Tyger, tyger turning green...

In November 2007 I included in a post on anthologies a review of Carol Ann Duffy's Answering Back. (here). CAD had had the brilliant idea of writing to all the leading poets and asking them first to choose a famous poem and then to write a poem in answer to it. Fifty poets obliged. Since when  it has been an idea at the back of my head for a rainy day when inspiration had run out. I hadn't intended to bring it out just yet, but then it happen ed. I was rereading William Blake's The Tyger when  it began to morph into what follows. I kept to what I believe to be the generally accepted interpretation of Blake's poem: i.e. that the tiger is a metaphor for the industrial revolution. The 3rd and 4th stanzas make that clear with their convincing description of a skilled and powerful blacksmith, but I have extended it to include modern technology and its effects on society and the climate. Lower down I give the Blake poem for those who might want to refer to it. (Sure it would have been more logical to start with it, but there was no way I was going to follow Blake!)

Tyger, tyger, taking fright
now the forests are alight,
coal and oil, though burning bright,
are the fuels of our night.

Tyger, tyger, tooth and claw
chained and pistoned, fired no more,
still the fires you started roar,
blacken canopy and floor.

Tyger, tyger, search the sky,
see the eagle there on high.
Winds and tides have passed us by,
seize them or your cubs will die.

Algorithms in your eyes
promise much, but all are lies,
all depend on heart, not mind.
Heart is stony, you will find.

Tyger, tyger, keyboard-bound,
your truths grow more and more profound,
but truths to turn the world around
are lying there on open ground.

Tyger, King of your small wood,
how can endless growth be good?
When at last you're out of land,
can our dying globe expand?

Was it you with pesticide
gave the bugs nowhere to hide,
nor yet the baby or the bride,
'til finally the farmer died?

and was it yours, that express scheme
for baking dough -- that merchant's dream! --
that gave the yeast no time to rise
nor wheat proteins to neutralise,

who added things to lunch and tea
that were not good for you or me?
who spilt the oil upon the sea,
depleting algae grievously?

Tyger, tyger, you were born
victim of a spurious dawn,
can you lie with lambs at rest?
Dulce et decorum est.

For you were born to hunt and kill,
yet our birthrights serve us ill.
Tyger from the ashes rise --
or we are victims of our lies.

Note: Dulce et decorum est. : Latin for Sweet and fitting it is
It also happens to be the title of one of the best WWI war poems by Wilfred Owen.

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And here, for anyone who might find it useful, Blake's famous poem:

The Tyger:-

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire in thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art?
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand, and what dread feet?

What the hammer? What the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb, make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

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Haiku #224

He's Irish begorra
and crossing The Irish Sea
in a bath tub