Re: Sun (Pantoum) by Sunny	10-May-06/1:53 PM
Well, it doesn't quite match with the 'ranker definition of what a Pantoum should be like - I can't find a rhyme scheme in here (although to be fair I'm notoriously bad at spotting rhymes) and the second line in the final quatrain should (according to the definition) repeat the third line of the first quatrain. I wouldn't be surprised, however, if there are alternative pantoum forms. As far as description goes - super! I found it very innovative and the 'dirty' attitudes seem to suggest that for the most part you're writing about the sun when it's obscured by clouds - and therefore not 'pure', if you will. I should also say here that the language used drew up an image of an alcoholic, or someone equally fallen from grace. Obviously there's 'dirty girl', 'groan', 'bottled light', 'bloody face', 'brood' etc. and a bit of wordplay with reviver conjuring up 'reviler'. I could go on, but I think that reading is way off track. Another good one from you, keep them coming!
Re: Fake, Emo and Over Shaven by Blindpoetry	10-May-06/1:36 PM
Entertaining, not much more to be said about this one.
Re: a comment on Awasa, Ethiopia by Beatriz Romero by Sunny	9-May-06/8:45 AM
I was thinking about this piece overnight and (as I need a break from reading up on Derrida...damn essays) decided to return. When I read this last night I didn't see good and evil explicitly; I did, however, see the ideas of our struggles through life which is pretty much inextricably entwined with the concepts of good and evil. Therefore your purpose in the piece does present itself, although indirectly. Having said that, I did note the eerie connotations of teeth and fog which bolster the differences between the two notions. 'Sheet of mist' I found fairly effective for the idea of old age bringing a perceptual veil; and as I mentioned above, the first part of the poem has a very sharp 'birth' feel, whereas the end is strongly 'death' related. As such, I would suggest here that you could change the first line so that the poem reads in a circular manner. Perhaps start it as 'Colour-blind dreaming, so her focus...' This really is a circle of life poem, so making it circular would, I think, work very well. And of course it's enhanced by the idea of rainfall; hydrological cycle. Another thing that impressed me was that you stayed true to the stimulus material (a piece of artwork) by including so many geometrical terms. Peripheral, oblique, [en]compass[ed], flat, plain, straight etc. give a very mathematical (if you will) impression to the poem. This may imply that behind the layers lies the idea of a creator to the life/earth/time circles. I have to get back to essaying now, unfortunately, but I can guarantee I'll be back to this one. Maybe this evening if all goes well and I conquer that dreadful dark lord - laziness...
Re: a comment on Glorious Turncoat, I Shall Return by Ranger	9-May-06/8:26 AM
I'd love to see zodiac back. Perhaps I should post some unenlightened quasi-philosophical babble to entice him back. Of course, what I mean by that is that he'll come back to set me right on the matter, not that he enjoys quasi-philosophical babble.
Re: a comment on Glorious Turncoat, I Shall Return by Ranger	9-May-06/8:23 AM
R.E. the Zeus passage; after a few reads (out loud, of course) I'm hoping it'll morph phonetically to resemble 'Iesous. Same applies to 'hue dash' ultimately becoming 'Ioudas. You outdid me with the tree research; although I wanted to bring up slightly gallows-y imagery with 'undead' but I can't honestly claim to have seen those meanings. Wish I had though...
Re: a comment on Glorious Turncoat, I Shall Return by Ranger	8-May-06/1:50 PM
'At least you pay attention'??? That sounded rather rude of me. Sorry, 'give attention' would have been closer to what I meant. Having been zapped by some 16-yr old on one of the MySpace poetry groups for having an attitude problem, I'm a bit paranoid about these things. Although thinking back to the way I spoke to poetandknowit in the early days here, it's a bit ironic how these things go in circles. What's stranger is that I actually miss the guy a bit. Poemranker was much more fun with a bit of controversy...
Re: a comment on Glorious Turncoat, I Shall Return by Ranger	8-May-06/1:47 PM
You have this knack for raising points which never occurred to me. I swear poemranker isn't half as fun without you! Are you really looking for a god'swife award of condescension?
Re: A Gallery of Errors by MacFrantic	8-May-06/1:36 PM
Well once again you have left me in bewilderment, but also baffled ecstasy. I happen to love nonsense (or apparently nonsensical) poems, particularly when the language is as cool as in here. Lear was one of my childhood idols.
Re: FM.PM by oneglove	8-May-06/1:31 PM
I'm not sure where you're going with the rhyme scheme in this. That is to say, there are lots of '-ight' rhymes at irregular intervals but seemingly nothing else to carry the rhythm. You start with a solid rhyme structure in the first verse but then ditch it straight afterwards. That being said, of course, on the basis that I don't know what this sounds like when put to music. I know this isn't your fault, but 'You're beautiful, you're beautiful' makes me think of that awful James Blunt song. What possessed him to release it is beyond me, honestly.
