Re: a comment on No More Autumn Poems (Edit) by Sasha	22-Aug-05/11:51 PM
I wasn't asked, but I wonder - Do you think the following poem is lyrical and/or musical? http://www.poems.com/heroimus.htm
Re: a comment on Surveyor and Farmer by Dovina	22-Aug-05/11:40 PM
Boring in the extreme, Wishing you'd get to the point, Seeming a bit lazy, actually, creative or striking phrasings shunned, Pants sagging shamefully, Overused in bad poetry, Easy to fit in nice bad-poetic lines, All your sentences basically simple-present main clauses, Then long strings of adjective phrases, Meaning ALL of your sentences. Not agreeing subjects and verbs, Seeming in stanza two like the sack is plucking corn, Idly wondering if you see it yet.
Re: a comment on Written while Kayaking by Sasha	22-Aug-05/11:24 PM
Here are some words that, used today, will not necessarily elevate your poetry: halberd, doublet, aroint, Moor (meaning 'Negro'), copatain hat, dolt (meaning 'a small dutch coin').
Re: a comment on The Servant and The Messenger by ALChemy	22-Aug-05/11:03 PM
Yes, but have you ever noticed that I'm an atheist and I can spell untenable correctly, while, whatever you believe, you can't? Weird, huh?
Re: a comment on The Servant and The Messenger by ALChemy	22-Aug-05/11:01 PM
Oh, this conversation. You want to not have fun? Enter the word 'belief' or 'faith' in the comment search-o-matic above. I'm not trying to dis. Most of the crap there is mine.
Re: a comment on How Angels Sleep by Dovina	22-Aug-05/10:48 PM
re: "Nor" Don't you really mean, "They know so very little [about] how a woman feels with wounded knee or poison word, [or about] an earthly hand below her rib"? I mean, you've basically just broken the list of things angels know little about into two sentences. Which is fine enough except the first item in the list starts with 'how', the second starts with 'about', and there's nothing immediately connecting them. It seems just as well to say, "They know so very little how a woman feels with wounded knee or poison word, or/nor an earthly hand below her rib." I don't see what the hand being real has to do with anything. Nor the "about this feeling" line. Flipping through the Bible, I find angels saying "Go back to your mistress and submit to her" (Gn16:9), "Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here or you will be swept away when the city is punished" (Gn19:15), and "I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God." (Lk1:19). If these are platitudes, they're news to me. re: the last stanza Even if you meant the last verse as a metaphor for a man (and isn't the whole poem a metaphor for a man????), it still means you've set up this great description of the nature of angels and then without explanation just changed it and made an angel/man do something totally against what we've understood as its nature. Without explanation or anything. And isn't the whole poem a metaphor for a man? Yes, it has to be. You can't write a whole poem about angels, make the angel in the last stanza a man, and not make us think about how the things you've said previously about angels relate to the metaphor-man. So, you've either got "Angels can't ever feel except this one just happened to feel once" or "Men can't ever feel except this one just happened to feel once" or both. Doesn't that strike you as a kind of silly (if, yes, sloppily gratifying) thing to say? SOLUTIONS: Of course I'm not suggesting you make the woman sleep with an angel any more than the poem suggests she sleeps with an angel (metaphor or not). But you somehow HAVE to make the man/angel not really change its nature. YOU HAVE TO. The easiest answer is the man/angel DOESN'T really feel anything. Hey, that would be kind of like the reality of angels/men, too! Wouldn't that be cool?
Re: Surveyor and Farmer by Dovina	20-Aug-05/5:55 AM
Change the adjective phrases in stanzas one and two to something else. Otherwise, ace. -10-
Re: Take heart, you are closer than you know by Bobjim	20-Aug-05/5:54 AM
I love the title. I wish the poem was about something else. -10-
Re: a comment on The burden of faith by Bobjim	20-Aug-05/5:52 AM
First of all, most of the big mistranslation debates are over the Old testament; things like whether it was Adam's rib that was taken, or Adam's hip, or even - enigmatically - "Daddums' spliff". Considering that most of what Bobjim's talking about in the poem is Old Testament stuff, that's not such a crazy thing to worry about. Or maybe he means the Bible's mistranslated from the actual events that transpired, like Jesus saying "I'm tired" and John writing "Jesus says 'I'm God'." That's not impossible either, considering, one, John was like a hundred when he got around to writing gospel and, two, he had motive to revise Jesus upwards, being, by some accounts, "The one Jesus specially loved and called 'Snuggles'." Maybe YOU've been reading Dan Brown. (On a side note, isn't it the worst writing you've ever seen?) For one thing, the assertion that there are other contemporaneous 'gospels' (historically suppressed by the Vatican) that are slightly different from Matthew, Mark and company IS perfectly true. For another thing, have YOU read the Dead Sea scrolls? One of them (currently on display in my country) is entirely taken up with a fascinating account of gold hidden 100 paces from 'yon olde crooked tree' or something such. THAT, my friend, would have made good Sunday reading. Oh, yeah, and there's as yet no historical evidence for Jesus-the-Christ, so what are you on about?
Re: Written while Kayaking by Sasha	20-Aug-05/5:33 AM
Great except for the internet words. Sorry. I'll never ever ever be cool with buddylist and IM in a poem. Call me a curmudgeonly Luddite.
