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Fri 17 May, 2013 06:55 pm
Does "Weighted with shopping" mean "worried by things of shopping"?
Context:
Jenny Joseph's "Women at Streetham Hill", a portrait of a group of women "Weighted with shopping, spreading hands and feet,
Trunk gnarling, weatherworn".
@oristarA,
To show the rarity of this term, a google search turns up this thread 2nd or 3rd on the first page, after a few pictures of really gnarled trunks.
@neologist,
Well, no clue to improve my understanding on this...
@oristarA,
Sorry, I can't make sense of any part of that sentence. Grammar looks good, but the meaning eludes me.
1. Spelling: it is Streatham (not Streetham) Hill. (Very near my childhood home)
2. Streatham Hill is a shopping street in South London. The group of women is being compared poetically to a group of large, old trees. Trees have trunks; gnarls are sometimes called "knots"; if a tree has suffered gnarling it has a wrinkled, rugged, weatherbeaten appearance. Their upper extremities (hands) are rough and large and spreading like the branches of an old tree and so, we may imagine, are their feet (lower extremities) (roots). The women are carrying heavy loads of shopping in bags; they are bowed down somewhat by the weight of them. It may be raining.
@contrex,
I thought we were all calling it St. Reathams now.
@izzythepush,
izzythepush wrote:
I thought we were all calling it St. Reathams now.
I don't know about that; I do remember, however that the girls who went to Philippa Fawcett were reckoned to be "hot to trot".
@contrex,
It was a feature of the so called gentrification of parts of London by yuppies in the 80s. Traditional names were 'jokingly' made to sound posh, there were quite a few, although the only one I can remember was Streatham/St. Reathams.
@izzythepush,
izzythepush wrote:St. Reathams.
There is (or was) a bar of that name in Streatham High Road. Mind you, there were posh parts of Streatham before gentrification. I mean pre-yuppie "posh". I knew loads of posh kids from around there when I was a teenager.
@contrex,
Well, I don't think the yuppies were ever accused of having an imagination.
@izzythepush,
izzythepush wrote:
Well, I don't think the yuppies were ever accused of having an imagination.
Would you believe Norbury used to be posh? I had a mate there whose dad bought his house off Norrie Paramor. My auntie gave herself airs because she lived in Thornton Heath in "Surrey". (That must really date me!)
@contrex,
What is now the red light district in Southampton used to be very posh, not any more.
@oristarA,
oristarA wrote:
Jenny Joseph's "Women at Streetham Hill", a portrait of a group of women "Weighted with shopping, spreading hands and feet,
Trunk gnarling, weatherworn".
I read this as:
"Carrying their packages, spreading hands and feet, skin weatherworn and wrinkled like tree bark."
@contrex,
Excellent!
Roger has been beaten by the elusive poem.
I like Engineer's interpretation.
@engineer,
engineer wrote:
oristarA wrote:
Jenny Joseph's "Women at Streetham Hill", a portrait of a group of women "Weighted with shopping, spreading hands and feet,
Trunk gnarling, weatherworn".
I read this as:
"Carrying their packages, spreading hands and feet, skin weatherworn and wrinkled like tree bark."
Cool. Though "spreading hands and feet" is not explained as good as Contrex did.
@oristarA,
oristarA wrote:
Though "spreading hands and feet" is not explained as good as Contrex did.
I might be wrong or missing the point. Poetry is not meant to be exact. That is one of its attractions for me.
@oristarA,
Carrying packages is very neutral
Weighted with shopping implies a burden, perhaps of life, drudgery etc. Life's far from easy.
@izzythepush,
izzythepush wrote:
Carrying packages is very neutral Weighted with shopping implies a burden, perhaps of life, drudgery etc. Life's far from easy.
Domestic drudgery in particular.
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