Tweetspeak Poetry

  • Home
  • FREE prompts
  • Earth Song
  • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • Teaching Tools
  • Books, Etc.
  • Patron Love

Poetry Classroom: Violin at Sea

By David Clark Wright 7 Comments

Welcome to this month’s poetry classroom, with poet and professor David Wright. We invite you to respond to the poems we’ll share here—their forms, images, sounds, meanings, surprises—ask questions of David and each other, and write your own poems along the way.



Violin at Sea

— for Rebecca Loudon

What worries her neighbor (the one who brings her berries in bowls):

      one day she will loosen her grip
      and the violin will drop into the Pacific.

But he says nothing. He watches her each morning

      since June, when she began playing,
      ankle deep in the tide.

A quarter mile down the beach he waits for her to finish her scales

      only moves near when she begins the slow improvisations:
      half a partita, melody of a chorale.

Two woven themes from works he does not know

      drawn him toward her and the Old German
      who lives in her head, practiced essence and sense.

Today, the capplemeister and the voyeur feel sure the fiddle

      will slip from her hands as she adjusts a fugue
      to the violent sea, or the sea to the counterpoint of her own liquid spine.

This morning she does not sway sway, or play scales

      but scatters as if she is sea spray:
      oh save her, they sing in whispers.

If her instrument heads out on the waves she will, they know,

      wade in after it, join it, cling to the bow like a buoy,
      the horizon, her hope, an impossible score.

Photo by Elsie esq., via Flickr. Poem by David Wright, author of A Liturgy for Stones.

_____

Discussion Questions:

1. The neighbor is worried that the musician will drop her violin into the sea. Do you think he should worry?

2. What makes the horizon an impossible score? Is the musician’s hope misplaced, then?

3. Why do you suppose this musician has taken to playing ankle deep in the tide?

Browse poets and poems
Browse music
Browse more sea poems

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
David Clark Wright
Latest posts by David Clark Wright (see all)
  • Poetry Classroom: Four Sarabandes—Yo-Yo Ma - September 30, 2013
  • Poetry Classroom: Kansas - September 23, 2013
  • Poetry Classroom: Iowa Tocatta - September 16, 2013

Filed Under: Blog, Courage Poems, Hope Poems, Music Poems, Poetry Classroom, poetry teaching resources, Sea Poems

Try Every Day Poems...

Comments

  1. Maureen Doallas says

    September 9, 2013 at 10:09 am

    Such adept wordplays, beginning with the title (“at sea”) and concluding with that final “impossible score”!

    To me, this poem addresses elements of control and risk and the balancing of tension in having faith that everything comes together at the right moment and knowing that one can only control so much. There are risks and surprises both.

    Reply
    • dw says

      September 10, 2013 at 8:36 am

      Thanks, Maureen. I find risk and control to always be in tension when I write (or do much of anything). How do you balance control and risk in your own writing? Are you conscious of it in the generative stage or does it become a concern mostly when you revise?

      dw

      Reply
      • Maureen Doallas says

        September 10, 2013 at 1:20 pm

        I try not to control the writing of a first draft, especially if the writing seems to be flowing. Post-initial draft, I’ll always pay attention to whether I think particular words work, whether stanza breaks make sense, and especially how line breaks function.

        If writing to form, though, I will tend to exert more control in the initial writing.

        I think I’ve managed to loosen my writing quite a bit since becoming associated with TweetSpeakPoetry (witness my comment poems). That’s a good thing.

        Reply
  2. Marcy Terwilliger says

    September 10, 2013 at 12:41 am

    Reminds me of required reading in High School, The Old Man and the Sea. It is he, the old man that is afraid something might happen to this lovely vision that he seeks each day. She on the other hand is carefree, with wings to fly, not a care in the world but what she plays. She’s a brave one, nothing will stop her or bring her to her knees. Her happiness lies in the unseen of others, what’s a little water to the hem of a dress, nothing to her, her spirit is free to be.

    Reply
  3. NewLife2008 says

    September 12, 2013 at 11:14 am

    Nothing in life is ever certain; therefore he has reason to worry. The violinist will in time lose her grip on her instrument and on life – and he knows that. She’s dependent on the violin and sea to bring her peace and oneness in her life and without those two components she is not whole. Therefore she can’t resist the lure to the shore; but she never goes further than ankle deep in water. Whether it be her fear of the unknown or cognizant of her limitations – she ventures further – so the horizon she will never attain.

