Re: Requiem by ChaseValentine	29-Apr-05/4:47 AM
The line "that paint deserts golden pink" doesn't seem connected to any of the rest of the poem. And I don't even know if it's true. "Settling" should probably be "settle". Samson and Delilah doesn't really fit, since you're getting your hair cut (i.e., you're Samson) but it's not making you weak (i.e., like it did Samson). The last two lines are great and well-broken. Make the two lines leading into them stronger. You don't need to say "I've shorn myself for the summer" for so long, since you've already said it and better. Think of something else. -10-.
Re: a comment on Lost key for a hall-closet by zodiac	29-Apr-05/4:37 AM
I considered that. Now I think the key's just some vaguely-defined passion, the kind of thing middleagers mail-order "instructional" videos to recapture.
Re: a comment on Untitled by http://mulberryfairy	29-Apr-05/4:29 AM
She lives in Maine. There is only one man.
Re: The Resilient Woman by Joe-joe	29-Apr-05/4:28 AM
Not bad, but it should be "thirst like she HAS never known before" and broken into several shorter sentences - after "reside", I'd say, and maybe after "brine".
Re: a comment on Panama by Dovina	29-Apr-05/4:17 AM
Um, yeah. I said that was the layout, and I didn't like it. It's not ambiguous or anything. I just thought it didn't work.
Re: a comment on Breakfast by James Rykelangeli	29-Apr-05/4:09 AM
But don't feel bad. I'd rather be clever any day than typically poetic. And when I was your age I thought I was one of the Algonquin Circle.
Re: a comment on Breakfast by James Rykelangeli	29-Apr-05/4:07 AM
Are you under the impression that mature people talk like this? Look, just so you know I'm not some Neanderthal, I got a perfect score on the English section of the SAT and a near-perfect on GRE English, and if I were anywhere near you now I'd beat you up for your lunch money. I responded, um, incendiarily because of your smug response to the commenter above and because you're just a little thesaurophilic for your own good. I have to admit, I thought the brook feeding the champaign was rather clever - but it's clever only; it's not particularly artistic, well-put or, more importantly, evocative. That is, when you read this poem aloud to people, it's not going to give them an image of brooks feeding champaigns or nearly anything else. Don't lose all the clever words, but make this able to impress and evoke in people without them. And scientific phrasing in poetry is overdone at least since Dovina started doing it.
Re: a comment on Hanging Gallows by Hadasl	29-Apr-05/3:49 AM
What do you know? I gave him a higher vote than you did.
Re: Ode To The Fly In My Beer by ChaseValentine	27-Apr-05/6:52 AM
bossa nova is in Portuguese, not Spanish.
Re: a comment on Lost key for a hall-closet by zodiac	27-Apr-05/6:47 AM
There was originally a stanza before the "friend of hers" part about her schmuck husband taking off the closet door to fix it and how they were passionless, etc, but it didn't rate, really. Maybe I should try fixing it. PS-In my imagining of things, the hall-closet was where they keep porn. I also thought she should be gay or extremely masturbatory at the end.
Re: a comment on This one the love by thepinkbunnyofdoom	27-Apr-05/6:39 AM
That's never the way it works. I'll be all cellulite and desperation, you won't even remove your sportcoat before I blow you. And besides, I'm married. Actually, the poem comes from the Negro conversation. If it's impossible for whites to write about blacks fairly, it ought to be impossible for me to write about women fairly. Don't you think?
Re: I do... Not! by Billy Fights	27-Apr-05/6:27 AM
Hey, great title!
Re: I killed you in New Mexico by sunset sky	27-Apr-05/6:26 AM
You should make the hyphenation consistent. What about "worry-stricken" and "lightning-eyed"?
Re: a comment on Breakfast by James Rykelangeli	27-Apr-05/6:23 AM
The votes you get on this poem are probably going to be inversely proportional to how many lumps of dark matter you expect us to ingest. You're a clever one, aren't you? What are you, like 12?
Re: Panama by Dovina	27-Apr-05/6:20 AM
This is good, really. But something I just noticed is that all the sentences you write have essentially the same structure. At least, if they don't have the same structure, they sound really similar. Yes, I know here (and in another of your recent ones I just read) you're doing it on purpose. But it doesn't seem to work for me, not the intentional repetition (unaware/aware) nor the unintentional (strings of noun phrases and compound predicates with nary a subject in sight.) Still, this is good.
Re: a comment on This one the love by thepinkbunnyofdoom	27-Apr-05/6:05 AM
Yes, but however true or untrue the love, it always ends in some nightmarish lingerie and candlelight, pleading for some schmuck not to think you pathetic. Incidentally, I'm posting a poem on the topic. Will you please take a look?
Re: a comment on Self Conscious by Damien	27-Apr-05/5:28 AM
That's actual criticism, buddy. "new" doesn't work in that line; "true" would work better. Also, yes you can rhyme. But don't try to make the rhyming word fall at the end of the sentence every time. It makes people say things like "Within my poetry I confuse", which sounds like stretching for a rhyme, instead of "I confuse people with my poetry" or "I get confused by my poetry," whichever one you meant. Try to run sentences through the end of lines. You could have said something as simple as I always decide to use metaphors to confuse people, though I understand the meanings I produce. That's even a triple-word score. The trick to pawning off rhyme on the rhyme-hating public is don't give them an excuse to say the rhyme's cramping your style. Also, make sure you punctuate like normal sentences. All of these line ends would be periods, except that you're going to change it so it flows across lines.
Re: a comment on All You Need Is Gloves by -=DIABETES=-	27-Apr-05/5:13 AM
That comment still exists, on a Dovina poem where it belongs. There was one of those opening-two-reply-boxes-and-then-your-replies-inbreeding-into-some-deformed-megareply problems.
Re: Self Conscious by Damien	25-Apr-05/11:19 PM
No one is saying your assumptions aren't new. They're about as new as making up a language with only vowels or wearing a slightly-altered hat for trousers. Why didn't you just say "true" instead?
Re: a comment on Trying to get signed? by Damien	25-Apr-05/11:18 PM
Yes, "everyone makes assumptions INCLUDING me" is pretty self-fulfilling, isn't it? You're just assuming that everybody makes assumptions, so it's okay if you do. Anyway, most of the people here who ARE making assuptions are making them based on your writing, like "Damien could stand to work on his grammar", while you're making assumptions based on almost nothing. In the case of "zodiac sits around his computer all day", your only basis for thinking that is that I happen to be on a website typing - which YOU'RE ALSO DOING. PS-All of us are messing around at work. None of us (except maybe Stephen and Fraser) are employed as professional poemranker responders. Please don't make assumptions about us, especially when you're doing the same thing as we are. That's no way to enlightenment, buddy. And this is not how I come across in conversation.