Re: Oh Merry Fay (part 1) by ALChemy	13-Dec-05/7:25 AM
Am I missing what the original song was?
Re: a comment on War (edit) by zodiac	13-Dec-05/4:31 AM
I'd hate to be pigeonholed as The Guy Who Makes Weird Metaphors. You know, Classical allusions are kind of all the rage again in modern poetry. If you've, say, made a vow never to allude Classically in a poem, ever, what can you do to compete? As it happens, I thought this one was too obvious. Especially with the added lines. Maybe we've gotten lazy and metaphorless on poemranker.
Re: a comment on War (edit) by zodiac	13-Dec-05/4:20 AM
Yeah. It's Paradise here. I walk around all day with a stupid grin on my face, ogling grass, trees, fire hydrants. Being abroad has either made me even more southern or some breed of terrier.
Re: a comment on Towards the Sun or The keeper of the bay they call a pond by somemorepoetry	13-Dec-05/4:11 AM
I seriously thought of 'A' first. Jesus, I have been gone awhile.
Re: a comment on I saw Your Face Last Night by Dovina	13-Dec-05/1:55 AM
No. I found the quote about not executing political criminals in the back of my Peace Corps Handbook. Weird, huh? Either someone culled John Updike's "pronouncements" for the most cloying and obvious, or he's dimmer than I've ever imagined.
Re: a comment on Bri's Room (not done) by Sunshine Conkey	13-Dec-05/1:52 AM
I'll answer both of you: Al, you haven't seen the rest of the world. With a few exceptions, we're the intellectual powerhouses. LilMsLady, I've asserted nothing. Quotes are never, ever, necessarily assertions. As it happens, I believe one of the main differences between people with good fortunes and people with bad fortunes is intelligence. There. Now I've asserted something. But good fortune is obviously the cause of intelligence, not the other way around. (I'm comfortable saying that, despite being a broke unemployed kid with a Masters; I did go to private school most of my childhood, after all.) And what kind of intelligence? I can think of three or four kinds mostly unrelated to knowing the capital of North Dakota or stepping into the street in front of a bus. Obviously, you should now ask me to back up "good fortune is the cause of intelligence".
Re: a comment on Bri's Room (not done) by Sunshine Conkey	13-Dec-05/1:43 AM
Technically, de Tocqueville did.
Re: a comment on War (edit) by zodiac	13-Dec-05/1:42 AM
The sad part is, I don't see anything wrong with the original sentence. Is it too late to mention I'm from Seattle originally? Or that most Southerns I know couldn't metaphor their way out of a... a... damn!
Re: a comment on War (edit) by zodiac	13-Dec-05/1:40 AM
"Zodiac...does that mean bigotry IS psychosis?" Technically, no. "Or only if it is 'extreme bigotry'?" The study apparently only dealt with that. "Is 'non-extreme bigotry' not, then, considered psychotic?" Certainly not, but the fact that extreme bigotry's slightly correlated with psychosis would make a good attack on bigotry in general. That is, if you could count on bigots to get it. "Could you please define 'normal bigotry' as opposed to 'extreme bigotry'?" No. I'm just quoting the article. I did find this other article - here: http://tinyurl.com/abqty - that explains more about the same debate, if not the same study. "Is the implication that only inmates are capable if 'extreme' bigotry? Or only that they should be given anti-psychotic drugs for it?" No. The implication is probably that the easiest test group was inmates. The other implication is that defining bigotry as a psychosis would make it a legally admissable defense for hate crimes, and that, as you've pointed out, the vagueness of the term "extreme bigotry" means almost anyone qualifies. Surely the study was done in some way that accounts for the placebo effect, even if by just admitting that the correlation hasn't been tested for the placebo effect yet. Given that the inmates wouldn't have automatically expected that anti-psychosis drugs would reduce their bigotry, you can hardly expect the placebo effect to be strong in this case.
Re: a comment on War (edit) by zodiac	13-Dec-05/1:25 AM
I used to work at a traditional bakery - you know, we hand-rolled the bread on a big wood table and all that jazz. Maybe big modern industrial bakeries smell like yeast, too, but this one, in the unventilated basement of a hundred-year-old building smelled amazingly so. I also had this idea that you can smell yeast in an unopened packet. Oh, and the baking supplies section of any supermarket smells like yeast, too. So on the most superficial level, it's just about yeast smelling fermented and earthy, like turned dirt. 1) I don't think Girlie is necessarily a put-down. I've used the name in 4 poems now for a character whose habits resemble my wife's, so it's hard for me to feel anything but mushy about it. 2) But the character narrating my poems is not always right - or, at least, I spend a lot of time undermining his credibility. I think calling his wife Girlie is a good way of giving an idea of who he is and who his wife is. He doesn't totally respect her, but that could be because she's a little flighty. Again, my wife is the yeast-stockpiler, but she's also a much better person than I am. Who knows? Maybe she's onto something. Of course, metaphorically she's stocking troops, weapons, etc, for an ambiguous purpose, a purpose she doesn't really understand herself but considers The Natural Order of Things. (Yeast does die in its packets if unused.) For me, the real coup of the poem is the narrator's voice fumbling and justifying up to "we keep our peaces", which is his only true assessment of his wife or his relationship. Thanks. This is the longest I've ever commented explaining one of my own poems. It must be 4am. It is. Someone's bound to be wondering: My wife thinks it's hilarious that I use her idiosyncracies for shallow poem women.
