on Try Thinking Too by Bankrupt_Word_Clerk
30 Jun 2005, 3:39 AM
I've spent the last fifteen minutes thinking about how intelligence may be like a dog with mange. I've got nothing. Sounds cool, though.
on Daytime TV by jessicazee
30 Jun 2005, 3:37 AM
Great, just great.
SOMEBODY: Haikus are supposed to be about nature!
zodiac: You can eat it.
SOMEBODY: Haikus are supposed to be about nature!
zodiac: You can eat it.
replying on -750,000 in Rwanda by ALChemy
30 Jun 2005, 3:32 AM
Aren't you the hero? Oh, no, wait. You're not. Calling somebody who bothered to criticize your poem a "sadistic fuck" was pretty fucking heroic, though.
Regarding, "This poem for good or bad reasons has at least got you thinking about Rwanda again" - well, excuse my French, but that's kind of a load of crap. If you'd only posted the word "Rwanda" and nothing else, it would have gotten me thinking about Rwanda again, so what's the point of the other thirty lines. As far as your assumption that no poem can get close to the experience of Rwanda so it's a bum criticism to say your poem didn't, well that's kind of crap too. At least, a lot of things can get a lot closer than you've gotten. I'm not trying to say you're crap as a poet or anything such. I'd just like to suggest that you try to make your poems more evocative. And, considering our earlier conversation on this poem, true as well. Ask yourself, Even though I'm just writing these poems for myself, don't I think it would be a lot nicer to write good poems for myself than bad poems for myself? Then ask yourself, And isn't it probably the case that I'm just pissed because nobody thought my poem was genius and that's why I'm acting like this?
Regarding, "This poem for good or bad reasons has at least got you thinking about Rwanda again" - well, excuse my French, but that's kind of a load of crap. If you'd only posted the word "Rwanda" and nothing else, it would have gotten me thinking about Rwanda again, so what's the point of the other thirty lines. As far as your assumption that no poem can get close to the experience of Rwanda so it's a bum criticism to say your poem didn't, well that's kind of crap too. At least, a lot of things can get a lot closer than you've gotten. I'm not trying to say you're crap as a poet or anything such. I'd just like to suggest that you try to make your poems more evocative. And, considering our earlier conversation on this poem, true as well. Ask yourself, Even though I'm just writing these poems for myself, don't I think it would be a lot nicer to write good poems for myself than bad poems for myself? Then ask yourself, And isn't it probably the case that I'm just pissed because nobody thought my poem was genius and that's why I'm acting like this?
on The Object of the Game by Dovina
30 Jun 2005, 3:09 AM
First and second lines make it sound like the women are the ones hurting, not the man. You can say, "of implies ownership, his hurt simply BELONGS to the women." Whatever. If at some level you're taking this comment seriously then, no, the missing punctuation would not fix it.
Lines two and three make it sound like either the shallow lovers are hurting or the women somehow wronged him of shallow lovers, neither of which is what you mean. You can say, ibid. My answer: ibid.
Second stanza continues the other-people-wounded-not-him. And why do you talk like such an android in your poetry? I expect you at any moment to say, haltingly, "Is this...the thing... that... humans call... love...?"
Lines two and three make it sound like either the shallow lovers are hurting or the women somehow wronged him of shallow lovers, neither of which is what you mean. You can say, ibid. My answer: ibid.
Second stanza continues the other-people-wounded-not-him. And why do you talk like such an android in your poetry? I expect you at any moment to say, haltingly, "Is this...the thing... that... humans call... love...?"
replying on A Righteous Prayer by Dovina
30 Jun 2005, 2:58 AM
Yes, I understand all that. I've known that from the beginning. I still think the wording's rotten in parts. More rotten than actual prayer, even.
replying on Father’s Day by Dovina
30 Jun 2005, 2:55 AM
I know, I know. I've been trying to say, MOST people see "core" as meaning something like what I'm saying (that is, an unchangeable, essential part of something.) There's not "many interpretations" except yours and everybody else's. I'm not trying to be offensive, and I can totally understand your point that "core" used loosely CAN be defined a number of ways.
As far as "saying offensive untrue things" goes, your comment of 24-Jun makes it sound like you (to some extent) mean "core" to mean unchangeable and essential - and, by extension, to suggest the old man is bitter and critical to his core - in order to encourage people to dispute it. In other words, it sounds like you're at some level deliberately claiming old people are unchangeably selfish and bitter, which you know to be untrue and offensive to old people and people who like old people. So it's not such a long way.
I am not aware of twisting anyone's words in this comment, seriously.
As far as "saying offensive untrue things" goes, your comment of 24-Jun makes it sound like you (to some extent) mean "core" to mean unchangeable and essential - and, by extension, to suggest the old man is bitter and critical to his core - in order to encourage people to dispute it. In other words, it sounds like you're at some level deliberately claiming old people are unchangeably selfish and bitter, which you know to be untrue and offensive to old people and people who like old people. So it's not such a long way.
