Re: a comment on The Black Cottage by w~* ATHENA *~w	4-Dec-02/6:39 AM
Frost had a lot more detail--she just cut and pasted a third of the lines.
Re: The Black Cottage by w~* ATHENA *~w	4-Dec-02/6:36 AM
Plagiarist. Loser. This is a Robert Frost poem.
Re: Poem For Times Such As These by Nicholas Jones	4-Dec-02/6:31 AM
I wouldn't call this imbecilic at all (and not just because I share many of your opinions here), but I would call it an essay, not a poem. Free verse was revolutionary because it broke the bonds of rigid structure, but it still, generally speaking, relied on condensed language chosen as much for sound and imagery as for the message or experience it conveyed. I don't get that here. Perhaps the rhythm is too subtle for me and others to pick up here.
Re: Pretty Skin Deep by confuzdlilgirl	3-Dec-02/3:52 PM
Great title for a punk rock song--Why not play with it--"pretty skin deep," word sounds, word play, stream of consciousness, and see what happens when you don't concentrate on rhymes and telling a tale.
Re: The Magician by Hooman	2-Dec-02/5:07 PM
I think you mean "fear is a desert," not a crepe suzette. I don't mock--I once wrote "draught holds the memory of water." (Which it surely does, but that wasn't the point.)
Re: a comment on The Slanty Shanty by Quarton	2-Dec-02/7:18 AM
Sure, hope they're helpful. Would be interested in your take on my own doings sometime.
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.
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: 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: 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: The Nagian, or, Red Be Unread by <~>	27-Nov-02/8:51 AM
What's a Nagian?
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: 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: 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: a comment on Goodbye by Nicholas Jones	22-Nov-02/9:55 AM
Oh, the power of Google: The Guardian: "'Crazy Legs' Conti walked off with the world oyster competition last April, swallowing 14 dozen in an hour. "I eat to win," declared the mollusc king. Mrs Conti doubtless had a lively night." Classic. You have a lovely clarity to your work. The George III bit threw me at first--seemed as if it should be literally parenthetical, but then, in context, its disjointedness seemed appropriate. Typo in line 6 of last stanza? "where all, normally IS(?) safe?"
Re: a comment on Not God's Wife, Just a Girl by w~* ATHENA *~w	22-Nov-02/8:06 AM
Regarding "ehterised"--if she's going to rip off someone else's shit--especially someone as well known as T.S. Eliot, and especially one of his most famous poems, for chrissakes--you'd think she'd be able to at least spell everything correctly. I'm surprised she took the time to retype it--she could have just cut and pasted it from Bartleby.com.
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: a comment on Night-mare by INTRANSIT	20-Nov-02/8:46 PM
I'm not getting the story--what was the contradiction? And the romance? Howsabout: The target window closes slowly, and she feels sexy in Victoria's secret. Tonight she slips into satin and tears. Looking at it sideways--umm, I dunno. My line breaks are very literal. It's my gift and my curse.
Re: a comment on "Why would I need to get in touch with you?" by Limness	19-Nov-02/7:13 AM
Yeah--it makes of them something untouchable (<i>those words</i>)--but I'm all for assigning responsibility. ;)
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.