Poetry Forum

Sleep of innocents
is past, murdered. Let us now
mingle with the night.

Hi Ray Feels like I'm there on the beach. I would have loved it to be the waves that swaggered down on the sausage rolls and feces but since you go on to talk about the seagulls I think you're keeping the birds as the subject; how about dropping the word "are" from "their war cries ar...

Cool, Ray. I’m awed by what I see as your comparison of Trump with Pavarotti, in such straight-forward, simple language. in a slang voice that takes the reader unaware. I take “on your tod” and the title to mean that N supports Trump otherwise but objects both to the January incident and to Trump’s ...

Hi Tristan I like version 3 but I wonder if the word "explorations" is misplaced. For me, the mere mention of willows calls up our own once-upon-a-time backyard willow. Our love for it turned to fear: we had no idea its roots were invading our house. I copied this statement from somewhere:...

I've enjoyed the poem and discussion but have a hard time entering into a poem that feels so gender biased. Could your title not just be "Racer"? What is gained by making the distressed person stereotypically female? A nit about the rhythm in the last line: would you consider changing moto...

Tristan, to me these are so powerful!
Each one ties together two events that happen nearby. Is it the poet who connects them, or the universe?
Together they seem to tell a story of a parting and the emotion that abides.
Thank you for posting them,
Jackie

Tristan, Not, Ray and Nash, I really appreciate your insights and questions. I agree that flair isn’t the right word and I like Ray’s comment, “if she must pose with something.” Actually, yes, Not, this is rural Wisconsin, and the fence she sat on was on my grandfather’s farm. They were dairy farmer...

Wisconsin’s late-day light comes at you not as here from the equator sky but at a slant like footlights. They raise the curtain on my dad’s mother at sixteen, posing with a flair on her beau’s farm fence. Gibson Girl from bouffant hair to Edwardian toes, yet set to leap should a board shift. Not far...

Iridescent blue
glints off pre-dawn snow and a
wintergreen pokes through.

Hi Kris, Truly impressive, in my view! Glad to be back. One small thing: Even though I tick the box "remember me" when I log in, I still need to log in every time, unlike on the previous site. Is that by design? Jackie P.S. Hey, "remember me" is working this morning! Glad to see ...

Locked down but OK
when curious sunbirds gift me
iridescent blue.

Hi Trevor, I’m trying to write more effectively about multiple-zone living (languages, cultures, ethnicities, races) and appreciate your doing that, too. I like the parallel between the child’s and N’s language learning. S1, L2-3 This image doesn’t work for me because you don’t link the two ideas of...

Thank you Mac, Ray and T,

It looks like this needs some work. I'll be back!

Jackie

Perry, To me, the hardest thing in the world to do is to write when I'm low! If you can do that, maybe it's a good time to build up a group of early drafts and feedback to work on later. I also see many elements of a good poem here. A line of yours that I really like is I have, after all, started wr...

Trevor, For whatever reason I fastened on a lump (of clothes) growing increasingly hard under her arm (S1), and equating loss of the clothes to a burial (S5). You seem to continue the idea that the clothes and she are one as she feels massaged in S2. I like S4 a lot. S5 leaves me with a lot of quest...

He meets the scene visit of our Christmas burglary outside. Our former yardmen dismount and fall at his feet. “Tears can't apply,” he says like they aren’t men anymore. Amadu in his undershirt and neat, neat Sie dressed in screeching dirt. Like ghosts they trace what stood that night in each now dus...

Hi Eira, I enjoy so much of the imagery in this poem, but I stumble on the grammar. In S1, are the swallows curling? If it is the reeds that are curling, then surely in the next sentence, it is the reeds that are congregating? If it is the birds, then they congregate, swing, and flock, don't they? W...

Thank you Mac, Not, Trevor and Ray for giving me so many aspects to work on. I actually used "veil" as a synonym for shroud, without thinking of it in connection to a wedding, but I like the drama that brings. I need to work on this. I thought you'd like to see what inspired it: Maple tree...

She wore her shroud for me
that last day we had together,
and with the slightest of shrugs
the burnt-orange wrap drifted,
barely touching her bareness,
on down upon me.
Through the winter it was her body
I recalled, not the trembling
orange veil fallen at her feet.

The car ahead turns right on red. She moves into place, checks nails, combs fingers through hair. Crouch. Watch. Crouch-leap sideways. Again. She’s off! She stole second! On down the road still tingling she’ll be tagged she recites It’s allowed, turning right on red; allowed now . Like Mom’s certifi...

I enjoyed reading this, Namyh. One thing about writing traditionally though, is that it doesn't leave you any leeway to play around with metrics and rhyme patterns. You look here like you're finding that too confining. Are you sure you don't want to venture into contemporary poetry?

Jackie

I like the sense of stream of consciousness, its liquidity, Thanks, Mac. Hearing from others that something I've written has "an original slant" or "liquidity" encourages me. I usually like to collect comments and swish them around in my mouth for a while to see if they're my vo...

Thank you so much Tristan, Not and Mac for your thoughtful ideas.

Mac, the number of times I've heard "I prefer the original" has convinced me I'm a lousy reviser. Nonetheless, I revise. See above.

Jackie

Let's see, Lotus. Sidewalks are inanimate and enclosing—they define where you can be. The ashtray (I'm calling it) is these things. Mermaids are alive, sensual, enticing, and the ripe tomato is these things. Yet their textures and colors and surfaces and shapes show even the inanimate and the alive ...

Thank you, Not and Tristan, for taking the time to review this and picking up on those things I didn’t see. I’m posting a version 2—still a work in progress. As you say, Tristan, I’m suspending conventions; this poem takes place in survival mode and caps and commas don’t live there. I appreciate you...