Re: Persephone by Lynn	8-Nov-02/9:24 PM
This is great, a hilarious retelling, dead on.
regarding some deleted poem...	9-Nov-02/8:41 AM
Lovely images and nice progression and movement through images rather than narrative--especially the first verse. Strength seems to be in the simplicity--warmth of hearth and home; bread, cotton, crisp linen; sex as a song "hummed in blood." The "moonlight" verse seems to weaken it slightly--I'm not much for children or angels, so it could be my bias--but you rescue it with "stained with change." That verse might work better if tighter--for one, maybe lose the "sleeping in their beds"? (I like the progression there too--tabula rasa, angels without sin, but in the end "stained"). Works on a lot of levels.
Re: Worldly Wise by anitawit	9-Nov-02/5:33 PM
An interesting exercise in imagined dialect--"doth" in line 4 seems off; maybe "do" would better serve?
Re: "Why would I need to get in touch with you?" by Limness	19-Nov-02/7:02 AM
Wow. And ouch. This is terrific. I love its spareness and immediacy; also, the internal rhyming and the double meaning of "mean." Agree with you re: doubling "it's nothing"--a person, reacting, would surely have said it twice, dazed. Was this originally "the weight of your words"? I think I'd prefer the "your"--"those" seems too removed. Have a 10 for your pains.
regarding some deleted poem...	20-Nov-02/9:03 PM
This is lovely--you have a real knack for storytelling and for drawing in a wide array of literary and cultural references. Two quibbles: your rhymes seem haphazard here and (I know, I know, it's the pedant in me; I can't help it) why some punctuation but no end punctuation? The eye is going to scan right over it anyway, and in a lot of cases it "tells" the reader how you want something read.
Re: Not God's Wife, Just a Girl by w~* ATHENA *~w	22-Nov-02/7:51 AM
WTF? Are you guys kidding--two "8" votes? Fuck--doesn't anyone read Eliot--or are you being sardonic? ATHENA--last time you ripped off this T.S. Eliot poem (Guitar and Drum solo), adding some lame final lines of your own, I thought maybe you were making some kind of statement (no clue what it might be, mind you, but gave you the benefit of the doubt). What are you doing here, exactly, besides plagiarizing Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock? Write your own shit, why don't you?
Re: The Epitaph by vulcan	26-Nov-02/10:02 AM
Vulcan--I really like this, it's very neo-Romantic, and you've really captured a "Keatsian" flow and tone (as well as the direct nod with the reference to tuberculosis). There are some problems with the narrative structure--the second and third lines seem to stutter, for one thing--but your images are very strong, I think, and the phrasing, in places, is lovely. I particular like the "vaulted grave" conveying freshly mounded dirt and the comparison with the more expansive "Vaulted Sky."
Re: November's Pot Marigolds, Still Blooming by <~>	26-Nov-02/12:53 PM
I've got shasta daisies--in two locations--still going strong, along with aforementioned alyssum. (The cosmos gave up the ghost though.)
Re: Some place west of here, or the big blah blah. both apply by horus8	26-Nov-02/6:37 PM
This is great--one hot hurtle, have a 9 for your labors.
Re: The Nagian, or, Red Be Unread by <~>	27-Nov-02/8:51 AM
What's a Nagian?
Re: broken bottles by richa	30-Nov-02/8:49 AM
What, have you left everyone speechless? I think you're very talented. You have a lyrical and distinctive voice and an ability to conjure images on the edge of unsettling (here less so than in some of your other poems, but still vivid and evocative). I can't say I always know what your poems are about, per se, but it usually doesn't matter--your central images are usually strong enough to carry the ambiguity. Not sure I get how broken bottles are "cut in the wings/of an albatross stalking." And your part III baffles me--but I respond to it nonetheless.
Re: Of Curves and Straight Lines by Quarton	1-Dec-02/12:38 PM
Science and perception, nice. I think the rhymes and the rhythm work, especially if you read it aloud. I don't think I've seen Crick and Watson "namechecked" in poetry before--I don't know that you really need it in that verse, since it's pretty obvious what you're talking about without it. I like!
Re: this is us by roses are read	1-Dec-02/12:46 PM
Why do you hate A-Murka? Just kidding. Good strong images. This reminds me a little bit of Langston Hughes "Let America Be America Again": "I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil. I am the worker sold to the machine. I am the Negro, servant to you all. I am the people, humble, hungry, mean-- Hungry yet today despite the dream. Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers! I am the man who never got ahead, The poorest worker bartered through the years."
Re: The Slanty Shanty by Quarton	1-Dec-02/7:26 PM
I dunno--I want to like this more than I do. For one thing, it reads more as prose memoir than a poem ("but what is a poem? blah blah blah"). Also, you distance the reader from the experience by the reiteration of the memory--specifically, the use of "I vividly recall," "I remember," "I still wonder"--I think this would be stronger and more immediate without those. Plunge your reader into the experience with you--don't tell, show. I think that's the main problem--you tell rather than show. Specifically-- I think the third stanza should be pulled--it interrupts the narrative and seems extraneous. I'd probably even pull the first stanza--it's like a first chapter that you write just to get you going, but then, upon re-read, sounds too much like Obvious Intro. Maybe pull it and play with remainder to see if it was necessary? You can get the message that this was your old house just by changing "an" to "our" in the second stanza (or by any number of other methods--"I took shelter that April evening, forty years ago . . . " etc.). I like the central idea of this and, especially, the last two lines, but I think your narrative eclipses your images and experience.
regarding some deleted poem...	2-Dec-02/4:53 PM
Excellent rewrite--did you trim? Send me the original sometime--I'd love to see the genesis. Great details! I like how you pick up the river(stone) image with "coursing" in the last stanza. Outgrabe throws me--a nice nod, but it's a distraction. Are the tense shifts (from past to present in st. 4 and back to past in the last)intentional? I think it'd work just as well if you kept it in past tense--like the punctuation (ooh!), most people wouldn't even notice, but those that do will do so because of the inconsistency. It's excellent.