Poetry Forum

Hi LadyT, I guess a bunch of us arrived at about the same time! Welcome (though I've been here only for a few days). I look forward to reading more of your poetry. I took the suggestions and am not posting in beginners. I'm glad you read about haibuns. Mine is probably not a good example of the genr...

Hi David, I love short, impactful poems, but this almost seems too short and I end up wondering about all the things you don't say, like who is she, how old is she, how is the narrator related to her? The use of abstracts like "circumspect" and "cautious" and the somewhat cliche ...

Hi Stuart, I really like this poem... especially the last four stanzas. In S1, I think the semicoloned list makes it feel choppy. I think a bit of editing/condensing might be good for S1-S3 to make the poem a quicker, smoother read. The only other thing I'd look at is the use of the word "table...

Hi brotherfergus, ladyteazle and Stuart, Thanks for reading and commenting on this poem. I've come only very slowly toward any understanding whatsoever of "prose poems" and wish I could grasp exactly when prose rises to the level of a prose poem. One of my pet peeves is when I read (or wri...

Hi Stuart and Dave, Thanks for your further reading and illuminating discussion of this poem. I'd forgotten that I'd angsted (how's that for a made up word?) over that very nonconforming word (62,000 Google hits for rain squall vs. 400 for rainsquall). I'm glad you reminded me that it must be though...

Hi orangegunung, I enjoyed this short poem about... dust! I liked the particle theory, the thermodynamics of the imagery. And I definitely saw the light come on and illuminate this particular bed table, with its cobwebs and dust. Nice! Two spider's silks, now weeks old, yet weak as wire, moor the la...

LOL, Kris, your persistence is enticing. I promise to argue with you about your comments on other people's poems whenever I disagree, okay? When it comes to my own poems I am more comfortable as a silent observer of comments and discussions regarding them. My part is the writing, listening and revis...

Hi Kris, I guess I follow this policy: I try hard to listen to all comments and to embrace them whenever I can. I NEVER try to justify or argue for or engage in a debate about my poetry. Perhaps if engagement and debate are the norm here in this forum I will become used to it and change my stance, b...

Thanks to all for taking the time to comment. I really must learn to check the box to receive email notices when anyone responds to one of my posts. (duh) My plan is to post mostly current poems here, or poems that come back to my attention from my slush pile of poems (which I go through fairly freq...

Hi David, I quite like both versions and think the best idea would be to add the final two couplets of the original as a single stanza to end the revised poem. To wit, consider something like this (or something better): Sunshine in March - liquid, thin, easily discouraged, no sticking power, brisk a...

Breath and Blood The closest thing to poetry is a loaf of bread or a ceramic dish or a piece of wood lovingly carved, even if by clumsy hands. ..................................... -- Pablo Neruda Between rainsqualls, I bake bread – the sour beer smell of yeast lies heavy in the kitchen air. Punchi...

Hi Elphin, I think this pithy poem really has a strong impact. I like the changes you've made in both stanzas -- the rewrite is definitely the better of the two versions. A couple of suggestions for you to consider: Wouldn't "settle" work in L1 better than "settled"? The entire r...

Hi Barrie, I enjoyed my several readings of this poem. It reminds me of rescuing my mother's waist-high-in-weeds garden after her death. The old plants had toiled: crawled along the soil on pest-bitten stems, their offspring still clinging, living off their backs, dragging out their mothers’ deaths ...

Thanks David, Kris and Dave for your welcome. I look forward to getting to know each of you and your poetry in the coming weeks and months. Meanwhile, I'm figuring out the technical functions and preferred protocol of your site. Of course it takes a little while to really get to know others, but I'm...

Thanks very much to all who commented on this poem. I will gladly accept the consensus and post in the "experienced" forum hereafter. I read a couple of comments on the PGW site that it would be best to start on the beginner board, so I did that. Meanwhile, I appreciate the comments, the s...

Hi David, You wrote: I think you're someone who is rather good - and knows it - and is just looking for some fresh reactions. Actually, I'm just looking for a comfortable home for my poetry. I sometimes share with a very serious "academic" poetry group and then there's a group of ladies wh...

Hi, I'm a brand new member and I've just posted two crits and a poem... well, a sort of prose poem... or maybe it's a modern American Haibun. Well, you'll just have to look and decide. I've been writing poetry for about four years and loving it the entire time. I really enjoy writing (and reading) a...

Worshipping Demons It changes you forever seeing something like that. Bodies. Water nudging them as though sorry now and wanting gently to wake them. But dead is dead. Sometimes alive is dead. Look at the hound, howling for his master, hiding from moon’s cold gaze, sun’s cruel stare. Wearing years ...

Daylight is sprinkling upon an infantry of trunks dressed in ebony. I like this personification of the trees My unfinished sonnet is in disarray, its colors got drained weaving dreams for you. I enjoyed this defense of the unfinished sonnet. The studied rhyme and meter of a sonnet give way to the ri...

Hi, I'm brand new to the board and this is my first comment here. I enjoyed reading this rhyming poem that seems to be about a "devilish" encounter. I thought the images of this fearful entity and his effect on all who see him (spontaneous apparitions, cowering, staggering) depicted the ho...