Re: An Affair with Letters by MacFrantic	10-Jul-06/9:13 AM
I'm not a big fan of abecedaria (unless it's an Edward Gorey abecedarium: http://www.wishville.co.uk/gorey/a.htm), but it's a fun exercise. Using "A" for _a_ and "the" for _t_ strikes me as cheating a little! ;) Considering you're writing to a formula, this is pretty unstilted and entertaining. Given Delilah, "The Lord," sinning, and zealots, the reference to Juliet (I'm not sure who rosalina is) seems out of place somehow. Anyway, pretty good.
Re: Devil's Deal by kaoriliveshere	10-Jul-06/8:59 AM
I like this, especially the ending. Don't think it needs to rhyme, really, or even find a rhythm--I think the imagery is good and sustained and it works as free verse. I would suggest condensing a little here and there--all of the "I wills" for example (e.g., I will take my soul back/knock over your castle with one touch. I will leave you in a state of shock.)--it gets a little long/repetitive. Nice work.
Re: the only thing worse than living (revised, liberated) by Bill Z Bub	10-Jul-06/8:54 AM
"(revised, liberated)"--hee. I like how you get started. The "get stoned" seems too pat/rhymey as is--I'm not a big fan of second person perspectives ("you"), but I think adding "you" (or better, IMO, "I," making it about YOU, the person in the poem), as in "you get stoned, find that warm spot . . .) would make it flow better. I like the off/near rhyming (e.g., profound/wound/sound) and even the lack of a structured rhyme scheme--keeps it loose. "of morning's traffic at your window" seems wordy--maybe just "of morning traffic"? Sort of brings it to a pause. Last verse kind of loses me--seems out of spirit/feeling with the rest of the poem (aggressive where the rest is sort of languid).
Re: a comment on Songs of the hedge bird by ALChemy	5-Jul-06/1:06 PM
Hee--Niphredil, you cynic.
Re: a comment on How to Bleed by MacFrantic	5-Jul-06/12:53 PM
Such a relief! I much prefer my image of you as a rather dashing, plummy, amusingly foul-mouthed/minded Bright Young Thing (more pre-Great-War Edwardian, you understand, as opposed to Sloan-ish). Carry on. And watch the ropey trajectories, would you? I just had this dry-cleaned. P.S. I went camping with my best friend, a pocketless Gay, these past couple of days, and we laughed endlessly over "bell-end." Your fame extends.
Re: O say, can you see? by Dovina	5-Jul-06/12:38 PM
I do like this--its cadence and movement--but it's vague and I'm not sure what it's about, really (except in the broadest of ways). Not that everything has to be spelled out (I prefer obliqueness to obviousness), but some carefully chosen specifics might provide a guidepost. Also, the opposite of tyranny isn't necessarily rampant disorder--order is possible, I think (hope!) without opression. Anyway, as usual, you aim for the bigger issues and what works, works well. Hope you had a happy Fourth.
Re: Songs of the hedge bird by ALChemy	5-Jul-06/12:30 PM
Sammy, my sister's conure, screams defiance at all the birds he hears outside. Not a romantic, like your bird in this. This has a really nice storybook quality to it. The rhymes are simple and you have nice variation (near rhymes sometimes, instead of slavishly sticking with dead-on rhyming) that prevents it from coming off as stilted. A very pretty tale in the nicest of ways.
Re: a comment on Higher education by ecargo	5-Jul-06/12:22 PM
Innuendo intended! You read it exactly as I wrote it. So if you need to think about changing how your read poetry, I probably need to think about how I sometimes write it. ;)
Re: August 23, 1944 - 102 miles west of Paris by Ranger	5-Jul-06/12:11 PM
I like the imagery and the way you've told this, Ranger. Some word/imagery choices leave me a little confused though (and it may be that I'm misreading it). Are the "oxen" tanks? And if so, since the field is dead, the choice of "ploughing" and other words that speak of farming--of planting a seed that will grow and flourish and nurture--seems contradictory (the field being dead and all). If you're equating it to the sowing of dragon's teeth (a la Jason) or sowing fields with salt in warfare, I'm not getting that in what's given. "Whittling" seems an odd word choice, though the emptiness--of the shell, the hollowness of a ring--works really nicely. I like the ocean imagery and the last verse is a winner (though I'd tweak it a little, if it were mine--little things: stopping after "purchase" (though you'd have to punctuate throughout then) and dropping "While" and just saying "On the ground lies . . ."). Blah blah blah aside, I like it a lot.
Re: Bedlam Bazaar by Zoe	5-Jul-06/12:02 PM
Also lovely (as is your other poem, I mean)--the Welsh words add a music to an already lyrical poems. The repeating verse is very strong. You have a gift for detail; a way of making the mundane details of life magical (as poetry should, I think). Consider me a fan! ;) You list this as "Other"--is it a particular form?
Re: Our Lady of the Rock by Zoe	5-Jul-06/11:57 AM
Gorgeous in detail and language. You very obviously know your craft and art. Your punctuation is off sometimes, confusing: colons not serving as colons; semis that might as well be commas or not needed at all. Small nits (but even small things can throw off meaning and rhythm; can push the reader back up to the surface, out of the poem). But this is so lovely, I'd hate to nitpick at it. A couple of questions though: Is it the dawn shrieking in your second stanza? It's not quite clear. And this: "To stretch above and reach to wry brook-beds, is watching close: a man’s step (the bats squeal evening and night: always the flapping wings)." The watching close is the stretching and reading? And also a man's step? A little oblique, the meaning. I love the mix of ancient and modern. I don't find it jarring at all, the way you've done it here. The short version of all of this: I think it's terrific. Beautifully done.
Re: Goliath by amanda_dcosta	2-Jul-06/12:46 PM
I like the beginning a lot--"gnashing your teeth and spitting out curses." Good stuff. I like the metaphor aspects the best--you lose me a bit when you make it so explicit what "goliath" is (you don't give us a chance to figure it out ourselves).
Re: canada day by Bill Z Bub	2-Jul-06/12:35 PM
You're alive! Hiya Mr. Bub. Good to see you.
Re: a comment on Patio 95 by ecargo	2-Jul-06/12:29 PM
Ah, poor Ranger. ;) I hope you emerge, unbowed, from the pit of athletic despair. Or at least get a poem out of it. Hiyas, folks.
Re: Doctoring Stigmata by thepinkbunnyofdoom	2-Jul-06/12:21 PM
I really like this, bunny--it's got heart and honesty. Moves along well too--I like the gunslinger image, it fits the hankering after adventure and romance; you could have taken it even further, I think (maybe that's another poem).
Re: Lovers east of the Coombe by Caducus	2-Jul-06/12:17 PM
The melancholy of this overcomes the limerick rhythm--it shouldn't work, but it does. Last stanza's my favorite.
Re: moving on by Jigg	2-Jul-06/12:14 PM
I think you contort the words to fit the rhymes a little too much, particularly the last line.
Re: Memories of modernism by madamefrufru	2-Jul-06/12:11 PM
Nice mix of remembered detail and the uncertainty wrought by time/distance. I don't think "grandeous" is a word. Maybe you were just sticky. ;)
Re: COCK by Stephen Robins	30-Jun-06/1:17 PM
"Cock" makes me giggle like a 14-yr old. The word, I mean. Only sometimes the appendage. "Thy," so "doth" to be anal about it? "Bellend does cling/ . . . Genital bling"--hee, nice. Obligatory 10.
Re: a comment on How to Bleed by MacFrantic	30-Jun-06/1:12 PM
Stephen Robins! "Sarbanes-Oxley"? Never say you're an accountant! It would be so very disillusioning.