Re: a comment on Guinness by Dovina	25-Nov-04/9:53 PM
Yes, in "Solitude" I rhymed foe with abode whch stands to this day as one of poemranker's finest and most unusual iambic vowel chimes.
Re: a comment on Guinness by Dovina	25-Nov-04/9:44 PM
I omitted a few items from the transcript.
Re: a comment on Guinness by Dovina	25-Nov-04/9:40 PM
Only if you decide to interpret it that way.
Re: a comment on Dictionary Lesson by Dovina	23-Nov-04/6:38 PM
I misspelled blurred.
Re: Me, Myself, and I by TLRufener	22-Nov-04/5:13 PM
good lines: But I don't talk to Myself; Myself talks to Me. Overall, this is too wordy with too many grammar mistakes.
Re: This Time Imperfect by RGSsparky	22-Nov-04/4:51 PM
Please do not post things you have not written. This sucks no matter who, and I don't care, wrote it.
Re: a comment on Dictionary Lesson by Dovina	22-Nov-04/4:47 PM
I think you credit me with too much reason. While I find fascination in these words and the ways their definitions paint a history, it is not strictly philosophical, though everything has philosophical bents. Some say there is no philosophy without words and the only things we can talk about logically are words and numbers. Maybe so, but if so, there is no fun, and without fun, what good is logic.
Re: a comment on Dictionary Lesson by Dovina	22-Nov-04/4:16 PM
I read your comments earlier, but Poemranker has been down all day, and I’m just now able to send this reply. The pages still come up very slowly, while other sites work as usual. I appreciate the great amount of time these “novels” which you have written to me must have taken. While occasionally I find something helpful in them, they seem mostly concerned with angry rebuttals that wander from the topics originally set forth by whoever starts them. And I admit to having started some of the conflicts. When I said, “You have rambled on and on in hopeful appearance of reasonableness,” I meant that you seem struggling to appear reasonable, hoping so much to succeed that you often deviate from the topic you are trying to debate, and leave yourself open for defeat. While I could refute most of the points you have made in the comments above, I’m going to mention the few things that I find helpful and which I might consider changing in the poem or in my way of pondering life, the two being related. I did not know that I “have the idea that philosophy is some kind of useless dangling separate entity existing in its own rather stale ether and having nothing to do with felt life,” but to the extent that I do or did, I should change or have changed. The contrary of “I love you” could, as you say, be many different things including, but not limited to “I don’t love you.” The Bush administration’s position on the Iraq war and the contrary position is a good example.
Re: a comment on Dictionary Lesson by Dovina	22-Nov-04/3:54 PM
Since I posited the notion of “strict sense” as it applies to philosophy that might be used in poems, but which I normally do not use, I should demonstrate. It turns out harder than it seems to filter out all unsupported content and to rely solely on proposition-analysis-hypothesis-conclusion. It may not be possible to write such a poem except in very simplistic scenarios, but here goes: Jack and Jill (Strangled Verse) by Dovina My name is Jack. I’m a philosopher. I hold the axiom that two despicable aspects of character are fully determinable and separate. I describe people having them as dorks or dingbats. George is a dork, but not a dingbat. Peter is a dingbat, but not a dork. John is both. I, of course, am neither. I like Jill and will set forth means for obtaining her affection. My research shows that Jill likes Peter and John, and she does not like George. So far, she does not know me. My analysis leads to two hypotheses: 1. Jill likes dingbats and does not like dorks, and she accepts John’s dorkness either because her affinity for dingbatness is greater than her dislike of dorkness, or she accepts John’s dorkness for some unknown, but overriding, reason. 2. Jill does not care about dorkness or dingbatness and bases her affections of other factors. In either case, Jill most likely favors dingbats, or at least disfavors them less than she disfavors dorks. But if Jill likes dingbats, she is probably a dingbat. I like Jill and dingbats are despicable, so this uncertainty must be investigated. I concentrated my research and found: Jill likes two other dingbats, and she does not dislike any of the dingbats on my list. Therefore, I shall now relinquish my writing pad, tighten the noose, and step off this chair.