    Reply
    • NewLife2008 says

      September 12, 2013 at 11:16 am

      Sorry, but I made a mistake in the last sentence. What I meant was “Whether it be her fear of the unknown or being cognizant of her limitations – she will never venture further and so she’ll never attain the horizon.”

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. 5 Great Tips for Reading Poetry Aloud - says:
    October 23, 2015 at 9:27 am

    […] reading a poem aloud, remember, you are dealing partly with lines. Poet David Wright, author of The Small Books of Bach, likens a poetic line to a measure of music. Just as measures in […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Take How to Read a Poem

Get the Introduction, the Billy Collins poem, and Chapter 1

get the sample now

Welcome to Tweetspeak

New to Tweetspeak Poetry? Start here, in The Mischief Café. You're a regular? Check out our July Menu

Patron Love

❤️

Welcome a little patron love, when you help keep the world poetic.

The Graphic Novel

"Stunning, heartbreaking, and relevant illustrations"

Callie Feyen, teacher

read a summary of The Yellow Wallpaper

meet The Yellow Wallpaper characters

How to Write Poetry

Your Comments

  • Megan Willome on Poet Laura: Poetry in Space
  • Katie Spivey Brewster on What Happened to the Fireside Poets?
  • Dheepa R. Maturi on “108”: An Ecothriller by Former Poet Laura Dheepa Maturi
  • Dheepa R. Maturi on “108”: An Ecothriller by Former Poet Laura Dheepa Maturi

Featured In

We're happy to have been featured in...

The Huffington Post

The Paris Review

The New York Observer

Tumblr Book News

Stay in Touch With Us

Browse by Topic

Learn to Write Form Poems

How to Write an Acrostic

How to Write a Ballad

How to Write a Catalog Poem

How to Write a Ghazal

How to Write a Haiku

How to Write an Ode

How to Write a Pantoum

How to Write a Rondeau

How to Write a Sestina

How to Write a Sonnet

How to Write a Villanelle

5 FREE POETRY PROMPTS

Get 5 FREE inbox poetry prompts from the popular book How to Write a Poem

Shakespeare Resources

Poetry Classroom: Sonnet 18

Common Core Picture Poems: Sonnet 73

Sonnet 104 Annotated

Sonnet 116 Annotated

Character Analysis: Romeo and Juliet

Character Analysis: Was Hamlet Sane or Insane?

Why Does Hamlet Wait to Kill the King?

10 Fun Shakespeare Resources

About Shakespeare: Poet and Playwright

Top 10 Shakespeare Sonnets

See all 154 Shakespeare sonnets in our Shakespeare Library!

Explore Work From Black Poets

About Us

  • • A Blessing for Writers
  • • Our Story
  • • Meet Our Team
  • • Literary Citizenship
  • • Poet Laura
  • • Poetry for Life: The 5 Vital Approaches
  • • T. S. Poetry Press – All Books
  • • Contact Us

Write With Us

  • • 5 FREE Poetry Prompts-Inbox Delivery
  • • 30 Days to Richer Writing Workshop
  • • Poetry Prompts
  • • Submissions
  • • The Write to Poetry

Read With Us

  • • All Our Books
  • • Book Club
  • • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • • Literacy Extras
  • • Poems to Listen By: Audio Series
  • • Poet-a-Day
  • • Poets and Poems
  • • 50 States Projects
  • • Charlotte Perkins Gilman Poems Library
  • • Edgar Allan Poe Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Blake Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Shakespeare Sonnet Library

Celebrate With Us

  • • Poem on Your Pillow Day
  • • Poetic Earth Month
  • • Poet in a Cupcake Day
  • • Poetry at Work Day
  • • Random Acts of Poetry Day
  • • Take Your Poet to School Week
  • • Take Your Poet to Work Day

Gift Ideas

  • • Every Day Poems
  • • Our Shop
  • • Everybody Loves a Book!

Connect

  • • Donate
  • • Blog Buttons
  • • By Heart
  • • Shop for Tweetspeak Fun Stuff

Copyright © 2025 Tweetspeak Poetry · FAQ, Disclosure & Privacy Policy