I am not aware of twisting anyone's words in this comment, seriously.
on Fillamayer! by smiffy84
26 Jun 2005, 3:10 AM
Not bad. But the best poemranker lay in the olden style is still this one:
THE LAY OF KING BUMBLEMEAT
Whither the meatly hats of yesterlunch?
Whither the sausage helmets, the hammy porkpies, the berets
Shimm'ring in sunlight, so meatly,
All smelling sweetly
Of honey and jelly-glaze?
Whither King Bumfirst's hamhock, that bunched
So gloriously on his ears as he rode that day
Swinging his wet truncheon:
To luncheon! To luncheon!
So awfully, so embarassingly gay?
Alas! No more the meat! Alas! No more those hats!
The ham-fedoras flapping their silly brims among the leaves
Of Bumwood! Lost completely
Are those bright helms, so meatly,
Collapsed with somewhat sickly splats
On the tops of our Wellingtons (Beeves).
THE LAY OF KING BUMBLEMEAT
Whither the meatly hats of yesterlunch?
Whither the sausage helmets, the hammy porkpies, the berets
Shimm'ring in sunlight, so meatly,
All smelling sweetly
Of honey and jelly-glaze?
Whither King Bumfirst's hamhock, that bunched
So gloriously on his ears as he rode that day
Swinging his wet truncheon:
To luncheon! To luncheon!
So awfully, so embarassingly gay?
Alas! No more the meat! Alas! No more those hats!
The ham-fedoras flapping their silly brims among the leaves
Of Bumwood! Lost completely
Are those bright helms, so meatly,
Collapsed with somewhat sickly splats
On the tops of our Wellingtons (Beeves).
on Passion by gothiclovepoetiss
26 Jun 2005, 3:06 AM
Q: If you only felt like this because you'd heard love described in exactly the same terms God knows how many times, rather than - I don't know - somehow just spontaneously having this feeling, would you know? In other words, do your knees really, REALLY buckle? Please answer honestly.
on FAT BALLET- PAS DE DEUX by andrew barnes
26 Jun 2005, 2:59 AM
Change "jolting fatigue", "long- limbed pulley", and give the ending some punch. Very good, though. Have you been watching Dancing with the Stars?
replying on Submit by Bankrupt_Word_Clerk
26 Jun 2005, 2:48 AM
Are you Stephen Daedalus?
replying on Father’s Day by Dovina
26 Jun 2005, 2:33 AM
Oh, I see. You see your role as poet to say offensive untrue things about people and then count on other people's being decent enough to say the right things in reaction. You're the Chris Rock of poetry.
replying on A Righteous Prayer by Dovina
26 Jun 2005, 2:28 AM
I understood the punctuation as such. I still think it's messy. At the very least, "Grant now my petitions, for which I make claim" is horrendously overworded. And would you really, really say "I make claim for my petitions"? Would you really say "I've kept something with passion for religion"?
replying on Family by Sunshine Conkey
26 Jun 2005, 2:21 AM
Sorry if I've gotten you wrong. There are two users running around this site calling you mom. Their poem-pages are here http://www.poemranker.com/user-browse.js
One of their poems starts "I killed a little boy to dance in his blood". Another goes "Some times I wonder If theres any hope For someone with so much HATE." There also used to be one about worshipping Hitler and killing Jews, but it's apparently been deleted.
I sincerely hope your son in Iraq is doing okay. I live next door in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and think about the kids over there daily.
One of their poems starts "I killed a little boy to dance in his blood". Another goes "Some times I wonder If theres any hope For someone with so much HATE." There also used to be one about worshipping Hitler and killing Jews, but it's apparently been deleted.
I sincerely hope your son in Iraq is doing okay. I live next door in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and think about the kids over there daily.
replying on Sandia Plain by Dovina
24 Jun 2005, 7:08 AM
I mean, "I've been DRINKING Arak today". Tee-hee.
Incidentally, the liquor Arak and the country Iraq are derivations of the same root: sweat. In Arabic they're spelled almost identically.
Incidentally, the liquor Arak and the country Iraq are derivations of the same root: sweat. In Arabic they're spelled almost identically.
on A Righteous Prayer by Dovina
24 Jun 2005, 7:00 AM
Some of this grammar is a mess. In special need of changing:
"Grant now my petitions For which I make claim"
"All those lofty ideals I’ve kept With passion for religion As tools for advancement"
"As Your Word admonishes I now beseech"
"Grant now my petitions For which I make claim"
"All those lofty ideals I’ve kept With passion for religion As tools for advancement"
"As Your Word admonishes I now beseech"
on Family by Sunshine Conkey
24 Jun 2005, 6:56 AM
Do you think if you were more polite to your sons, they'd stop being self-obsessed Neo-Nazis?
replying on Father’s Day by Dovina
24 Jun 2005, 6:44 AM
That's fine, but I think most people reading this poem are looking at "core" as something essential and unchangeable in a person, and that's why they're bothered.
"It was just his time to move on."
"When it seems that his life just got going."
"He had planned so many times to explore,"
"Or meeting the love of his life."
"Struck down in his prime without a second glance,"
"To fulfill its lifelong dream."