Re: a comment on The tender side. by darby pyn	darby pyn 207.200.116.197	20-Jun-05/12:19 PM
I know my writing seems vague and without foundation but the subject of love is so overused with the same old cliché in most poems on about it I tend to be more abstract and less generic with my metaphors. each person has their own interpretation and that’s fine. I understand what I write. if others don’t that’s OK. I hope their are scenes, verses that catch your eye but dissecting it to pieces for everyone’s approval and making it more tangible for mass opinion is bullshit. I like your writing and appreciate all critcism. constructive or not. I can take it. : ) I liked " unclean" allot.
Re: Being Alone by Sunshine Conkey	Dovina 69.175.32.185	20-Jun-05/12:10 PM
It would be better without the first verse.
Re: a comment on Father’s Day by Dovina	Dovina 69.175.32.185	20-Jun-05/12:02 PM
Agreed. But I think that in poetry it's better to show the thing with a story or a description, such as I tried to do in describing this man.
Re: a comment on Father’s Day by Dovina	Bankrupt_Word_Clerk 69.231.17.25	20-Jun-05/11:46 AM
a poem that intends to teach isn't by its nature a bad thing.
Re: a comment on Eulogy for a Poet by Dovina	Dovina 69.175.32.185	20-Jun-05/11:43 AM
I tend to agree that a poem that is well received at a coffee shop reading is not usually a good poem on close examination. There are performance poems and there are contempation poems. On rare occasion a poem is both.
Re: a comment on Father’s Day by Dovina	Dovina 69.175.32.185	20-Jun-05/11:39 AM
Wouldn't that make it even more didactic?
Re: a comment on Father’s Day by Dovina	Dovina 69.175.32.185	20-Jun-05/11:38 AM
I have been around enough bitter old men to believe that the condition is not a small minority. It's a major concern, or should be, for all men as they age, and women too. The point of this poem is to arouse awareness, so that any aging man who observes himself becoming bitter, can realize that he is falling into a trap, and that he has options.
Re: Father’s Day by Dovina	Joshua_Tree 68.230.105.101	20-Jun-05/10:31 AM
This is didactic and you broke rhythm a the end with no effect. It would have been better if the poem balanced the positives of age against the negatives, presenting the young reader with the opportunity to choose what kind of old man he will be (and older readers the opportunity to re-evaluate their choices).
Re: If God Was a Nihilist by baughworm	Joshua_Tree 68.230.105.101	20-Jun-05/10:09 AM
Is man good? It would be an important claim to make, especially if it is false. It is better to leave God or the gods out of the process of defining goodness if we wish to be included as good. The means of doing so usually involves obtaining instructions and a sharp instrument from the wife and/or mother of the reigning patriarch. One implication of a poem like this is that the pen might be the instrument.
Re: Transport by baughworm	Joshua_Tree 68.230.105.101	20-Jun-05/9:55 AM
Here's your reference points: Culturally fated to the Incinerator - Hell Cathode ray ether Offering a pleasant Numbness - TV I think you can take it from there.
Re: a comment on Nonsense POEM #14687 by Bankrupt_Word_Clerk	Bankrupt_Word_Clerk 69.231.17.25	20-Jun-05/9:47 AM
you couldn't be more wrong. I thought long and hard over whether it should be an elephant or an orangutan..or a yellow line... and waiting for crepes or waffles... actually.. I never thought anything. bravo.
Re: Continuation by baughworm	Joshua_Tree 68.230.105.101	20-Jun-05/9:41 AM
You capture the imagery of the cycle well, without accidentally endorsing it. The contrast between the she wolf's immortality attained through submission to death and the drug abuser's tenous cling on mortality gained with the sacrifice of her child is superb. The double meaning of the last two lines is excellent. I'd be tempted to use "aborted attempt," but that could misfire.
Re: Nonsense POEM #14687 by Bankrupt_Word_Clerk	Joshua_Tree 68.230.105.101	20-Jun-05/9:30 AM
Pherengi rule of acquisition #73: You could afford a ship without your government -- If it wasn't for your government.
Re: Dovecote by zodiac	Joshua_Tree 68.230.105.101	20-Jun-05/9:27 AM
This poem captures a poignant moment in the healing process. The hesitency to voice the nature of the transgressions represents an obstacle to healing, while the capacity to at least allude to the issue represents hope.
Re: a comment on A Message from my Dreams by Joshua_Tree	Joshua_Tree 68.230.105.101	20-Jun-05/9:09 AM
"Necessarily"? No. More often than not? Yes. One alternative as you mentioned, is the pseudo-rhyme, which I'd gladly accept in free verse, but which I reject for a sonnet. Again, I agree that love and above are white trash rhymes, pimple poetry, whatever, I am just suffering from one of the effects of bi-polar disorder... It's absolutely true, but it doesn't apply to my situation. Put that way, I see that I may have given up too easily back when I decided to calll that poem complete. I'm ready to see if I can't find love in the bodice of the goddess.
Re: a comment on Contemplation by raiyna	raiyna 65.32.172.65	20-Jun-05/7:58 AM
Thank you for all your comments, I will work more on my poetry and try not to repeat the same errors I've made in this one.
Re: a comment on Kiss Me by smiffy84	smiffy84 82.37.197.13	20-Jun-05/7:52 AM
this "Written account" of which you speak was exactly what I was aiming for. I wanted a stream of consciousness- laced interior monologue, detailing what I did to myself, and how it felt. Yes, I used creative liscence (I have never tried to slit my own throat, and I never did it with the intent of dying), but this was my way of dealing with something that has had a profound and continuing impact on my life. "Subjects like this call for subtlety", I'm sorry, but unless you have actually cut yourself, you have no place telling me or anyone else how such things "Should" be addressed. How a person deals with a situation like this is entirely up to them, there is no wrong answer, there is no "Should". The fact that you se fit to dictate to me how to address something so important and personal to me, with, so far as my knowledge stretches, no experience of it yourself, I find insulting in the extreme. You are entitled to your opinion, and your own way of dealing with things, please allow me mine.
Re: Nonsense POEM #14687 by Bankrupt_Word_Clerk	Nicholas Jones 81.159.156.171	20-Jun-05/6:52 AM
Dylan Thomas, even though he attended a famous surrealist convention in London with a teapot full of string offering to pour people a cuppa, always strongly maintained he was not a surrealist, because that involved using images from the subconscious directly without mediating them. He argued that, while he was happy to use such imagery, he had to artistically arrange them and make them fit his own poetic vision - he could not abide the sense of randomness inherent in true surrealism. And basically what you've done is to fall into the trap of bad surrealism, which is just to stick a load of images together without any thought for anything much.
Re: a comment on Contemplation by raiyna	zodiac 213.186.191.33	20-Jun-05/6:26 AM
By the by, your English is better than most native speakers' most of the time. For whatever it's worth. Having finally gotten to my third fluent language, I appreciate what you've done with it.
Re: a comment on Contemplation by raiyna	zodiac 213.186.191.33	20-Jun-05/6:21 AM
I didn't mean to. I only meant myself. Seriously.