Re: a comment on Dictionary Lesson by Dovina	21-Nov-04/12:58 PM
Did I insist that words must have precise definitions? I don’t think so. The poem has an appearance of philosophy because of its reliance on word definitions and allusions to variations in definitions. It is not philosophical in the strict sense. When on a tirade, I seldom take breaths or line breaks.
Re: A Moment Alone by blacksoul	21-Nov-04/12:31 PM
The last thing he said to me was: “Dovina! others may deprive you of your material wealth and cheat you in a thousand ways, but no man can deprive you of the control and use of your imagination. That's why I say nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere Ignorance and conscientious stupidity. I am sure that I'm going to get some kind of smart comment from someone, but understand! What people think of me isn't any of my business. And I would like for you to remember that my friend.” I didn’t know how sick he was, and told him that I was going to think about “sincere ignorance” and “conscientious stupidity” because I believed they would have more to say in time. I am keeping that promise and hope those important words will soon ripen into something he would appreciate. I never met him except here on poemranker, but I believe he was a good man.
Re: a comment on Dictionary Lesson by Dovina	21-Nov-04/11:20 AM
Again, you have rambled on and on in hopeful appearance of reasonableness and have failed. Your attempts at relating my poem and my comments to logical arguments lose on the very grounds you claim as necessary bases for evaluation of poems. You say, “This poem is trying to be a philosophy/math poem” and that I’ve “filled it up with philosophy gobble which you don't get. When we held you to the standards you set for it by doing so, you said ‘oh no, it isn't a philosophy poem, it's felt life.’” As usual, you have said that I said something which I did not. But I agree that the poem presents an appearance of relating philosophy, as it applies to word definitions, to felt life. You have carried on about the precise meaning of “opposite,” claiming that “hate” is not the opposite of “love,” and using mathematical analogies to prove your point. Of course, hate is the opposite of love in the minds of most people, even logical-minded ones like me. You, of course, would not understand if I were to say that I wish we could change the counting system to the base 9 because then the dawn of the 28th century would probably fall within my lifetime, just twenty years from next New Years Day. It’s something your three years in math has not prepared you for, any more than your floundering language abuse has prepared you to criticize poetry. I do appreciate your (notice I have used the word correctly here, not as you so often do when you mean you’re) baseball story because it reminds me of the way you define poetry.
Re: a comment on Moses by Dovina	19-Nov-04/11:41 AM
We're not talking about seeing it, obviously, but going there. It's a figure of speech, the like of which you seemm incapable of grasping.
Re: a comment on Quest! by ?-Dave_Mysterious-?	19-Nov-04/11:39 AM
Is this an example of what your learned in three years as a math major? Shame!
Re: a comment on Why Me by blacksoul	19-Nov-04/11:28 AM
Tell him to hold on, and damn the estupidos. I hope he recovers.
Re: a comment on Dictionary Lesson by Dovina	19-Nov-04/11:25 AM
You are wrong on all counts and especially on No. 6. My dictionary, read in the feeling of the time, is a history written ahead of the events in the same way Shakespeare was in some parts of it. Anyone who cannot see simple relationships, out of time, out of place, like that, can only write unfelt poetry having a form of art, but lacking any feeling, such as yours.
Re: Can Predictions Be Proven? by peaceseeker	18-Nov-04/1:45 PM
Wings are not invincible. Dissonance has to do with sounds. Other vaguenesses follow. It's a good image but lacks clarity.
Re: Why Me by blacksoul	18-Nov-04/1:33 PM
You need to look at spelling and grammar. Is jroday really your father, and is he really dying? Tell him I hope he's not dying.
Re: a comment on Moses by Dovina	18-Nov-04/1:31 PM
I wonder if John did.
Re: Poems for devolution by richa	18-Nov-04/12:53 PM
You've moved it to spring for the farmers and given us Rhyl in place of the former euphamism. I don't see the devolution as clearly now.