Re: a comment on greymo(u)rn by lmp	ALChemy 24.74.101.159	8-Jan-06/2:03 PM
Yeah, I was really just trying to put it in a way that he wouldn't be afraid to put poetic elements into his prose poems. I thought it was a good idea you had to swap the text layout styles. It's also a good way to find qualities and flaws in your poem you may not have noticed before. God, my vocabulary is weak today for some reason.
Re: a comment on Sunlighting by ALChemy	ALChemy 24.74.101.159	8-Jan-06/1:36 PM
Thank you. I really need to get good book on punctuation.
Re: a comment on Birmingham gardens by INTRANSIT	zodiac 66.230.117.157	8-Jan-06/1:19 PM
PS-The cutoff date for many college-based journals (ie, the majority) is early spring. Get crackin'.
Re: a comment on Birmingham gardens by INTRANSIT	zodiac 66.230.117.157	8-Jan-06/1:17 PM
Yes. Two. 1) Get a recent poetry collection, like Poetry Daily's 366 poems or Billy Collins' anthology of American poems, Poetry 180. It should show a bunch of poems published in different books and journals in the last ten years, and what journals they were in. Also check Poetry Daily's website: www.poems.com . For one, you'll find that you're as good as half the poets there. For another, when you find a poem whose style, length, subject or anything looks like what you write, note the journal it got published in. 2) Get the 2005-6 edition of Poet's Market. It has all the submission details of the journals you just noted. Look especially for journals that accept simultaneous submissions. Pick your 5 best poems and submit them to all of those. You can, of course, try submitting a whole book or chapbook, either to a publisher (again, see Poet's Market) or to a reputable contest like New Century Writer Awards. I wouldn't trust 90% of the contests you'd find online, though. If you know a local contest (and one that won't end up owning your book, if chosen,) go for that. But I think submitting small batches of poems to journals is the best way to start, personally.
Re: a comment on Birmingham gardens by INTRANSIT	INTRANSIT 205.188.117.13	8-Jan-06/1:03 PM
'sokay pardno. I'm packing my bags to head out tomorrow. Gotta go pick up the truck from the repair shop when I get back tonight I'm going to raed all of yours that I haven't read yet. I'm trying to dress up some of my poems and get them ready to mail out for submission. (god I hate that word. lol) Any suggestions?
Re: a comment on greymo(u)rn by lmp	zodiac 66.230.117.157	8-Jan-06/1:03 PM
PS- re "like Hemmingway walking through Paris": "I went out onto the sidewalk and walked down toward the Boulevard St. Michel, passed the tables of the Rotonde, still crowded, looked across the street at the Dome, its tables running out to the edge of the pavement. Some one waved at me from a table, I did not see who it was and went on. I wanted to get home. The Boulevard Montparnasse was deserted. Lavigne's was closed tight, and they were stacking the tables outside the Closerie des Lilas. I passed Ney's statue standing among the new-leaved chestnut-trees in the arc-light. There was a faded purple wreath leaning against the base. I stopped and read the inscription: from the Bonapartist Groups, some date; I forget. He looked very fine, Marshal Ney in his top-boots, gesturing with his sword among the green new horse-chestnut leaves. My flat was just across the street, a little way down Boulevard St. Michel." PPS-Don't ever really read Hemmingway when you're trying to write. One way or another, it will make you write crap.
Re: a comment on Birmingham gardens by INTRANSIT	zodiac 66.230.117.157	8-Jan-06/12:58 PM
Jesus. Or quotes around Whitman, listening. I'm a mess today. I wouldn't trust me, either.
Re: a comment on Birmingham gardens by INTRANSIT	zodiac 66.230.117.157	8-Jan-06/12:56 PM
PS-I didn't mean that you should add a comma after oak. I don't know where that came from.
Re: Birmingham gardens by INTRANSIT	zodiac 66.230.117.157	8-Jan-06/12:55 PM
Better. Listening, Whitman => 'Whitman, listening,' stone to grass => stone for grass Oak => oak, suns => sun's This IS really nice. You're my vote for next poemranker richa, minus the temperment. I mean, you write great poems about small things.
