replying on Gone Away by Christof
12 Sep 2002, 6:12 AM
Try this for size...
The last line continues to fox me because I'm not quite going for the meaning that you suggested before but I can't think of a better way to express the meaning I am going for. But I can revisit this some other time when my head is operating a bit better. Please re-vote! (but be kind).
replying on father Worked Nights by poetandknowit
12 Sep 2002, 5:51 AM
Was that my point? No, it wasn't. My point was, I can't pretend to be urban working class and a witness to domestic violence and then write about because I would be a fraud if I did. If you know about these, good for you, crack on. I'm lucky enough not to. So lay off my birds! And if you think there's some kind of special superiority inherent in your experience, then you're falling into all kinds of Romantic fallacies about the artist and suffering.
on Thank You Mom by savannah
12 Sep 2002, 3:52 AM
Yep, I think this is private rather than public poetry. Your Mum will love it. Just a little grammatical point - as you've put 'For though' in one line, you don't need the 'but' in the following line.
on Billie's Threnody by Frass
12 Sep 2002, 3:46 AM
I like the last few lines of this but your attempt to suggestively evoke Lady Day through your list of epithets (especially 'mahler' - I don't know this word except as the name of the composer, is that what you mean by it? Please tell!) doesn't really work for me - reductive (esp. imbiber) rather than descriptive or empathetic.
on I have no Idea?...? by brazen
12 Sep 2002, 3:32 AM
I too am foozled. Super fine.
on a hero jfk by dylansong
12 Sep 2002, 3:08 AM
It's good to commermorate the man, but this is a bit idealised.... what about JFK's womanizing, the Bay of Pigs, the increased involvement in Vietnam? JFK has been turned into a saint so much that we forget that he was just a man.
on father Worked Nights by poetandknowit
12 Sep 2002, 1:32 AM
If I were you commenting on this poem, P&K, I would, 'oh another poem about urban American working folk. Bored again. Yawn'. It seems that we all have our favourite little subjects doesn't it? It's called experience and observation from our lives. But as I'm not you I won't draw attention to such a blindingly obvious point and then pretend that it's a crucial critical insight. Instead I shall say I like this, including the 'cat and mother'. But you need to put some birds in it...
My thought was that portioning time into days, weeks etc. is easier to handle than the thought of eternity. And that the point of the five days is not that the time will seem longer, but that sometime she will die and then the period shall be eternal, compared to which 5 days is nothing.
on At the Olde Absinthe by Limness
11 Sep 2002, 8:40 AM
Next time you're in Britain, you can get the real thing. And I tell you, it makes things weird. And friend of mine broke his leg in two places falling over a blade of grass having drunk absinthe, while it made me almost burn down a bar in Prague. Freaky, aniseedy, makes your eyes beady.
on moon rants by bluwiz
11 Sep 2002, 7:47 AM
This is great. if I were the moon I'd feel like this - ignored, unwanted, for ever in the sun's shadow. And so bored with the dark. Oh yes indeedy.
replying on Putney at Low Tide by Christof
11 Sep 2002, 2:59 AM
As a novice, I wore shorts. I was never allowed a leotard, you had to have notched up 450 hours or something they'd even let you sniff a leotard.
replying on Putney at Low Tide by Christof
11 Sep 2002, 1:25 AM
I've rowed once. It was shit. So you're absolutely right.