Re: Social Rant by fubang22	zodiac 70.109.2.131	27-Dec-05/9:23 PM
This was probably good before you shift-F7'ed it into oblivion
Re: why? by nentwined	zodiac 70.109.2.131	27-Dec-05/9:20 PM
... I woosh into the void of her infinity. A single leaf falls.
Re: amalgam by ThePariahDog	zodiac 70.109.2.131	27-Dec-05/9:19 PM
My best suggestion is that you start reading real poetry. Here's a good place to start: http://www.poems.com/archive.htm
Re: Disassociation by Christina	zodiac 70.109.2.131	27-Dec-05/9:15 PM
Never use ellipses (...) in a poem. Ever. Once, a reporter dared Ernest Hemmingway to write a short story in only six words. His answer - "For sale: baby shoes. Never used."
Re: Deja vu by mystic enoch	zodiac 70.109.2.131	27-Dec-05/9:11 PM
No, it's not too much to ask. My advice: Ditch him. My other advice: In almost every relationship I've ever seen, there's a balance between the amount of respect you give and the amount of respect you get. If you treat him like a god, he HAS TO treat you like a god treats a bug - and squash you. If you claim some respect for yourself, he has to respect you. Next guy (and there will be a next guy), show him what you're good at, what you're better at than he is (and I don't mean that you're good at being a bug). Make him feel like he's screwed up from time to time. Make him feel like YOU'RE better than HE is. Then before you know it you'll be thirty and have a guy who thinks you're better than he is while you think he's better than you are. Then you win and get married. Trust me.
Re: Not for Me by TLRufener	zodiac 70.109.2.131	27-Dec-05/8:57 PM
A heart THAT never beats. Interesting image, words falling deaf. When most people would say words fell mute, or words fell on deaf ears. Seriously, why don't you try saying what YOU, DancingShamrock, mean, instead of saying what a million people before you meant? I think you would do better that way, is all.
Re: For Love of Baseball by Dovina	zodiac 70.109.2.131	27-Dec-05/8:51 PM
Nice sentiment, poor execution.
Re: a comment on Ennui by Sisterwolf	Sisterwolf 207.69.139.147	27-Dec-05/7:39 PM
I do not judge people. Your education level would not necessarily be of interest to me, as long as your reactions were fair. Granted, as I am self-educated, you have far more academic practice. I do not think this precludes me being able to write good poetry. I have been published in slicks, paid publications. I highly respect Kenyon and would be delighted with directions to your work there. I am disabled with mental health problems, therefore my reactions are much more personal and dramatic. . . sometimes I have to remember to act within the acceptable parameters of the situation. Short stories are my forte - but poetry runs in my blood. I cannot stay here, for I would never be confident again. I will take your advice, I appreciate help - offered matter of factly. Throwing in POTM was a childish knee-jerk reaction. You have a great talent, I have to defend mine -
Re: a comment on Ennui by Sisterwolf	zodiac 70.109.2.131	27-Dec-05/7:01 PM
9) Once again, I'd like to see you take a turn at really critiquing other poemranker poems. The average poemranker user seems to think this is a site for other people to provide thoughtful, honest critiques on *his* poems without having to critique other people's. Then he gets pissed and leaves when no one critiques his. For once, I'd like someone to do the math: for everyone to get feedback, everyone needs to give feedback. Especially if that someone was a practiced poet like you. 10) If I'm the one who got you miffed at "kindergarten" critics, I hope this starts making up for it. Yes, I'm rude sometimes. Show me someone else who'll an informed critique and I'll consider changing my style. Anyway, I hope you'll stick around. Cheers.
Re: a comment on Ennui by Sisterwolf	zodiac 70.109.2.131	27-Dec-05/7:01 PM
I'm not sure you really do, but here's for shooting in the dark: 1) I think you should punctuate normally, with periods at line-ends where required by convention. Yes, I've read several good poems lately, including some very good Adrienne Rich, which eschew line-end punctuation. But those were short pieces with frequent stanza breaks to ensure clarity. This is simply too dense to comfortably read without real breaks. OBVIOUS RESPONSE: zodiac doesn't know how to read hard poetry. ZODIAC: My degree's literature. By degree I mean Master's, with trimmings. By literature I mean stuff so hard it would curdle your ears. 2) This poem's real weaknesses aren't grammatical; they are English. Namely, 3) That string of descriptions and prepositional phrases in your first sentence needs shortening and breaking. The easiest fix: drop one - either "off icy sputum", "hawked by an angry sky", "whose knees knock", or "with cold". Or find a way to somehow make that two sentences, one about the prisms and sputum, one about the icy sky's knees and the cold. 4) This needs to be generally tightened. A poem about frost crystals as ennui is a good idea, and original to boot. I'd drop four-fifths of the unrelated ideas or images. 5) Small edits: "curare dart" is - oddly - archaic-sounding and not the most emotive image available. I'd drop it; it sounds like trope. The space between "movements" and "jerky" is unnecessary; drop it. I'd add a word before "suck" - either "to" or (more poetically, I think) "so". Especially without the punctuation, it's jarring reading. 6) Avoid pairing each noun with one-and-only-one adjective, especially 'thesaurus' nouns and 'poetic' adjectives. That impairs flow, slows the reading, clouds meaning, and becomes extremely obvious by about line 4. Try to vary your structure: good nouns often don't need adjectives (case in point: sputum); include a few strings of really interesting adjectives. 7) The last bit, starting with "It is a day" is really strong. That's not a crit; I liked it. And, again, I'm glad to see someone on this site who's read poetry before. 8) I'm not trying to come down hard on you. I'm just trying to suggest ways that I think you could make this poem better. You've obviously gotten POTM without my help, so feel free to refuse it. That's fine. I just got a poem in Kenyon - which is really fine.