Re: Pledge by http://mulberryfairy	zodiac 66.230.117.157	8-Jan-06/12:51 PM
As far as I can tell, the American condition is hurrying from cocktail party to cocktail party, desperately waiting for someone to turn to us and say, "No, really, who ARE you - REALLY?" and being far too self-obsessed to ever ask anyone that ourselves. If we're ever lucky enough to be asked, we'll immediately lie or run away.
Re: greymo(u)rn by lmp	zodiac 66.230.117.157	8-Jan-06/12:43 PM
Watch out for changing from past-tense to present without reason (ie, your first sentence is "flew", but in the next line the streetlamps "stand".) On a similar note, I think you could improve this poem by giving it more, um, movement. More structure and progression. Your images are good, your ideas are good, the sense of place is good. We just want to see more how you move from one image to the next or one idea to the next. You can do this with a kinda progression of time (ie, you and the dog walk, the sun rises, the fog burns off, the pigeons come out, the pigeons fly away). Or by really thinking of yourself as a person there and looking (or moving) and thinking from one thing to the next in some order. Think like Hemmingway walking through Paris in The Sun Also Rises. Or think like you're turning your head or walking through a square; you see things a natural order, right? Things on your right, then things in the middle, then things on the left. I know that's a harder task than what you've been doing. But I know you don't want to sell yourself short when by just a little extra work you can make something really great. Anyway, this poem is pretty good as it stands. You can try working on it more, but a better idea is just keep structure and order in mind when you're writing the next one, maybe. Good work. Bravo. Cheers. Etc.
Re: greymo(u)rn by lmp	INTRANSIT 205.188.116.139	8-Jan-06/12:39 PM
"the whole effect was a draining of color from the landscape" You've already shown us this, why tell? And then "safe and vulnerable" is all you need there as well.
Re: a comment on greymo(u)rn by lmp	zodiac 66.230.117.157	8-Jan-06/12:28 PM
http://www.poemranker.com/poem-details.jsp?id=81743
Re: a comment on greymo(u)rn by lmp	zodiac 66.230.117.157	8-Jan-06/12:27 PM
Yes, but don't get tricked into thinking there's a really strong distinction between prose poetry and "regular" poetry, or between poetry and prose, for that matter. Nobody besides poemranker bean counters is ever, ever going to care about that. Write however you want and let posterity haggle out which form it was. When I suggested putting more prosy poetry in stanza form and more "poetic" experimental language in prose form, I was just talking about how to get popular, not what label to stick yourself under.
Re: a comment on Sunlighting by ALChemy	zodiac 66.230.117.157	8-Jan-06/11:38 AM
PS-maybe a comma before "while", too.
Re: a comment on Sunlighting by ALChemy	zodiac 66.230.117.157	8-Jan-06/11:37 AM
And none of those are how Shakespeare would have written it. You mean for the dress to be the sarong that she's painting, right? Then put a comma after sarong. That sounds good. For my money, the punctuation goes: Swallows announce the end of yesterday. The morning girl awakens to their song. Her crayola sunrise paints over the gray of fading night to dawn a bright sarong, a flower-sprinkled emerald dress that stretches to the horizon’s hem and ripples in a warm wind’s caress: A playground for the cherubim. “Oh, Uncle Moon, please play with me while the day’s still shining bright?” “I’m so tired but I’ll try Sweetpea.” And the moon missed work that night.
Re: a comment on tanka (3) by shadows	zodiac 66.230.117.157	8-Jan-06/11:29 AM
And if we didn't have something to fight for, what would we do with our lives?
Re: Pledge by http://mulberryfairy	INTRANSIT 152.163.100.67	8-Jan-06/9:03 AM
I don't wanna hear it.
Re: Birmingham gardens by INTRANSIT	INTRANSIT 152.163.100.67	8-Jan-06/8:58 AM
The -for now- and the -meanwhile- had to go.
Re: The Healing Species by Dovina	http://mulberryfairy 64.222.209.137	8-Jan-06/6:52 AM
intelligent, relevant, and well written