Re: a comment on Sunlighting by ALChemy	8-Jan-06/3:36 PM
The Stratford one. At some point, it's like arguing whether Jesus was really born in a manger or, you know, some kind of ancient wheelbarrow. The only benefit you get out of that kind of cynicism is that people don't try to talk to you so much anymore.
Re: a comment on Sunlighting by ALChemy	8-Jan-06/2:34 PM
Oh, that's not true. We do have his actual signature.
Re: a comment on Sunlighting by ALChemy	8-Jan-06/2:33 PM
No original sample of Shakespeare's own writing exists. The earliest texts we have, the first Folios and Quartos, had already passed through dozens of editors and copyists hands, each with their own ideas about proper grammar. Even editors today regularly "regularize" his spelling and punctutation. For my money, the one you just posted is probably closest to Shakespeare's original, except he would have spelled "question" "kwesttione" or something.
Re: a comment on Birmingham gardens by INTRANSIT	8-Jan-06/1:19 PM
PS-The cutoff date for many college-based journals (ie, the majority) is early spring. Get crackin'.
Re: a comment on Birmingham gardens by INTRANSIT	8-Jan-06/1:17 PM
Yes. Two. 1) Get a recent poetry collection, like Poetry Daily's 366 poems or Billy Collins' anthology of American poems, Poetry 180. It should show a bunch of poems published in different books and journals in the last ten years, and what journals they were in. Also check Poetry Daily's website: www.poems.com . For one, you'll find that you're as good as half the poets there. For another, when you find a poem whose style, length, subject or anything looks like what you write, note the journal it got published in. 2) Get the 2005-6 edition of Poet's Market. It has all the submission details of the journals you just noted. Look especially for journals that accept simultaneous submissions. Pick your 5 best poems and submit them to all of those. You can, of course, try submitting a whole book or chapbook, either to a publisher (again, see Poet's Market) or to a reputable contest like New Century Writer Awards. I wouldn't trust 90% of the contests you'd find online, though. If you know a local contest (and one that won't end up owning your book, if chosen,) go for that. But I think submitting small batches of poems to journals is the best way to start, personally.
Re: a comment on greymo(u)rn by lmp	8-Jan-06/1:03 PM
PS- re "like Hemmingway walking through Paris": "I went out onto the sidewalk and walked down toward the Boulevard St. Michel, passed the tables of the Rotonde, still crowded, looked across the street at the Dome, its tables running out to the edge of the pavement. Some one waved at me from a table, I did not see who it was and went on. I wanted to get home. The Boulevard Montparnasse was deserted. Lavigne's was closed tight, and they were stacking the tables outside the Closerie des Lilas. I passed Ney's statue standing among the new-leaved chestnut-trees in the arc-light. There was a faded purple wreath leaning against the base. I stopped and read the inscription: from the Bonapartist Groups, some date; I forget. He looked very fine, Marshal Ney in his top-boots, gesturing with his sword among the green new horse-chestnut leaves. My flat was just across the street, a little way down Boulevard St. Michel." PPS-Don't ever really read Hemmingway when you're trying to write. One way or another, it will make you write crap.
Re: a comment on Birmingham gardens by INTRANSIT	8-Jan-06/12:58 PM
Jesus. Or quotes around Whitman, listening. I'm a mess today. I wouldn't trust me, either.
Re: a comment on Birmingham gardens by INTRANSIT	8-Jan-06/12:56 PM
PS-I didn't mean that you should add a comma after oak. I don't know where that came from.
Re: Birmingham gardens by INTRANSIT	8-Jan-06/12:55 PM
Better. Listening, Whitman => 'Whitman, listening,' stone to grass => stone for grass Oak => oak, suns => sun's This IS really nice. You're my vote for next poemranker richa, minus the temperment. I mean, you write great poems about small things.
Re: Pledge by http://mulberryfairy	8-Jan-06/12:51 PM
As far as I can tell, the American condition is hurrying from cocktail party to cocktail party, desperately waiting for someone to turn to us and say, "No, really, who ARE you - REALLY?" and being far too self-obsessed to ever ask anyone that ourselves. If we're ever lucky enough to be asked, we'll immediately lie or run away.
