Holy Tits
on Grafton Street Late Joys by Engelbert Humpalot
18 Jan 2007, 7:39 AM
A truly bestial write.
A nip of tea? You mean Japanese tea? Jesus Christ, this is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO bad.
My lovely wife likes the first version better, but Shuushin is correct in the need for brevity in a poem. I would have preferred chatoyant to pearly in describing cataracts. Unfortunately, I think most people would not know what the word meant.
I just re-read a couple of your posts to see why you rated above a zero. If you left of the homilies (that word does not quite fit, but is as close as I can get), they would be good. This is only my opinion.
I do not believe this rates an 8, but will not fault you for it.
Very clever. I love farting.
Top closing stanza.
I have a David Gower-based poem in production for you.
POEME STATS:
Stanzas: 3
Lines: 12
Uses of 'the': 7
Uses of 'a': 4
Not that I'm criticising there, but you might want to borrow one of the mage's chisels?
'along the long' = yikes
'a sough of doubt' = sex on a light blue screen
Stanza two is super, so is the final line. Stanza one feels weaker than the rest, not that I know what to suggest. Maybe it's the brevity of line one. Everyone who says this is a lovely poem is right though.
I like the rewrite better than the original. The brevity suits the narrow, sharp focus--hands show as much as faces, don't they? Sometimes more, like occupations, interests--calluses on fingertips (guitarists); red pen stains(editors), nicks and cuts (craftspeople, tool workers). I think this is a little overwrought, honestly--you know better than most what it live by one's (literal) handiwork, so I think if you simplified this and made it personal, connected it to what your hands do (which is what I think you were going for with words like "pearly" and "facets", it would come across more honestly, emotively. I think the last line is really good, very apt with regard to both memory and the act of creation.
Total fucking drivel.
Sick.
I think you're too focused on Writing a Poeme instead of just honestly and simply writing. That's how pimple poems erupt. Cut it down. Give details. Name names. Point fingers--artfully. Even just simplifying this would give it more impact:
If she thinks
My love is based on lies
She'll leave.
My dreams will melt away.
Not great, but better, I think. What do you know about her? What should we know? Sometimes just turning the focus away from you helps. Keep going!
Sexual, provocative and rather meaningful. It evokes the smell of sunlight and the dappled flowing of a drying stream. A tour de force.
His behaviorâs not ace
Nor is his face
He tugged on my muff
But itâs sturdy enough
Whatâs amazing to me
Is he canât find his 3.
How fucking deep. You sound like a Californian. I can be no more insulting than that.
How reminiscent of my own family. Very fucking amusing.
Couple of typos in here need fixing.
Influences?
Very circular--just spins in place; doesn't go anywhere. Ever try a sestina? Same type of wordplay, but much more interesting results (usually).
I've read this a few times. I like the story telling aspect of it, but at points it gets wordy and the story itself is a little thin as told. In order for a straight narrative poem to work, I think the story needs to be stronger--a ballad form would suit this (okay, maybe it just made me think of "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gordon Lightfood, for obvious reasons, but I think that's a good illustration of why that song/story works--the ballad form, the interesting language, the ship's backstory, etc.).
I think part of the problem may be that there's no one to connect with--if you read, for example, Zodiac's poem about Cook dying, it's the people in the poem that really make it work; we identify with the dying Captain, the native girl. This lacks any such personalization/identification. Even something like "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" connects us with the ship by making it something living--maybe it's the focus on the rats that doesn't work for me here. The prologue seems unnecessary, tacked on; doesn't advance anything, IMO, and isn't really ever followed up in any way. In general, too, this gets a little too anthropormorphic for me (the glad rats, the amiably sailing ship).
I think the story telling is pretty good, though could use some paring. And I like the last line--the "fatted rats" suggesting, intentionally or not, fatted calves (a sacrifice) and "gasping in the open sea" is a good line and image.
Never dine on ethnic foods. Kipling knew this only too well. I quote:
Now, it is not good for the Christianâs health to hustle the Aryan brown,
For the Christian riles, and the Aryan smiles, and he weareth the Christian down;
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, with the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear: âA fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.â
I preferred Ringo.
Powerful use of overture, with a fission of piquant denotation. It starts as a veritable romp around avenue failure before firting with the bridge of disaster only to be swept along by a torrent of unutterable excellence.