Re: I saw Your Face Last Night by Dovina	12-Dec-05/7:43 PM
"Mahommed professed to derive from Heaven, and he has inserted in the Koran, not only a body of religious doctrines, but political maxims, civil and criminal laws, and theories of science. The gospel, on the contrary, only speaks of the general relations of men to God and to each other - beyond which it inculcates and imposes no point of faith. This alone, besides a thousand other reasons, would suffice to prove that the former of these religions will never long predominate in a cultivated and democratic age, whilst the latter is destined to retain its sway at these as at all other periods."
Re: a comment on Bri's Room (not done) by Sunshine Conkey	12-Dec-05/7:42 PM
"The principal cause of disparities in the fortunes of men is intelligence."
Re: Observer by Dovina	12-Dec-05/7:40 PM
"Americans are so enamoured of equality they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom."
Re: The Legend of the Crow by TLRufener	12-Dec-05/3:40 PM
What are you doing? This is the legend of THE CROW. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109506/ I'm sorry, I know I've given you crap about unoriginality in the past, but this seriously does not count as your own work.
Re: a comment on War (edit) by zodiac	12-Dec-05/3:30 PM
This tidbit on slate today: "Anti-psychotic drugs have relieved extreme bigotry among prison inmates."
Re: a comment on War (edit) by zodiac	12-Dec-05/3:05 PM
I mean 'girly'. Christ.
Re: a comment on War (edit) by zodiac	12-Dec-05/3:04 PM
It is a put-down, but not of a girl, nor of anything especially girlie. Have we had this conversation before? The answer then was: George Bush.
Re: a comment on Observer by Dovina	12-Dec-05/3:02 PM
The difference is, as I understand it, is this - DOVINA: Look at me. I'm angry. ZODIAC: I'm looking at me. I must not really be angry. If I were really angry, I probably wouldn't be capable of looking at myself. I'm sure glad I'm not angry (or even partly angry) practically ever. What I think you're talking about is detachment from your CIRCUMSTANCES (ie, the situation doesn't make you uncontrollably sad, angry, or whatever), but you've somehow morphed it into detachment from YOUR EMOTIONS (ie, you're sad or angry but simultaneously not sad, angry, etc). You've probably done that because you have all sorts of odd notions about emotions, objectivity, and yourself existing in different realms, instead of all being part of that wonderful package that is Dovina. That's what I've been asking about.
Re: a comment on Observer by Dovina	12-Dec-05/2:51 PM
Yes, I'm trying to say I do the same thing, only much more less-complicatedly and fewer silly names. Perhaps that's why mine works.
Re: no title by candaliesa	12-Dec-05/12:56 PM
Hi, candaliesa. Welcome to poemranker. It's clear that you've got the basics of writing poetry down. But I hope you're getting some ideas from these comments about the direction you should go with your writing. That is, away from overused rhymes and toward more specific and original images. A good rule of thumb is: If you've ever heard the rhyme or image you're thinking of using in any poem, song, or book, ever, DON'T USE IT. Don't be afraid to try for unusual connections between ideas or sounds. And don't be afraid to put the include the real details of your life in your poems. That's what hardworking poets have been doing for over a thousand years, and that's why we have so much good poetry. Do your boyfriend's grooming habits remind you of a duck preening in a pond? Use that! What is it that reminds you? The way he sniffs his underarms, like a duck rooting under a wing with his bill? Great! What rhymes with "preening"? Meaning, intervening? Okay! How about "darjeeling"? It's close enough. Did you ever walk around the city park pond with your boyfriend? Sure! That's how easy (or how difficult) it is. Watch for images, things, people, you can relate to your life or ideas. Then use them. Try to make the rhymes work for the content. Try to make them distinguish your poem. Don't get discouraged. Here's a good idea of rhymes that are overused, and how overused they are: http://www.poemranker.com/poem-details.jsp?id=97250 Good luck. Seriously, don't give up. zodiac