Re: Nonchalantly by Plaidypus	10-Mar-05/2:40 PM
Shock endings involving tragic illness, death, are not my bag, they lack subtlety. I would also suggest that the quoted bit is made less clunky to sound more like natural speech.
Re: Subtle Reasons by crooked_smile	10-Mar-05/2:47 PM
That's pretty much it. God is strong, infallible, doesn't wear shoes, male. Nature is nurturing and female. Not exactly subtle though. It merely reflects beliefs held as our language evolved.
regarding some deleted poem...	16-Mar-05/3:05 AM
Not overly enamoured with 'it’s reality check hangover.' It is needlessy prosaic and particularly vague. Other than that ace.
Re: Sleeping Beauty by fevriere	16-Mar-05/3:12 AM
Cute. Except that two lines seem to have inexplicably become detached from both the first and second verses of this two verse poem.
Re: The Symbol by Dovina	25-Mar-05/1:12 AM
What is this symbol round her neck though. Agree about AIDS, the cack handed grammar of it, that the narrator does not really know what she is on about.
Re: Cold Feet by gregsamsa222	3-Apr-05/3:48 PM
It is not richly poetic and there are not many lines that turn me on, but it does skip along rather nicely. I do like the bit about astronomy and the repetition (not as the final line though). The narrators asides like 'there's nothing wrong with that' are cool. Not sure about the end though. To say that business makes men gods and purpose well-defined underestimates the subtleties of mans place in the world. In a word it is a little bit trite.
Re: Potential by Christof	13-Apr-05/3:22 AM
It was ace before, this I think is a step backwards. Words like slackened (the drawing of an arrow is not a process of slackening anyway) and loosed are too imprecise.
Re: science by whispern_smoke_wisp	13-Apr-05/3:24 AM
The dogs don't love humans can be taken two ways: (i) That dogs are only in it for the reward and any attachment is to the reward and not the person and (ii) That dogs unlike humans have no consciousness and therefore do not 'love' or 'like' or 'be'. There is also the old Bernie Skinner adage that the question is not do animals think but do we. Is what humans call love qualitatively different from simple behaviourism of animals. Anyway whichever view you take, it is important I believe that you make the poem 'slant'.
Re: Birmingham gardens by INTRANSIT	17-Apr-05/10:45 AM
Exchange rate doesn't work. The 'exchange rate' exists and is altering rather than coming on the scene (I wait for the exchange rate). The light rewards fishes because they are bright rather than because they cause no harm. Other than that good. Nice to see a block of text.
Re: ab*defg by Goad	19-Apr-05/3:17 PM
fu*king bit*h why the fu*k am i not allowed to use the letter 'c'.
Re: f*ckyouoldmenandyourrules by Damien_	20-Apr-05/1:47 AM
It is incorrect to say that all your critics are old and only critical because of this. Many of your critics can write like this but have chosen not to because they believe the style is not particularly valuable. Most decent poets can rhyme well and most decent poets will throw away many perfectly good rhymes because they have set their poem a structure to fulfil. This is called discipline. Now jam poetry or rap poetry or whatever you wish to call this traditionally has less discipline. If this style is to be good you must use some. Now if you were to write a poem about the criticism of goad then certain things would not naturally come up, castration for instance. The good poet would therefore look for a more suitable word. There is no use of metaphor in this poem. Now there is no law to say you need to use metaphor, but metaphor at least conveys reflection of an idea and an attempt to represent that idea in an interesting way. I would take issue with your point about Shakespeare. Although Shakespeare did to a certain extent break the rules, what he did not do was make the same mistakes that every other uneducated hack poet made in his day. Bad poets have forever made the same mistakes such as vagueness, forced rhyme and incoherence. If you make these mistakes they are not suddenly going to become revolutionary just because they are not found in published poetry. The question of punctuation and grammar is important. There is an argument that a bad critic will focus on poor grammar and use that to make conclusions about the poet and poetry as a whole. This is analgous to a poet using the metaphor of a rose to infer that all pretty things have thorns. It is unwarranted. However poor grammar and punctuation can contribute to the poet being unable to get his message across. To attack grammar for grammar's sake therefore is entirely valid. There is no advantage to a poet writing poor grammar and therefore any rectification of it is a good thing.
Re: Finding Gin and Santa by richa	8-May-05/12:44 PM
Dear Mr Nentwined. Can poemranker spell seance properly?
Re: Rock of the Earth by ingwa	22-May-05/1:33 PM
Quite like the first verse although the 'ages gone by' and then 'hunts gone by' sounds inelegant and before I die seems a bit melodramatic. Sonically speaking the poem does not hang together well, the rhythm is all over the place.
regarding some deleted poem...	22-May-05/1:36 PM
Needs a bit more poeticism in it. An image here or there that sort of thing.
Re: Ungrateful by Damien_	22-May-05/1:38 PM
:)
Re: Making a Mark by andrew barnes	22-May-05/1:44 PM
Fair enough. I agree with W though. There is a missed opportunity to be creative in the early part.
Re: A Night By The Shore by Bhaskaryya	22-May-05/1:48 PM
boon, goon and croon are forced rhymes and if references are your thing (i.e. aashik's soul) use some more it makes the poem interesting. Other than that well done.
regarding some deleted poem...	22-May-05/1:51 PM
It is probably a bit long. If your poem is going to be so non poetic you really want to be writing the message as succinctly as possible. If the poem was filled with poetic device and image however length would be no problem. And lines with virtually only prepositions on are pretty pointless.
Re: I don't rhyme enough, eh? by Niphredil	4-Oct-05/11:27 AM
The last two lines of the poem are ridiculous. 'Coerce/there disordered feelings to verse' 'to' should be at least be 'to because it is a contraction of into.
regarding some deleted poem...	4-Oct-05/11:37 AM
I thought this was decent (in a prosey way) up until: 'to that place I first noticed you in a different way,'. and 'I love you' at the end! Jesus christ. The details of the place are fine. The whole dna bit is cack-handed.