© Stephen Pain

Commentary:

Edmund Spenser's "The Shepheardes Calender" (sic) has been the inspiration for several collections of poems that are based on the calendar structure -- Spenser's work in turn can be seen in the context of a longer pastoral tradition stretching back to the Greeks and before. My own poem "March Hare" is a modern pastoral, and like Spenser and Virgil (in his Eclogues) I have striven to create an allegorical form. The Hare a rodent noted for its virility and its antics during the mating season shares much with its human male counterpart. The hero of the poem is a man who had an affair and suffered the consequences. Notice how the sexual act is repeated in the constant channel hopping, which also captures the movement of the hare. The eclogue is often emblematic. In my poem the iconography is that of an unemployed or poor family. Wherever possible I have tried to use the rhyme to convey and reinforce the allegorical message. I do not believe the rhyme should control the content, but the other way round. The rhythm and syntax echo the movement of the hare. The hare and the man coalesce in the final image, "floral carpet" which brings the natural into the living room.