Narrowboats with gay and brilliant smiles

Andrew, 'an ex-merchant marine officer' who writes 'poetry of the sea and Dorset', has written a poem called The Narrowboat'. 

It's characterful and delightful. But it needs a little tweaking - it shows too much merchant marine influence and not enough experience of inland canals. 

For example I'm not sure about 'water dripping from her hawse pipes' - I've never seen a narrowboat with a hawse pipe.   One or two dutch barges, perhaps.  And 'passing over viaducts' needs amending to 'passing over aqueducts'. 

I'm also not sure of:

Rainbow coloured hulls
Some crewed by bearded captains
Smoking heavy briars

I'd amend that to '... bearded steerers / smoking heavy briars', were it not that I've never seen a bearded pipe-smoking steerer.  At least, Captain Birdseye never steered inland, as far as I know.

But it ends evocatively with

... young happy girls
Passing other narrow boats
With gay and brilliant smiles
Cruising down the old canals
Slowly eating up the miles.

If there's one thing I love to see, it's young happy girls with gay and brilliant smiles, and I see quite a few of those on the waterways.  Why can't I find a photo of one when I need one? 

But there's so little poetry about the canals that it's always good to see the oeuvre added-to.

...

Talking of young, happy girls and poetry about the canals, Jo Lodge added to the oeuvre herself recently, in Seasons of the Waterways.

Comments

[Martin]

Hi Andrew! From one bearded pipe-smoking steerer :)

[Denise]

Maybe not pipe-smoking but there are certainly a lot of bearded steerers (and that's just the men of course.

Denise (nb Celtic moon)