Re: a comment on Gaia and Man by Blue Magpie	25-Feb-06/3:08 AM
Dear Ranger, Thanks for taking the time to read the poem, yes it is longer than many, but have you read Esther Ransom's "The Conciousness of Earth" it gives you a new dimension to the concept of a long poem. It is however in blank verse and not rhymed iambic (mostly) pentametre, so you are correct, the rhyme scheme did constrain what I could say. For example the point about a system's increasing inner complexity giving rise automatically, after a certain level of complexity, to hierarchical, self-regulatory structures is poorly made because of the need for polysyballic words, or just too many words. However, as is so often the case in poetry, once I sat down and decided to try actually making the case for the planet as a single living entity in some real rather than theoretical consideration, with all that that brings into focus, such as humanity, well western european humanity and its diaspora, being mostly cancerous cells and the inevitability of the system attempting, in an unconcious way, to maintain its own inner health, the structure of the poem evolved on its own. I had expected to produce a more varied rhyme scheme, this was very hard to work with.
Re: A smile by Bobjim	24-Feb-06/11:09 PM
This might be a riddle, but can you explain to me what there is about it that makes it poetry.
Re: a comment on Iron Sky by MacFrantic	23-Feb-06/12:38 AM
but on second thoughts at least one of them should be a fullstop.
Re: Iron Sky by MacFrantic	23-Feb-06/12:36 AM
There are several commas missing in my view, but otherwise not bad.
Re: Matters of the Heart by Fayt	23-Feb-06/12:34 AM
As already mentioned there is very little in this for the reader, after the first gust of, oh not again it just gets boring.
Re: On Looking Back by Dovina	23-Feb-06/12:27 AM
It would work better, in my not-so-humble opinion if you had the metre right, as in--------- I once had a friend all in black, Who felt a sharp twinge in his back. With his blood on my knife, He fled for his life, So we never quite got in the sack.
Re: The Mirror by TLRufener	23-Feb-06/12:24 AM
Without being unkind, and in the realisation that your personnal suffering is quite real, can I suggest that as poetry this is pretty boring, I have read pretty much the same thing thousands of times. The feelings are not uncommon, and while that doesn't make them less painful for you it should make you realise that if you wish to put them into a poem that others are going to read, and if the poem is going to be a success then you have to offer something that the 100,000 or so people who have already written this same poem, in different but uninspiring ways had to offer. There is more to good poetry than putting your feelings on paper with a set of line-breaks. Some other conventional punctuation would help also.
Re: Buried in the Booth (edit) by drnick	23-Feb-06/12:15 AM
I would agree you need to tidy it up, or cut out the line breaks and call it a prose poem, as a small tightly written story it could be great. But consider. "It had felt like god had reached down to manually pump the blood through his body." This is an excellent image, one of the strongest in the poem, but it would be better if you dropped the 'had' and left it in the present tense, also god should be God, if you mean the middle eastern deity who is the one and only of his kind, however if you are referring to simply one member of a pantheon then it should 'a god' or 'some god' I will refrain from commenting on any other stanzas
Re: Winter Wonderland by raven_the_poet	22-Feb-06/5:51 AM
Light verse, such as this, is traditionally strong on rhyme and rhythm, which is what makes them stay in your head, while this has some rhyme it appears to have no rhythm at all which makes it less than it could be.
Re: Home is Where the Hate Is by raven_the_poet	22-Feb-06/5:47 AM
But where is the chorus??
Re: Pancakes by raven_the_poet	22-Feb-06/5:45 AM
Its nice to somebody is happy.
Re: lost souls by aamir_trichy	22-Feb-06/4:39 AM
Personally I'd leave the whole thin out and try again.
Re: Just Desserts (for drnick) by ALChemy	22-Feb-06/4:34 AM
As a read it could be a bit smoother. At the moment its like walking across a sheet of ice that's braeking up, the bits are all disconnected but you can see how they would fit together.
Re: First Unborn Sun by Been Here Before	22-Feb-06/4:25 AM
A pleasant surprise to find this on my first look back, still it is marred by the iambic errors as noted. "I cannot watch it because I won't pray" is not iambic pentametre, but "I cannot watch because I will not pray" is, while admitting that it is your poem and not mine I fail to see how the 2nd line would detract from the message. It is true, that in longer poems, such as that which I just posted tthe iambic pentametre can become a soporific, but in a vilanelle or a sonnet, a part of the enjoyment of reading one is the fluidity of the construction. Any way, nice work, but keep working on it.
Re: a comment on The Intellect Repeats by Blue Magpie	27-Jun-05/7:55 PM
You are quite probably correct, albeit it does to some extent depend on whose intellect is under discussion. How about The conscious mind ............... or The villanelle .................... It has been reworked a bit, I will look up the older ideas when I don't have to be somewhere at 6.30am (which is half an hour away.
Re: a comment on The Intellect Repeats by Blue Magpie	27-Jun-05/7:51 PM
You mean you really didn't notice that the previous poem I posted was a villanelle as well? Oh dear.
Re: The Edge Of The World by kingfisher	26-Jun-05/10:27 PM
Prose yes, poem no, the language needs to be something extra for that.
Re: Eagle by Mr Pig	24-Jun-05/11:17 PM
Actually eagles try not to shadow over prey until after they have got their talons into it because the shadow is a warning to the prey.
Re: cup-cake by cpill	24-Jun-05/11:15 PM
Not anything I can enjoy, sorry.
Re: a comment on A Righteous Prayer by Dovina	24-Jun-05/11:09 PM
Why on earth should bad grammar be acceptable in poetry, I would say the opposite, as poetry is about the most beautiful use of the language bad grammar should be less acceptable in poetry, at least poetry that aspires to be good poetry.