR poetry (a link to her works appears below her poem).
What she wrote for this manip was so evocative to me of what might have transpired in the mind of Frodo when faced with the spectacle of such love for him in the face of another, I decided to edit it into my entry.
Here it is....
The Fields of Forever by jan-u-wine
The warm-cool curve of her throat rests upon my shoulder,
tender pulse
racing and fluttering like the wings
of some wild and frighted bird,
though
her eyes are calm
and sure
and sorrowfully certain
(as if she held some great truth
untold,
untellable,
within).
And I feel
caught
unawares,
as though there were more
to my nakedness
than a simple lack of clothes,
more that rises within
than that without.
Almost
I welcome
the familar sharp definition
of the cliff-face at my back,
the chill counterpoint of rock
holding me on the edge of a dreme.
I wanted.......
I wanted
to smile
as her nose brushed mine
I wanted.......
I wanted to
laugh
at the sweet absurdity of the gesture,
at the curious
intimacy of it.
I wanted.....
oh,
I wanted to know
(above all, I desire to know)
why
her eyes were sad with a wanting of their own
how
in all the wide Circle of the World
she chanced upon me
(or we, upon each other),
who she should be
and
where she might call home......
I wanted.....
I want
to know
what
the summer-crushed-berry
of her mouth tastes like
and the feel of her hands,
running
like water
like silksmooth moonlit water
upon me
and mine -
answering,
answering
until
there can be no more questions,
only
the gentling of my name upon her lips
as if it were the only word the moon and stars
and sun
had need of or would ever know.
She is settling the rich darkness of her garment about her again,
though
her unbound hair still mingles with mine,
the scent and feel and aching-sweet sense of
her
echoing and singing within me.
And we fall into sleep, thus:
arms and legs twined to and twixt,
a warm puzzle of limbs
(gently tired by loving),
eyes speaking all which there are no words for
until
perforce
sleep closes them.
And that last moment of waking
falls
into the first moment of dreme,
her eyes holding me more-so
than ever hands could do,
until
I am walking within the startling fields of them
and dreme upon
forever.
~ Frodo and the Enamoured Woman:
~ Jan-u-wine's Lord of the Rings-based poetry is featured at LotR Scrapbook.
~ Mechtild
View Frodo Art Travesties Table of LJ Entries page HERE.
View Frodo Art Travesties Album HERE.
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That gorgeous manip of yours works wonders!
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I am not really that much for poetry, Pearl. Normally, I much prefer writers to say what they want to say using prose. But this poem is one of the exceptions. I feel as though she has expressed Frodo's mind and heart with an intimacy that prose seems unsuited to, but which poetry suits perfectly.
If prose had to express these things for Frodo, it might make him seem too self-conscious, too "stagey," to say such deep and beautiful things, a hobbit of the Shire (even if he is Iorhael). But the beauty of verse is like that of opera: what would be too intense -- too much if spoken, seems perfectly natural, even inevitably "right" when sung. An ordinary seamstress like Mimi or a down-on-his-luck poet like Rudolpho in La Boheme can sing what they could never say. When they sing their Act I duet, it is as if their hearts and souls are soaring up to the heavens (and into hearers' hearts). It would never work that way if they spoke those same lines.
I feel as though jan-u-wine's poem is like that. If Frodo had inner dialogue to go with this manip in a prose scene, he might marvel to himself over his good fortune to have won her love, thinking what a topping lass she was and how dashed lucky he was to get her. But, expressed in poetry his thoughts can express what is in his heart and mind and soul with a height of expression and a depth and weight of feeling that prose simply cannot convey.
When I looked at this image and read jan-u-wine's poem, I thought, "Why have I been bothering to write a story about Frodo in love? She has shown more of Frodo in love in this slender column of verse than I have conveyed in twelve fat chapters."
*sob*
I really, really love this poem. I am so glad I made the manip, if only to have inspired it.
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Can't edit my comment, so I want to underscore that I was overdoing it to make a point. Of course Frodo could do better inner dialogue than that! :D
P.S. Yes, the poem does indeed beautifully convey love, as such.
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Thank you Mechthild for sharing :-)
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I couldn't have said it better !