Re: a comment on It's Time by PoeticXTC	Dovina 209.247.222.92	27-Dec-05/3:15 PM
Our senses are requirement to perceive that there are 332 of them (objects like apples or birds). Any way we come up with that number, our senses are involved. On that basis I thee wed. But I was referring to the number itself, not the perception of it. Matrimony exists, I believe, without married people. And before there was anyone to perceive 332 of them, they still existed. Logic is the process of determining the number 332 as different from some other number, independently from perceiving. Logic might deduce 332 planets, rotating about some star, for example, planets that are imperceivable. The process of logic seems to me basic to the orderliness of the universe, and I think it exists in its own right. Perception confuses us sometimes, but logic seems to work even without perception. And on that difference, I thee anul, and count it a happy marriage.
Re: a comment on It's Time by PoeticXTC	ALChemy 24.74.101.159	27-Dec-05/2:23 PM
You're assuming that you can't sense something in a real way. Even Zeno didn't make that assumption. We seem to think we have some magical thing in our brains that allows us to be logical without using information we've obtained from our senses. Whether it be memory (A replay of something experienced through sense) or instinct (a preprogrammed response developed from our ancestors sensed experience) or abstraction (a symbolic representation of experience used to symplify things) or deduction (a mixture of memory and instinct and abstraction) 332 is a symbol. What if say 2 of them were twins? Then on a genetic level there are only 331 unique individuals. See it depends on what or how you're counting. Even though the group hasn't changed you can come up with different numbers based on what you're looking for. The numbers only exist as symbols for grouping things in common that we percieve to be in common. Another analogy: You're the only person on earth and you see double sometimes. If you see birds in a tree and they aren't singing how do you know how many birds are in the tree. See senses are a requirement.
Re: A Fool's Errand by ALChemy	Hadasl 62.0.106.233	27-Dec-05/1:26 PM
Didn't like the ending.
Re: Faceless agonies by Prince of Void	Dovina 17.255.240.6	27-Dec-05/12:01 PM
May I suggest that you have inadvertently written a happy, optimistic poem? A pathless heart is the easiest kind to love, the most adaptable, the most able to join another heart.
Re: a comment on Apocalypse has come to end by Prince of Void	Dovina 17.255.240.6	27-Dec-05/11:57 AM
I have self-doubt. I am not a princess and should not be called "highness." But thank you. Post modern poetry? - I never thought of mine as that.
Re: Faceless agonies by Prince of Void	Prince of Void 213.207.224.156	27-Dec-05/11:56 AM
.............
Re: a comment on It's Time by PoeticXTC	Dovina 17.255.240.6	27-Dec-05/11:52 AM
I agree with most of what you say. But to assert that "there is no logic beyond our senses that we know of" is to say we cannot know logic in a real way. Then we cannot say that numbers exist in a real world, the number 332, for example, because 332 is logically deduced. We cannot look at a group of things and say that 332 of them are in the group without going through a counting or grouping process - logical deduction. I believe that constructs such as these exist in a world that exists and that they are inseparable from it.
Re: a comment on Apocalypse has come to end by Prince of Void	Prince of Void 213.207.224.156	27-Dec-05/11:50 AM
it has gone far ..it makes u think of many things like globalisation , post-colonialsim,Millennium concepts
Re: a comment on Hoi Polloi by INTRANSIT	Dovina 17.255.240.6	27-Dec-05/11:37 AM
Ain't that the truth!
Re: a comment on Hoi Polloi by INTRANSIT	INTRANSIT 64.12.116.138	27-Dec-05/9:44 AM
Everyone has huffed in line at least once. but you got it. that's all that matters to me. thanks.