Re: Awasa, Ethiopia by Beatriz Romero by Sunny	8-May-06/1:10 PM
Well now. This definitely needs the reader to see the picture first, I'd say. I'll give it a 'first impressions' post this evening and return to it tomorrow in order to pick up what I miss tonight. First things first - great description. A couple of grammatical nitpicks: line 14 'its' and line 17 'its' again. Unless you're playing some grammatical tricks there that I haven't yet picked up, I think they need correcting. Also: 'haled' jarred somewhat. I think you're using it in the archaic sense for the climbing (I don't believe it's current meaning would work grammatically there, but again, I'll return to look more closely tomorrow) which goes against the otherwise very contemporary feel to the piece. Right, meanings. I don't know the translation of 'Awasa', but it immediately made me think of a Steve Tilston song, 'Awasazi (Waterhole)' so my immediate assumption was that it was about either a waterhole, or about rain - particularly given the context of the picture. At least, directly about water in some sense. Underlying meanings? Well there are plenty which I think could be applied in some form to this, although curently most are fragmentary. It seems like a 'life' poem, foetus-birth-first couple of days of life-childhood. That's what I'm inclined at the moment to say this poem's about (it fits with every stanza). Having said that, though, the picture is very ghostly and ethereal. This poem could equally be about death though, maybe starting the afterlife, particularly the ending of the poem. Interestingly enough, I also read the first part of it as describing a raindrop falling to earth, either hitting a tree or being consumed by the tree, then being evaporated to continue the cycle. Well, they're the first thoughts. With any luck you'll get a more complete commentary from me tomorrow :-D Oh, before I forget - 'clock runs dry' = excellent image of an eggtimer with the sand, very fitting for the piece.
Re: a comment on THE HOLY NATURE by Daman	7-May-06/5:00 PM
Oh, R.E. 'plight' - I think you might mean 'pledge'.
Re: THE HOLY NATURE by Daman	7-May-06/4:59 PM
Welcome to poemranker! I've got to agree with Niphredil here. To find if the grammar is strained (and it is here, I'm afraid) write the piece out as prose. If it doesn't make sense, write it so it does, and then, if you still want to keep the rhymes, enjamb the lines where necessary. If you want to read a master of subtle rhymes on here, try out some of zodiac's stuff. I'm harping on about his poetry quite a lot at the moment but it really is worth reading and learning from. As Niph says, edit and repost...but if you want comments then I'd advise that you give out plenty yourself first. Generally speaking, commenting on other peoples' works is the best way of bringing yourself to their attention. And, of course, poemranker needs more participation at the moment.
Re: a comment on Glorious Turncoat, I Shall Return by Ranger	7-May-06/4:50 PM
Yep, I thought you'd get this one straight off - very topical really! It doesn't matter that you had an advantage, at least you pay attention to what gets said - always a good thing. The undead bit is a fairly direct reference to zodiac's poem - the bit where he talks about Lazarus (who is the most symbolic character in this poem, I think) and yes, very unnatural and creepy - but then, so is ressurection. Zeus, well, that bit runs deeper. 'He, a Zeus' was designed to do a lot of phonetic work when played with a bit; the same applies to 'hue dash'. I don't expect them to be directly picked up on as the direct references, but after a few reads I'd hope that the sounds would start to seem...familiar. And Zeus himself links the divine with the natural through a fairly lengthy chain of connotations, but that wasn't the primary use. You're right that Judas says nothing in this, but I was pretty torn as to whether it should be called a monologue (which to me always seemed a little more 'soapbox-y' than this, which could potentially be expanded to include Judas speaking). As for my attitudes toward Judas, well I'll tell you all that later. I don't think either of us have the time for theology these days, maybe after all the academia ;-D As always it's great to hear from you - hope things are going well!
Re: a comment on Send The Devil... by horus8	7-May-06/4:35 PM
Duuuuuuuuude! You back for good?
Re: a comment on Glorious Turncoat, I Shall Return by Ranger	6-May-06/12:35 PM
I did wonder whether you'd dislike this poem, knowing that you are a Plath fan and a Shakespeare disliker, as you've said to me before. I'm the opposite; I can't stand Plath (in fairness I have always been horribly biased against her since first reading that awful snowsuit story years ago, but what little else I dared to read since then did nothing to sway my opinion), whereas I love a gripping yarn of olde. Now, there is a purpose to me saying that; namely that I tried to write this with the intention that even someone who wasn't enamoured of religious or oldey-worldey literature could enjoy it, it's clear that I now have some work to do to remedy its shortcomings. Anyway, I'll stop there. I know this sounds colossally defensive; it's not meant to - my purpose in this is to find out how I can change the style of my writing to become more readable to a wider audience. The way I've wanted my poetry to go recently clearly hasn't worked...time to go back to basics, methinks. Thanks again for taking the time to read and write your thoughts, they can only help me improve.
