on Hunny by Venus
21 Aug 2002, 6:21 AM
I think this is great - Sylvia Plath drops the Nazi imagery and gets her own back. How could any man neglect his Venus so thoughtlessly?
on A Nightmare by Dreamer
21 Aug 2002, 4:07 AM
This is rather melodramatic - I'd really get rid of the aposiopoesis at the end.
on setting the record straight on April by poetandknowit
21 Aug 2002, 2:06 AM
This is just trying too hard to be clever and iconoclastic. I know what you mean but...if you sat next to me on the bus and launched into this, I'd move away.
on Ambiguous Love Poem For A Girl I Once Knew by poetandknowit
21 Aug 2002, 2:01 AM
I was determined to be annoyed by your stuff as you keep telling em to edit my work in an irritating high-handed manner but... bugger it, I think this is really great. Your self-denying but defiant last stanza breaks the heart.
on white harvest by <~>
21 Aug 2002, 1:19 AM
I love the first line, and the deceptive way the poem leads you to think it's going to be about more than an unwillingness to pay bills. It's something we can all understand and it's become heroic! Though I must admit I rifle through my post as soon as it comes in case someone's sent me an impromptu present. They never have.
on Sugar Coating by nentwined
20 Aug 2002, 7:03 AM
I like the kick in the face at the end - a real wake-up to the emotionally deluded (like me).
on Once Sought by necroscope7
20 Aug 2002, 6:56 AM
So where were they? Buried with W.H. Davies?
on Secret, Admirer by <~>
20 Aug 2002, 6:55 AM
This is so sensually evocative - I love this. In fact, I think I love you ZZinnia!
on Dear Ms. Sexton by <{Baba^Yaga}>
20 Aug 2002, 6:49 AM
Notwithstanding Bachus's rather crazy tirade, I think, Baba-Yaga, that you have stored up some bad Poemranker kharma, especially in your acid comments on Memorybabe's poems. Therefore let me come to turn the wheel...when you stop recycling Tom Waits lyrics, you can start to berate others for their poetic failings.
on To You, In Warmer Climes by <~>
20 Aug 2002, 6:15 AM
This is lovely - intricate, romantic, suggestive. The colour imagery is beautifully evocative. As for 'geometry on the page' - I don't get a sense of it being contrived at all. My only complaint is that the cosiness of the first stanza doesn't really build up to 'mercury' and 'bleeding' of the last stanza. But how seductive those gifts would be....
on Untitled by purplestain
20 Aug 2002, 6:07 AM
This is touching but too personal - this is plainly written straight from the heart without any objectifying distance. We can feel the pain and sincerity but it doesn't really hang together as a poem. Brave though to expose yourself like this.
on American Haiku by memorybabe
20 Aug 2002, 6:04 AM
I think a haiku needs to suggest more than this, which just sounds like a route planner. As an English reader, this means nothing to me.