Re: greymo(u)rn by lmp	8-Jan-06/12:43 PM
Watch out for changing from past-tense to present without reason (ie, your first sentence is "flew", but in the next line the streetlamps "stand".) On a similar note, I think you could improve this poem by giving it more, um, movement. More structure and progression. Your images are good, your ideas are good, the sense of place is good. We just want to see more how you move from one image to the next or one idea to the next. You can do this with a kinda progression of time (ie, you and the dog walk, the sun rises, the fog burns off, the pigeons come out, the pigeons fly away). Or by really thinking of yourself as a person there and looking (or moving) and thinking from one thing to the next in some order. Think like Hemmingway walking through Paris in The Sun Also Rises. Or think like you're turning your head or walking through a square; you see things a natural order, right? Things on your right, then things in the middle, then things on the left. I know that's a harder task than what you've been doing. But I know you don't want to sell yourself short when by just a little extra work you can make something really great. Anyway, this poem is pretty good as it stands. You can try working on it more, but a better idea is just keep structure and order in mind when you're writing the next one, maybe. Good work. Bravo. Cheers. Etc.
Re: a comment on greymo(u)rn by lmp	8-Jan-06/12:28 PM
http://www.poemranker.com/poem-details.jsp?id=81743
Re: a comment on greymo(u)rn by lmp	8-Jan-06/12:27 PM
Yes, but don't get tricked into thinking there's a really strong distinction between prose poetry and "regular" poetry, or between poetry and prose, for that matter. Nobody besides poemranker bean counters is ever, ever going to care about that. Write however you want and let posterity haggle out which form it was. When I suggested putting more prosy poetry in stanza form and more "poetic" experimental language in prose form, I was just talking about how to get popular, not what label to stick yourself under.
Re: a comment on Sunlighting by ALChemy	8-Jan-06/11:38 AM
PS-maybe a comma before "while", too.
Re: a comment on Sunlighting by ALChemy	8-Jan-06/11:37 AM
And none of those are how Shakespeare would have written it. You mean for the dress to be the sarong that she's painting, right? Then put a comma after sarong. That sounds good. For my money, the punctuation goes: Swallows announce the end of yesterday. The morning girl awakens to their song. Her crayola sunrise paints over the gray of fading night to dawn a bright sarong, a flower-sprinkled emerald dress that stretches to the horizon’s hem and ripples in a warm wind’s caress: A playground for the cherubim. “Oh, Uncle Moon, please play with me while the day’s still shining bright?” “I’m so tired but I’ll try Sweetpea.” And the moon missed work that night.
Re: a comment on tanka (3) by shadows	8-Jan-06/11:29 AM
And if we didn't have something to fight for, what would we do with our lives?
Re: a comment on The Fragile silhouette of me by Prince of Void	7-Jan-06/3:36 AM
= Void. I suppose that's because you're the Prince of Void. You think your job is pretty much to say "void" in as many different ways as you can think of. It's as if the Princess of Wales just said "Wales, Wales, Wales, Wales, Wales," all the time.
Re: a comment on Sunlighting by ALChemy	6-Jan-06/5:32 PM
Oh, cool it, you two. Here's Dovina doing all sentence fragments (and getting called on it): http://www.poemranker.com/poem-details.jsp?id=113457 So clearly she doesn't think it's such a violation. For my bit, I think you'd do good without "that" but with "the" before "horizon's". Dropping articles always looks like bad fortune-cookie writing to me. I've long ago stopped caring about fragments, unless they're your whole poem.
Re: a comment on The Forgetting by Dovina	5-Jan-06/5:10 PM
Kindly do not assume what I do or don't assume. If you read the aboveposted text years ago, forgot it, and then rewrote it, that's still plagiarism, albeit obviously accidental plagiarism. There are myriad cases of similar things happening. If you've somehow independently written this without ANY prior experience with the text, I'm sorry I said you were a plagiarist. For what that's worth. In either event, it would obviously still be a good idea, if not your responsibility, to rewrite or withdraw your version. Yes, the fact that you've based your poem on a wordplay on a not-exactly-familiar phrase, "eternal pastless now", made me think you were thinking of some original phrase or text you knew. I cannot see how you'd think "eternal pasteless now" was clever or worthwhile otherwise. Again, I'm sorry about this whole thing. I didn't wake up this beautiful snowy Alaska morning thinking I was going to be mean to you. I'd like to start being nice to you now, so maybe it's best we let this whole thing go for today.
Re: a comment on The Forgetting by Dovina	5-Jan-06/11:16 AM
That's fine. Whatever.