Re: a comment on Glorious Turncoat, I Shall Return by Ranger	6-May-06/12:35 PM
Well first off, thank you for the spending the time on this, I know all too well how long these things take. Now let's see what kind of a response I can come up with. Let's start with the punctuation. It's something which I'm working on in poetic writing - I'm actually more of a storywriter outside of poemranker so I find punctuation and grammar in prose easy enough. I don't, however, always appreciate it being used in the same way in poetry and in the past I've preferred to let the line breaks do much of the work. I do see your point though, and will adjust accordingly in future. I'm not sure about the first stanza being fragmentary though...how so? I know it requires the reader to do a bit of interpretation but then again, that's what I aim for in poetry. I'll return to that later though. Same again with the choppy style. The surface poem is meant to be just a description of Jesus talking to Judas. The 'meaning' (what I'm 'getting at') of the poem is hidden beneath the surface though. Seriously, every line, every word was selected here and although I don't pretend to think that I've got it perfect I do think that I arrived precisely where I meant to arrive. To be honest though, I get the impression that you struggled with the same thing on your last post - you said that a lot of people had misinterpreted it and missed the point entirely. I gave a similar reading to that poem as I did to this one while I was writing it. This poem is about rebirth. To put it simply, it's Jesus telling Judas that in time he, like Jesus will be reborn (i.e. with the discovery of this new gospel). To open up a bit more of the complexity in it, the silence of Judas is based on one of zodiac's poems (Gethsemane (or, Jesus learns what's up with dying)). That, along with continuing the theme of rebirth, is the purpose of the last line of every stanza. 'Lazarus'. He, to me, is one of the most symbolic characters in any text. Umm, where was I? Similes. I am now totally confused about that point, having been told to use them more often by god'swife in response to my glosa of her 'Blueprint'. I guess that's something I'll have to unravel myself with experience. (to be continued in the next box...)
Re: “16 Monks in Procession-Bagan Myanmar” – by Pier Poretti by Sunny	6-May-06/2:57 AM
The beauty of this piece is that it keeps bringing me back to reread and look for more meanings. 'Align in mustard/for forecasted showers' caught my eye this time round. It has a fantastic ambiguity to it, conjuing both the image of mustard plants awaiting rain for sustenance, but also of the monks sheltering beneath leaf-like canopies to escape the storm. So (as I think I said before), the showers are prophecies, but whether they are favourable or not is down to the reader to decide (I like that sort of ambiguity, by the way!) I didn't mention earlier that I thought your contrast of nature and structure was very good - you have the elements, the river, the tree; all life-bringers. Then you have the concrete threatening to smother them. And, of course, you have the temple in the backgroud which is a harmony of both nature and human construction. I'm still not sure about 'scourge' in here - I think it works grammatically, but it feels wrong, somehow. 'Scour' would sit more easily in my opinion, although it's somewhat strong for the gentle nature of monks (it could reflect the 'struggle' theme though, I guess) so maybe 'wash' would be more appropriately - and fit with 'rain'. Similarly, 'purge' just isn't working for me yet. I think I can see what you're getting at by using it but this is a case of you needing to decide whether thematic word choice is more important than the 'feel' of the individual sentences. To be fair, I think I've run into similar obstacles in my most recent submission, I'd be interested to see what you think to it.
Re: Wombs and wounds by Caducus	6-May-06/2:37 AM
I'm not sure that you'd find Merlot beneath trees that often. Cigarettes, possibly and certainly soil, but Merlot? Unless you mean for it to represent blood...but it's quite unclear there. Stanza two - 'worshipped by a goddess' bit makes it sound like you worshipped her too; at least, that's how I read it. Stanzas 3 and 4 - no problems. Final stanza...I'm not convinced by the list of adjectives, particularly as you describe yourself as complex but then list some fairly simple emotions (very compatible ones at that, for a complex character I'd have expected some contradictions there).
Re: a comment on Wombs and wounds by Caducus	5-May-06/11:00 AM
What the hell, why am I marked as having voted? Oh wait, this must have been an edit of something else. Fair enough.
Re: Before Dinner by D. $ Fontera	5-May-06/10:58 AM
I doubt dinner was on the menu.