Re: Sinning Sinners and Their Sinful Sins by MacFrantic	25-Jan-06/11:20 AM
If you define 'sinning' as 'performing a sin', 'sinners' as 'people who sin', 'sinful' as 'full of sin' and 'sins' as 'more than one sin', your title becomes People Who Sin Performing a Sin and Their More Than One Sin Full of Sin
Re: After Rain by Niphredil	26-Jan-06/10:10 AM
Nice, except the punchline ending.
regarding some deleted poem...	26-Jan-06/10:11 AM
What do you think commas do, actually?
Re: Singularity by drnick	26-Jan-06/10:13 AM
Sorry, couldn't get into it.
regarding some deleted poem...	26-Jan-06/10:37 AM
Hey, good call! The Bible IS full of contradictions!
regarding some deleted poem...	26-Jan-06/6:44 PM
Crap, he disappeared. I wish he hadn't taken my snarky response to Dovina with him when he went. Ah, oh well... Goodbye, moron. We're gonna miss those times we had.
Re: Memoirs of a Greasyslut the rest of the story by Glasseyez	27-Jan-06/5:06 PM
How true! Geishas DO live in India!
Re: The Book of Images by Dovina	31-Jan-06/11:05 AM
Nice arrangement, but you've added very little.
Re: Time by sk8rs_rule_all	3-Feb-06/9:19 AM
My suggestion is don't put anything in a poem if you've already heard it before. That pretty much covers all poems about "Time".
regarding some deleted poem...	3-Feb-06/9:29 AM
I'm white inside but that don't help my case That's life can't hide what is in my face How would it end, ain't got a friend My only sin, is in my skin What did I do to be so black and blue? - Louis Armstrong
Re: A Walk in the Park by Dovina	3-Feb-06/9:31 AM
"skirt fanned out as if it saw you" is good, but personally I think you should try to get over it. Happens to everyone, if we're lucky enough.
Re: stormcast (a true story) by FreeFormFixation	3-Feb-06/9:34 AM
Damn those libraries with their endless library knowledge.
Re: Nomads by amanda_dcosta	3-Feb-06/9:37 AM
There's no strict rules for writing haikus in English, as you'd all know if you ever read Kerouac instead of just pretending. Saying haikus are supposed to be 5-7-5 is just an easy way of saying you don't like this haiku. That said, it's better if you try to write your haiku 5-7-5, amanda, as it's not a very difficult thing to do and if you don't, people are always going to wonder about you.
regarding some deleted poem...	3-Feb-06/9:39 AM
As a one-time college instructor I can tell you people always think professors take off for mispunctuating the title. It's never the case. Why is "dancing" in quotes?
Re: Even the elephants by ecargo	3-Feb-06/9:40 AM
Bourne is an amnesiac super-assassin. You mean windborne. Good poem.
Re: A Walk in the Park by Dovina	3-Feb-06/2:31 PM
Your gift: Poets, if they're genuine, must also keep repeating "I don't know." Each poem marks an effort to answer this statement, but as soon as the final period hits the page, the poet begins to hesitate, starts to realize that this particular answer was pure makeshift, absolutely inadequate to boot. So the poets keep on trying, and sooner or later the consecutive results of their self-dissatisfaction are clipped together with a giant paperclip by literary historians and called their "oeuvre" . . . I sometimes dream of situations that can't possibly come true. I audaciously imagine, for example, that I get a chance to chat with the Ecclesiastes, the author of that moving lament on the vanity of all human endeavors. I would bow very deeply before him, because he is, after all, one of the greatest poets, for me at least. That done, I would grab his hand. "'There's nothing new under the sun': that's what you wrote, Ecclesiastes. But you yourself were born new under the sun. And the poem you created is also new under the sun, since no one wrote it down before you. And all your readers are also new under the sun, since those who lived before you couldn't read your poem. And that cypress that you're sitting under hasn't been growing since the dawn of time. It came into being by way of another cypress similar to yours, but not exactly the same. And Ecclesiastes, I'd also like to ask you what new thing under the sun you're planning to work on now? A further supplement to the thoughts that you've already expressed? Or maybe you're tempted to contradict some of them now? In your earlier work you mentioned joy—so what if it's fleeting? So maybe your new-under-the-sun poem will be about joy? Have you taken notes yet, do you have drafts? I doubt that you'll say, 'I've written everything down, I've got nothing left to add.' There's no poet in the world who can say this, least of all a great poet like yourself." The world—whatever we might think when we're terrified by its vastness and our own impotence or embittered by its indifference to individual suffering, of people, animals, and perhaps even plants, for why are we so sure that plants feel no pain; whatever we might think of its expanses pierced by the rays of stars surrounded by planets we've just begun to discover, planets already dead? still dead? we just don't know; whatever we might think of this measureless theater to which we've got reserved tickets, but tickets whose life span is laughably short, bounded as it is by two arbitrary dates; whatever else we might think of this world—it is astonishing. But "astonishing" is an epithet concealing a logical trap. We're astonished, after all, by things that deviate from some well-known and universally acknowledged norm, from an obviousness we've grown accustomed to. Now the point is, there is no such obvious world. Our astonishment exists per se and isn't based on a comparison with something else. Granted, in daily speech, where we don't stop to consider every word, we all use phrases such as "the ordinary world," "ordinary life," "the ordinary course of events." . . . But in the language of poetry, where every word is weighed, nothing is usual or normal. Not a single stone and not a single cloud above it. Not a single day and not a single night after it. And above all, not a single existence, not anyone's existence in this world. It looks as though poets will always have their work cut out for them. - From Wislawa Szymborska's Nobel Prize acceptance speech
Re: I'm there by amanda_dcosta	5-Feb-06/8:53 PM
I like it.
Re: An Understanding Woman by Dovina	5-Feb-06/8:54 PM
This is an exact description of tonight's "Grey's Anatomy".
Re: Idle Time by Angelicasassy	6-Feb-06/7:33 AM
A lot of extra words here. I'd start by dropping almost all the adjectives. Or changing them so they surprise us. Otherwise, good enough.
Re: Anonymous Love by Angelicasassy	6-Feb-06/7:54 AM
I'm sure that was rewarding for you, but it reads for us kind of like a pop song. My suggestions are (1) don't ever include anything in a poem that you've already heard or read before ever, and that includes your first line. Aren't there more original things to tell your guy to do? Yes, there are. (2) An easy way to frame a poem that's coming out cliche so it doesn't seem cliche is to change its perspective. Rather than writing it as an address to a guy, make it about two other people - say, Angela and Steve. Make them a lot like you. Think of what their predicament means in the larger picture. One of the advantages of this method is that it makes it less embarrassing to read in public. You're going to be tempted to say here, But I'm just writing for myself and how I feel. Don't. We're nice people here and want to read your poem. Consider how we feel reading this. Do we relate? Do we feel kind of like we would seeing two people be mushy in public? What would interest and provoke us? As a guy, I can tell you, that's what would interest and provoke your guy, too. (3) Add details. Lots. People think the more universal a poem is, the more impact it has. Usually the opposite is true. My idea of a really great poem - say, "Dover Beach" - is about something I've never done; that is, sat in a house on Dover Beach at night. Here ( http://www.poemranker.com/poem-details.jsp?id=123570 ) is another really good poem that I relate to, but which has little to do with my own experience. That's the idea. (4) Lastly, don't ever include ellipses ("...") in your poem. That's easy to fix. Almost any punctuation works in the same way. Also, putting stanza breaks for pauses works. Anyway, sorry about blabbering all over your poem. Welcome to poemranker. Hope this helped.