Christof13 May 2003

I think i agree with poet andknowit, there's soemthing too highly-wrought about this. i think if it relaxed more there would be more tnederness to it; as it is, it plays like a very artificial masquerade of love's conventions. Individual lines I like very much ('Alive in something sacred' is great) but altogether I feel it's too forced and sometimes melodramatic (our names carved in a diseased sycamore/ Memories never felt this cruel before' - further weakened by the facile rhyme). But there is something real here which I think you uncover elsewhere ('The Blooding').