Re: Behind the storm clouds, the moon consoles the sun.(edited) by ALChemy	29-Mar-06/7:17 AM
Comes off a little twee, Al, rather than tender.
Re: Kristi's Quiescence by matt door	29-Mar-06/7:15 AM
Not bad, but it seems too familiar, done.
Re: Time Thief by Dovina	29-Mar-06/7:13 AM
Good idea, but it's a little dull--Poor Richard's without the wit. The Danish cartoon reference is disconnected and a little silly.
Re: a comment on My Prayer by amanda_dcosta	28-Mar-06/2:15 PM
On what basis? Actually, this poem is quite different from much of Sexton's poetry. She's often much darker. This is one of the few poems among her collection, The Awful Rowing to God, that doesn't deal with her struggle to find peace and balance in her life. In the end, faith didn't save her from suicide. I'm not sure what you mean by "expositional" in this context. If it were more expositional and less vague and broad, I'd probably like it better. As a nonbeliever, there's nothing in Mandy's poem to draw me in.
Re: a comment on My Prayer by amanda_dcosta	28-Mar-06/12:30 PM
The two aren't mutually exclusive Mandy. I'm not saying write "something else." Whatever your faith, I assume you live with it when you're walking down the street, buying fish, cooking dinner, yelling at your kids, weeding the garden, pulling up your stockings--it's not something separate from that, is it? I doubt you get through your days and then think "well, okay, now it's Time for God! Yay!" Since you mentioned non-Christian reactions, I’ll give you mine. Poems like this, to me, read like the same old tired proselytizing. There’s no hook to draw me in. I think there are some fantastic religious poems: Anne Sexton’s “Welcome Morning” comes to mind (mainly because she weaves in the homey details that make it accessible and, even for a nonbeliever, relevant). I also think there’s a lot of awful religious poetry. And what makes most of it awful is that it comes off as smug and preachy. Whatever they may think, Christians have no more automatic peace of mind or insight than anyone else. What they may have is a different perspective. If you don’t make that perspective interesting and accessible, though, then you’ll only attract readers who already believe what you believe. Poetry is in the details. Good luck with your book.
Re: Old Friend by drnick	28-Mar-06/7:24 AM
Reads like lyrics sans chorus. Not bad. Last verse doesn't scan right.
Re: Mirror by Sunny	28-Mar-06/7:14 AM
Some good lines and details in this. I like your showing what the mirror shoes, in people and in rooms--like "tousled sheets, clamped bodies." "Tango of the soul" strikes me as a little hackneyed. Really good overall.
Re: a comment on My Prayer by amanda_dcosta	28-Mar-06/7:07 AM
I'd sure like to read about Goa. I saw a travel show that did a segment on it and it looks fascinating and beautiful. I have a friend traveling in India right now, and he loved it there; said the people were great and the island very beautiful. Your mango pickle poem hinted at some tantalizing things to write about. And the show I watched had some interesting bits about the Portugese influence on the culture and about certain things for which Goa is apparently known (terra cotta art, the food, etc.) You've got a rich and--to me--exotic background to draw on.
Re: Cohoma Scott King by rahson_s	28-Mar-06/7:01 AM
Not bad, very descriptive.
Re: My First Hangover by mindsigns	28-Mar-06/6:26 AM
Heh--cute. There's nothing--NOTHING--worse than a gin-induced hangover. Ugh.
Re: a comment on Ghosts of years (rhymey edit) by ecargo	28-Mar-06/6:25 AM
Hmm. You know, I dislike the ending so much I didn't even think to dislike the beginning. ;) I see what you mean though--the details are, I dunno, extraneous maybe. Thanks for the comment. I'd comment on your latest but, honestly, I'm not really sure what to make of it.
Re: Sensually Literary Villanelle by bwaha	27-Mar-06/12:19 PM
Not bad, but some lines are a little awkard and you stagger back and forth with the rhythm, e.g.: "The girls waiting to have their legs spread/I like to walk . . ." "who have their tears shed"; etc. Most are easy enough to fix, really, by paying attention to the rhythm and watching for artificial-sounding inversions (e.g., instead of "who have their tears shed," could be something like "I pity the romancers who have shed/their tears when all they need is a good lay." That way, too, you retain the iambic pentameter w/out contorting the line. Clever, mostly, and fun.
Re: a comment on A look inside [someone real} by Garrett S Sexton	27-Mar-06/12:05 PM
Are you suggesting that "twott" is not an accepted, alternative spelling of "twat"?
Re: a comment on After The Snow/Diamonds And Rust by Ranger	24-Mar-06/1:56 PM
Bloody Benny. Feh. My record's not bad though: People Iced: Thirteen Car Bombs Planted: Thirteen Favorite Weapon: Bottle Rockets Arms Broken: Twenty One Eyes Gouged: Twenty Nine Tongues Cut Off: Three Biggest Enemy: Angel Dust Actually, my record is kind of lame comparatively. Oh well.
Re: a comment on Buddy by ALChemy	24-Mar-06/1:29 PM
Re: Godproof hat--I'm wearing one right now. Improves the signal-to-noise ratio. And it's quite becoming.
Re: a comment on Indiscrete by ecargo	24-Mar-06/7:07 AM
Well, don't let this discourage you--it's not always like this. Sometimes you wake up giddy, sated, and oddly triumphant. ;-) Thanks for the comment and the vote.
