Poetry Forum

Thanks for the feedback, David. And probably you are right about the over-usage. The intention was to set off a kind of tone poem like vignette. And thanks for commenting in general. You strike me as a conscientious facilitaor.

Terreson

The C&O Restaurant, upstairs, Charlottesville, Virginia, 1980 (for night workers of a certain class I have known, and for whom la cuisine amounts to a devotional.) We would climb the stairs in the afternoon before the sun had crouched behind the ridgeline. We would swing open the room’s heavy do...

There is nothing imprecise in the word soul, as in having soul. Soul is duende, it is a capture, a possession over which you have little to no control. It enraptures as easily as it trounces. It is dionysiac. It takes you down to that liminal area, that threshold, where logic and definition and redu...

Good writing, actually. Good captioning. Bedlam is such a storehouse of experience.

Tere

A good story for children I think. It would work well with pictures.

Tere

Thank you much, Lovely, for reading and commenting. I confess I was steeped in flamenco poetry, Lorca's flamenco inspired poetry especially, when the poem's first draft was written. Probably the rhythm comes from the preoccupation(s). Thanks again.

Tere

Thanks, David, for taking the time to read and comment. I get your objection to the incidentals intended to flesh out the story. Effecting texture always makes for tricky business, hit and miss at best. About the narrator's spider, I would call a man crazy picking up a black widow. Thanks again. Tere

Good on you. As they say the androgyne is the ideal.

Tere

Wasn't looking to get gender specific. Poet by any other name is still a poet. Mirabai, Dickinson, Sappho...these are my teachers too.

Tere

(to L.D. 1954-1990) The red hour glass and the upturned spider belly, black and gravid girl poised in the palm of my hand. Brother, I miss you in this bayou light. You were always better than me. I look for you now like a child looking for stillness in your soul. Roads to nowhere I keep to. And to p...

I think you are on a role. Mirabai could make poetry this way too when she was on a roll.

Tere

Wow! This is a poem with picante. It's got a certain spiciness to it that doesn't catch one at first. I especially notice how that last resolute line effortlessly grows out of S2 the way that is supposed to happen with a sevenlings poem. How in the world did Akhmatova come up with this thing? The th...

I've been thinking about the question, 'who reads poetry?' It occurs to me that, at least on one level, the answer to the question comes down to another question: why do poetry readers turn to poetry? Over the last decade I've met many people online, on poetry boards, in poetry chat rooms, and on po...

Well, Ros, the U.S. poetry scene is much more dire than you suggest. The contributing factors far too many to be able to address succinctly. At this moment two salients of the problem come to mind. Creative Writing programs have crancked out so many certified poets, sort of like in mass-production f...

Thanks, David, for commenting. Thanks especially for the latitude shown. The two fathers motif is not as much a leap as first might seem to be the case. I say motif because it is actually led up to in the body of the poem. Many years ago, decades really, I first read a Goethe poem called "Art a...

Consider the shape of the broken thing; time was when it laboured like an engineer, forged a lightness that even the clock hands loved and slowed for. Now look at the miniscule gears fallen, the heavy drops of iron ripped from the furnace and cooled to displaced angles. Your foot brushes the debris...

In a conversation thread Ros suggested I put out a science related poem. Here is a recent one standing just this side of getting dumped into the morgue file. All are invited to slash and burn it. One note of warning maybe. Anyone inclined to closed-form verse is bound to find this thing an ugly bast...

Yes, Camus. This is the baseline.

Tere

Three more considered and thought out responses. Thank you people. You give me a bunch to think about. One thing maybe. Elph my line breaks are not arbitrary. They speak to three requisites. Syllable sound and stress value, which, in itself, can speak to meaning. Running rhythm. And what I have take...

Yes, ma'am. Likely we share the same aims. The poetry board system is something I believe in. Both because it democratizes poetry and because of the fine poetry I would not otherwise have access to.

Tere

While I am not a big fan of spatials and concrete poems this hour glass thing works for me. You bet thought is trapped in the glasses upper chamber. And it comes through how chant works a thought through the tapering. This thing is kind of cool!

Terreson

By the way, Terreson, if I'm correct in thinking this remark was made by you : "On a member’s side of the divide, it is clear that moderators are allowed more liberties than they are. And among members it is generally recognized that a moderator’s own poem should not be taken too closely to ac...

Thirst (50/101*) At the end of thirst, when the saltwater puts out the fire, the trees around will full cherry blossom again, this wretched pan-psychological fumbling feeling I drag about the hut – you cello-chested lady sailing over in a trailing dress, your hair in a mess – I’ll kiss you where th...

Thanks, Ben, for taking the time to make the walk through. I think I get that your line break suggestions are looking for a different sort of shapliness, so to speak, to the poem. Perhaps looking for a different rhythmic cadence? Not sure what it means, but I also think I notice the number of sugges...

Well, Ros, I do have a recent science motivated poem that I can't even figure if it amounts to poetry, much less successfully so. It could certainly use a critical eye, especially since I am probably too attached to it. I'll post it this week.

Terreson