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I didn't read through the whole poem, I just wanted you to know I loved your manip. So nice! *brushes Frodo's cheek softly*
Lembas :)
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I read in Ariel's LJ that you are finishing up exams. Best of luck, Lembas! I know you'll do fine.
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These are great works!
Thank you so much for sharing!
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And, my eyes are just about popping out of my head because I've just found the link to your other pictures you've made!! OMG! They look so fantastic I'm going now to save a copy of every single one to my computer!! :D
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The poem really does "open up" the picture, don't you think? And her word image of Frodo's inner workings is so book-like to me.
You found the Frodo Art Travesties? Oh, I am pleased. I loved making them. You will see they have progressed from the simplest cut-and-paste's (when I was just learning) to more subtly-done things like this one. Film-Frodo's face is so classically beautiful, I felt just *compelled* to see how he would look in various periods of art. Thank heaven he is so lovely, or the cruder efforts would not be worth looking at.
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I LOVED your manips! You did such an amazing job! I love artwork by the old Masters, my brother always had books lying around the house and we'd talk about which ones we like the best (though he knows heaps more about it than I do!) and I really loved seeing you turn those works of art into new works of art! I was so excited seeing each one! I was like "Ooh! Frodo in a Bouguereau!!" :D You get better and better with each one and I really can't wait to see more :)
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Would not we all? I think it was Pearlette up there who said the poem not only well-expressed Frodo if he had loved, but the heart of anyone who truly loved. The poem is art because while it perfectly applies to its specific case (Frodo and the mystery person he loves), it is applicable beyond itself.
THanks for the compliments, Starlit Woods. I don't know how many more I'll do. I keep saying, "That's my last one." Simply because I don't find that many likely source paintings that would work well for various reasons (face in bad position, body a poor match, not a large enough copy of the image, etc.). But everytime I think, "Well, that's that," an image (like this Sheila Metzner art photograph) will just turn up on its own and I'll say, "Wow, I have to do it!"
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You can't stop doing pictures now when I've only just discovered you!! Not that I'm trying to talk you into anything but *cough* http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b37/livtyler/homere-bouguereau.jpg *cough* A little Frodo might fit in there nicely! Please, feed my addiction! ;)
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http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/image.asp?id=1416&hires=1
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Take a look and see what you think. I'll get a link to that entry and you can scroll down and take a look at it.
http://mechtild.livejournal.com/17563.html#cutid1
It's down there on Dec. 30, called "Fair Remembrance".
Maybe I should repost the poem in its own entry? I'd have to ask her if that was OK, though, since she doesn't see herself as a writer of erotic or romantic poetry. I thought it was great, though.
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This LJ entry -Poem by jan-u-wine, inspired by "Frodo and the Enamoured Woman"....- is now resting cosily in my LJ-memories.
Thank you also for the link to the saucy poem ;-) I read it in January and saved it in my ‘Poetry I love’ file. I hope that jan-u-wine will overlook the fact that I did not ask her permission to do so first *blush * but I do not re-post anything that I have saved for my own private enjoyment.
Reposting "Fair Remembrance" would be good. I’d like to read the responses of other readers.
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I don't think I've read "No Child of My Body." I will HAVE to go read it.
So you think re-posting "Fair Remembrance" would do well? I could do the same thing: post a detail from the manip, along with a link to the full image and original entry (which had all the info. on Reni and a link to the original painting).
I don't think the fans who write poetry get nearly the attention they deserve. If jan-u-wine were writing prose/fics as good as her poems, readers would be all over them.
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Good idea - it cuts down the to-ing and Fro-ing. :D
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Now, THAT's a great portrayal of what Frodo might feel holding Elanor. I confess it's very like the sorts of things I had picturing him feeling, and had planned a scene late in the story of him holding Elanor and thinking such things, but it was going to be from Rosamunda's POV, so the reader would have to intuit this line of thought by the way he held and looked (or could not look) at her.
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Yes it is such a tear-jerker – That will remain with me for all-time.
I thank you for giving me a hint of how your lovely story ‘Threshold’ might develop. Gowsh! I love that tale.
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I'm still working on it, you know, although I have been massively resistant about it for some reason. Thanks for continuing to be so supportive about it, Este. I have really, really appreciated it.