Re: How Angels Sleep by Dovina	20-Aug-05/5:30 AM
"confused to understand" is not real grammar. I like the rhythm of it, but'd really prefer "failing to understand" or something such (and it's nifty sprung-rhythm!) "About" in the third stanza stopped me a minute. I'd like to see "Nor" in its place. Would you consider dropping "About this feeling... can they bring" and the next stanza? Thanks. It was kind of superobvious. I'd change "platitudes" to a less-strong word, or example, or cool turn-of-phrase of your own. Okay, I made all the comments above without reading the last stanza. Wow. Oh. Okay. I don't think it works at all. For one, City of Angels???? For two, it's kind of just whimsical wish-fulfillment, isn't it? Not to mention utterly non-doctrinal, against everything you've written so far, and a rather trite Deus ex Machina. My suggestion (ie, if this were my poem, so you know what that's worth): The narrator-woman ends wishing for an angel to sleep beside her, knowing it doesn't really feel or understand anything she feels, but she settles for the compromise anyway. Yeah. Cool. I dig. Liked quite a few bits of the writing. You're good when you're poetic.
Re: a comment on Words by Dovina	20-Aug-05/5:19 AM
I just assumed that the inventor of Shift+F7 was the inventor of the Word Thesaurus. Weird how you didn't... Since I've been silly, I'll go ahead and critique seriously. This could be a fine poem, honestly. I would, however: - drop "Tenuously" from the first stanza. - reword the second and third stanzas so they're not so overfull of adjective phrases. - drop "the" from before "past words" - Actually, make the second stanza something like: I perch on a tall ladder stacking words on past words high as play blocks ... and so on. - If you must include "teetering precariously", change it to something totally different or drop it entirely. Also, drop "One more record" and "Ignoring jeers and vain praise". The first line and the last three are really quite good. A lot of the focus of this poem seems wasted on the struggle-despite-hardship-and-persecution part. Once again, you've neglected to include a part about how you could be totally nuts and musguided. I think that part's a necessity for any poem, even if it's only lip service. Why not throw in a Babylon reference or something so people (including yourself) don't think you're just cocky? I know a great place for one (hint: instead of stanza three.) Anyway, give it some thought. Sorry for being facetious before. I really rather liked this one.
Re: a comment on More Than The World by XOXScottishgrlXOX	20-Aug-05/4:57 AM
Yes, well I thought the immigrant comment was funny, that's all. I guess it wasn't. I don't think it's perfectly correct to say "his" all the time. But then it's not really correct to say "their" for everyone, everybody, anyone, and so on. On a continuum of correctness, "his" is more correct than "their". And a lot of feminist professors I know use "he" and "his" for everything, and they're not kicked out of the Feminists' Club. I should also say I know a few feminist professors who use "she" and "her" for everything and they're everybody's darlings. Of course, "We've all got our own problems" is more correct than either of the two, and has the advantage of being personal, which is a good thing to be when you're praying to God. I don't understand why you don't just say that. On a side note, don't you think it's funny how, impossible-to-grammaticize as it is, "everybody has their own problems" has been written by so many people that it's totally meaningless? I do. I really wish you'd write a poem about a person who had a real problem, by way of example and showing-not-telling. Let me know what you think.
Re: a comment on First by Dovina	20-Aug-05/4:49 AM
I spent an hour last week trying to write a reply explaining why I didn't like it. Then I thought, well shit it's not like she spent an hour writing the poem in the first place. I also spent a long night reading Genesis last week and have decided Genesis is demeaning to women and you are demeaning to women. This shouldn't come as a surprise to you. The only way to make Genesis not-demeaning (which, I should add, I do as a matter of course) is by being flexible enough to squeeze through your own asshole. On top of that, I have very little idea what you mean by this poem.
Re: a comment on First by Dovina	20-Aug-05/4:45 AM
I really really really didn't like it. As poetry or anything else. No hard feelings, I hope.
Re: a comment on More Than The World by XOXScottishgrlXOX	14-Aug-05/11:27 PM
Or, "I know a guy who has problems." You know, make it a little personal.
Re: a comment on More Than The World by XOXScottishgrlXOX	14-Aug-05/11:27 PM
"We all got our problems" is the grammatically correct answer to the question "Did you all get your problems?" I'm not a chauvinist (I have a Master's in feminist criticism. My subspecialty was racial criticism, so I'm not racist either.) That said, "his" is an acceptable option for unspecified gender. About a quarter of the professors I know use pretty much only "his". Another quarter uses the clunky "his or hers", another quarter mixes up hises and herses, and another just tri to avoid the situation altogether. A good example of avoiding the situation altogether (which I recommend for this poem) is "We all have our own problems".
Re: a comment on Waiting Room by jessicazee	14-Aug-05/1:59 AM
Oops, sorry! That posted on the wrong poem. Sorry, sorry. I'm deleting it now.
Re: Stream of Consciousness (#1) by Enkidu	14-Aug-05/1:56 AM
And Joseph made haste; for his bowels did yearn upon his brother: and he sought where to weep; and he entered into his chamber, and wept there.
Re: The cat who would fly by nentwined	14-Aug-05/1:22 AM
The best of your recent ones. -9-