Re: a comment on Waffleman by Stephen Robins	3-May-05/2:29 PM
I think it's a real song.
Re: Spirit In a Temple by peaceseeker	3-May-05/2:29 PM
I don't think you meant "physiological".
Re: Home by Dovina	2-May-05/12:49 AM
All the synonyms for "saw" bother me. Why not just drop them all?
Re: Savor Your Tasteful, Tasteless Morsel by nothingtoanyone	2-May-05/12:43 AM
I don't understand why this poem has the word "douche" in it.
Re: Wherever the Wind Will Blow by nothingtoanyone	1-May-05/6:43 AM
Some edits: - Wherever is one word. - Don't put a period at the end of the first line. - How is the rain like tears from children's faces? Yes, I know. But say how in the poem. - Don't say blood in the next line. For one, it sounds like your saying children's tears are blood. For another, you're really saying the rain's blood. Rain doesn't have blood. If anything, rain is blood. - Don't capitalize wind. - Don't put a period at the end of that sentence. - Say Nature's, not Natures. And don't capitalize breath. - Don't say reliquish in another language. There's no point or basis in the poem for it. And anyways, then you have to worry about putting the pronoun them before reliquere (where it should be if you're talking French), or after where it doesn't sound right. Better yet, just say relinquish. - Forgetting in the next line doesn't seem to have a subject. Then leave should probably be leaving. - I appreciate poetic phrase-making, but running of with the distance doesn't make a whole lot of sense. You don't have to change it, just so you know. - Don't say capere. There's no reason. - In that sentence, you've got the leaves running off in the distance, but what's standing tired and naked? The trees, obviously. But you haven't said that. It sounds like you mean the leaves are standing. Say the trees. - Make the last two lines a real sentence. It also doesn't make sense as it is. There's no subject for waiting, unless you mean battle, but that doesn't make sense. It also sounds like you're saying waiting for the return of the never-ending cycle, which is kind of silly, because the cycle's never-ending, right, so where did it go? That's all. Sorry to sound nitpicky, but you have to admit making these changes won't do anything to your poem but make it make more sense. It's not like they'll ruin it or anything.
Re: a comment on Returning by Dovina	30-Apr-05/7:19 AM
I didn't see this comment until after I'd posted my reply. Sorry. Just to make sure we're on the same page, I'm not turning over any leaves. I've always responded positively to things I think are sensible, well-thought-out, or well-put, and disliked things I think are unreasonable or poorly-put. Most people, I gather, have some idea of liking people which, to use Dan's example, means applauding even their mistakes. I don't. Or here, at least, I don't. This poem and several other good things you've posted are perfectly respectable and deserve good responses. If you've got the idea that I'm kind of blanketly crapping on everything you do (maybe because of some personal animosity on my part), I hope you'll change it sometime. PS-Sorry for saying you're only pithy and 10-giving.
Re: a comment on Returning by Dovina	30-Apr-05/6:59 AM
What a breathtakingly silly bunch of things to say. Here's my silly thing: I thought we were entering some new period of getting along. Oops. As for your comment, yes, of course we have different criteria for judging goodness (though not as different as you think.) But the question was, which do YOU think is your best? Not which do I think. I obviously think this one is your best. I believe I've already said so. So, again, because I'm really curious and want to understand you, which of your poems do you think is your best? And incidentally, not contradicting yourself has everything to do with content and nothing to do with form. Please note that the poems I picked as my best are my least formal and most content-filled. The contradictory poems I was referring to are the most formal. If I were required to pick between content and form, I'd pick content any day. Luckily, I'm not usually required to because most good poems are good in both respects. If you think, what a load of crap, zodiac always criticizes form and never content - well, first you're wrong. If you don't believe me, take a look at my comments on "Middle-Aged White Woman", for one. I comment on the content of your poems easily as much as I comment on their form. This despite that, truth be told, I'm a little uneasy about criticizing the "content" of most people's poemranker posts. Is pain really pleasure? Are hobos worse than salesmen? Is God really a great bearded beard-mount? Who knows? And how the hell do you criticize that? Oh, right. Like you do, with a pithy bit of summarization and a 10. In all honesty, I believe a poet can get away with saying most anything if he says it well. If he doesn't, it's still easier to let him know the poem doesn't work by way of criticizing his formal mistakes than by criticizing his content mistakes. So I take the easy way out -so what? I still comment more substantively than any other poemranker user. Thanks, zodiac PS-I think this is your best poem for both its formal and content-oriented elements. Check and mate.
Re: a comment on Returning by Dovina	30-Apr-05/5:27 AM
I'll stick with this one. For a lot of reasons. I feel like I've asked you to do something I can't myself, so here goes: My best post is the hall-key one; after that, the greyhound bus one. My best moments are, in this order, rhyming penguin/being one in "A Dangling Poo", rhyming Violet/twilit/pilot/while it/and islet in "Ballad for a Bad Irish Accent", and making it through two poems without contradicting myself a half-dozen times.
Re: a comment on Returning by Dovina	30-Apr-05/5:12 AM
I was rooting for you, though.
Re: a comment on Returning by Dovina	30-Apr-05/5:05 AM
Not too much, apparently.
Re: a comment on Wherever the Wind Will Blow by nothingtoanyone	30-Apr-05/4:41 AM
That seems like any easy thing to say and a lot harder thing to back up. Can you think of any example you've ever read where a "lack of" grammar lets your mind take you to places you don't see everyday? I'm not really trying to be hard on you. To prove it, I'll give an example myself: The inappropriate grammar of things written in dialect - for example, "Yassuh youse right gentrous, Marse," said the pickaninny - takes us to the mind and situation of an uneducated black child in the South in a way proper grammar wouldn't. Is that what you meant, that the grammar in your poem is supposed to give us a vivd feeling of being illiterate?
Re: a comment on Returning by Dovina	29-Apr-05/6:29 AM
I think this is really one of the cleverest things you've said here. You seem to be on a roll.
Re: a comment on Returning by Dovina	29-Apr-05/6:19 AM
Out of curiosity, which do you think is you best?
Re: Just a Poem by Damien	29-Apr-05/5:25 AM
I wonder if you read much of the poetry that's written these days. Of course a lot of it is crap, just like most poetry from any time, but I think you'd be really surprised and pleased by some. Check it out. Robert Pinsky posts a new poem on his Slate.com page every week. They're always pretty good, and you can see them here: http://www.slate.com/?id=3944&;cp=3333. A recent one has one of my favorite bits of poetry ever: how scrufty, how anciently scabby we, he and I; how worn, how self-devoured, balls and all, balls, balls and all.
Re: Middle-Aged White Woman by Dovina	29-Apr-05/5:18 AM
"Begin with an individual, and before you know it you find that you have created a type; begin with a type, and you find that you have created - nothing." -'The Rich Boy'
Re: Returning by Dovina	29-Apr-05/5:15 AM
This is the best thing you've posted here. I read it once just for the flow of it. "There are all kinds of love in the world, but never the same love twice." - F Scott Fitzgerald, 'The Sensible Thing'
Re: Carnival Creatures by <{Baba^Yaga}>	29-Apr-05/5:03 AM
This is great. One thing: "born" should be "borne".
Re: Censor by nentwined	29-Apr-05/4:57 AM
I don't get it. So nothing's actually censored, it just has a bunch of odd Xs inserted?
Re: Walking Out by NoSage	29-Apr-05/4:53 AM
Say "his", not "their".
Re: Sins of convenience by sunset sky	29-Apr-05/4:50 AM
The last stanza has got to go.