Re: a comment on After The Snow/Diamonds And Rust by Ranger	24-Mar-06/6:14 AM
Well, ultimately your gut has to be the judge. I have my own biases and opinions and gaps in knowledge. I might say "what's Dickens doing here?" because, based on whatever Dickens novels I read a million years ago, my idea of Dickens is ragged waifs and bleak scenes of poverty and whatnot. You or someone else might think, well, duh, Dickens, ghosts of future, past, etc., and think it works perfectly well. Ditto for Cain--I think the connection is tenuous at best. You or others might disagree; find connections I don't see. What I will say is this: if you're putting in extratextual allusions simply to justify a detail--e.g., referencing Dickens as a way to provide context for shawls and scarves--I don't think that's a good enough reason. There are better ways to do it that don't distract and provide more balance or ballast or whatever in the poem. And when you get to the stage where you've figured out how to fix most of what you didn't think worked--that third draft stage or whatever--put it aside and grow some distance. Then go back and see what jars, what people said jarred them, etc., and then have a go at tweaking it. Anyway--Ranger Nightingale. What kind of hitman name is that? http://www.biovox.com/generators/hitman.asp
Re: After The Snow/Diamonds And Rust by Ranger	23-Mar-06/9:25 AM
Hey Ranger--nice job. Cool lyric to riff from. I like the wistfulness/tenderness of this. In general, I think it works pretty well. Some of the connections you try to make seem a little off to me though--Dickens? I don't get Dickens from any of this, the reference just distracts. Ditto for Cain--seems to come out of no where, and not in the "a-ha!" good surprising way. Lines that could use some work, IMO: Everything thereafter is gone from recall- [after, maybe, instead of thereafter, and I don't think you need "recall"; everything after is gone? More direct and more encompassing.] Lines a little "meh": The ending of a failed love, so soft to part Wind screams a melody, so terrible Shrill blood-iron voice to hail [the thuddiness of "blood" and the softness of "iron" work against "shrill", also, what's a "blood-iron voice"? Oh, heck, easier to just go sequentially-- No thorn words thrown ["thrown" doesn't seem to work with "thorn" though I like the play on sound] Lose the nightingale. Keats has forever claimed the nightingale, and the rest of us look like asses for imagining that we can use it. (Yes, there was a nightingale in a poeme I recently posted. Yes, that makes me a hypocrite and, likely, an ass.) Curtain of twilight [cliche] I like these lines a lot, though I think they need tweaked (as they'd say in PA) a little: As though somebody cried 'Love blinds its domain' I shut my eyes to make sure [of?] A scene, a dream of you, a figure once well known [maybe lose "a figure"?] Who spoke of gothic romance, love arcane [I dunno about "gothic" here--it's too obvious, and the term "gothic romance" makes me think of old Mills & Boons type books--the waifish heroine, the tortured, scarred, reclusive hero wrestling with broody ghosts; the crazy wife in the attic, all very _Rebecca_ ("Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter for the way was barred to me. Then, like all dreamers, I was possessed of a sudden with supernatural powers and passed like a spirit through the barrier before me. The drive wound away in front of me, twisting and turning as it had always done. But as I advanced, I was aware that a change had come upon it. Nature had come into her own again, and little by little had encroached upon the drive with long tenacious fingers, on and on while the poor thread that had once been our drive. And finally, there was Manderley - Manderley - secretive and silent. Time could not mar the perfect symmetry of those walls. Moonlight can play odd tricks upon the fancy, and suddenly it seemed to me that light came from the windows. And then a cloud came upon the moon and hovered an instant like a dark hand before a face. The illusion went with it. I looked upon a desolate shell, with no whisper of a past about its staring walls. We can never go back to Manderley again. That much is certain. But sometimes, in my dreams, I do go back to the strange days of my life which began for me in the south of France...)"] Oops, sorry, I have no concentration skills left. Enchantment, haunting song Bound and still in awe, enthralled [again, Cain ref seems off] Storm of emerald, ever irresistible [?] From this deep, dark mattress vein Grave [?] [Not sure I get this] uncertain sun, slow spindle [good image] And you haven't visited for a while, Jenni I still think you're beautiful [I like this, simple and wistful] Though I never was Little more than mortal mundane ["never was little more than"--grammar's off--never was more than or was little more than] Like a silver streak fresh from water's skin [water's skin I like, silver streak is too familiar though] Lying sunk in bedspread sprawl [nice] For the company of a broken mirror [for the? recast this line maybe? ] I was going to sit here this December in disdain [disdain, rhyme aside, doesn't seem like the right word to me] Just drink, then think of nothing at all ["and" instead of "then"? I like the ending, by the way] And you happened to call ["but" instead of "and"?] Okay, now that I've nitpicked this to death--I really like the loose rhyming throughout and I think that you maintain the mournfulness, the hauntedness, throughout. I really like this, period. Good poem. Terribly long comment.
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	23-Mar-06/9:22 AM
Good lord. This is the best comment in this entire benighted thread. "What the hell IS that god-awful smell?" All applause.
Re: Outside the Perfection, Into the Yellow by Sunny	22-Mar-06/10:11 AM
Hey Sunny--this is really good. Nice sounds, strong images, good flow from stanza to stanza. "cuts off wind from the sky, and the sky itself. A sour smell/glass door, raw and white"--this is great. Suggest losing the ellipses (everywhere) and dropping the "so white"--don't think it adds anything to the line. Also sugg: dropping "all" in the "Outside, spring (should be lowercased) has conquered--it's just a filler word. I think your next stanza's probably the weakest--you don't connect it to the rest. Love the details in the last two stanzas and the ending (still in the dentist's chair?) Good stuff. Welcome.