Mabinogion Typesetter

By Ray Schaufeld

Fri, 25 Apr 2014
  • 2562 reads
8 comments
 

'But Mhairi, why Wales?'

White shaggy hellhounds, bloodbath eyes
Underworld plummet, barking, deafening.
Rhiannon, Pwll, Brownwen, Bran
Gavanti fever jigs
Lividly spattering the A4 text.
 
Her claddagh ring shouts 'traitor, cheat!'
 
'You must justify the margin, my fair one.'
'Awright, Dafydd, ah'm no daft.'
 
Brokenshard awareness, feastslain dragonwyrm
Meadhall hungover, pounding, aftershocked.
 
Clank, clack, hefty blank, blank keyhammer hammerkeys
Bighefty bestial machinery, hardwork to push down.
 
Too heavyweight for my hands.
 
'Did you find the page you lost, my sweet?'
the work disappeared in seaweed and sedges
 
Damn the Welsh Fantasy Free Press
Auntie Aggie gave me work on the Island
And I chose this!
 
Overcook August '76, withering grasses, twittering finches
Riverdredge skeletons, gasbloated huge black rodent cadavers.
Nightshriek mandrax.
'Stet', 'stet', the keys march past
The carriage returns, turns, revolves widdershins.
 
'I never touched it, I swear.'
 
'Bleddy machine's got a will of it's own.
Fancy a pint?'
 
 
 
 
 
Certificate PG
Poem
Variegated leaves
Surreal
Fantasy
Love

Comments

Submitted by VeraClark on

Elsie, what a memorable piece. Transported me to time and place, the typesetter's total frustrations and the dialogue makes it. 

 

Submitted by Ray Schaufeld on

Glad you like it, Vera      Elsie

Submitted by Ray Schaufeld on

Wow Otto, what lovely feedback. Yes 'stet' is a word from printing and so is 'justify the margin'. I am delighted you got 'woven pleasure'  from my poem!

Submitted by Bee on

Brilliant, Elsie. I enjoyed the dialogue, too. Clever.

Bee

Submitted by Ray Schaufeld on

Thanks for your friendly comment, Bee

Submitted by jeand on

Hi Elsie

Lovely use of frustrated words. Good fun.

Jean

Jean Day

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Elsie, I have come back to this a few times, for though experienced in typesetting frustrations, I feel baffled by the Welsh (and gaelic?) allusions. I don't know the Mabinogion well, well, not in English, though as a child probably had lots of the stories in Welsh in school. But Welsh doesn't have letters that don't sound, unlike Gaelic of French etc. It is really phonetic, though it's knowing how those letters sound I suppose!
I'm sure I'd find allusions to a different language set up really difficult to typeset.

I was puzzled by 'Daffyd'. The Welsh for David is 'Dafydd' which I suppose looks strange but a single f sounds like the English v, and dd sound like a hard th as in 'the'. The y there sounds like the English i.
A ff is equivalent to the English f.

If you're interested, I had some fun with Welsh pronunciation on here some time ago:

http://www.abctales.com/story/rhiannonw/welsh-prounciation-simplified

and about my name (there must have been an IP to do with names or something like at the time)

http://www.abctales.com/story/rhiannonw/%C3%A2%E2%82%AC%CB%9Crhiannon%C3...

regards (and no nationalstic offence taken!), Rhiannon

 

 

Submitted by Ray Schaufeld on

Rhiannon, I shall correct my misspelling pronto. smiley  I have not done typesetting myself, though I have worked as a clerk-typist and I know people who have worked for small presses back in the 70's. I shall study your links about Welsh pronunciation too.  Elsie