Poetry Forum

I don't mean to champion convention. Is there a convention? What I mean is that in my opinion the line is an important thing in a poem, and it should be considered. I like the lines It carries on the wind like a deep-throated crow, presses silence away from the spire and cottages. Weaving between mo...

Touche! LOL

It's called Heaven-Haven (A Nun Takes the Veil). I was made to recite it by heart for failing to show due respect to my English teacher, when I was a school boy. I've never forgotten it because I like it very much.

Best wishes

DG.

Depends on your point of view. I would ask the question that was put to me on the subject: "can you point me to an authority today on what constitutes a poetry text ? Leaping phrases and shining moments HARDLY qualifies as premise for poetry." So the question is begged, don't you think? Pr...

The sentence in S1 is longer than I am in the habit of writing, but I chose to evoke the rhythm of the (little) surf on the beach. Well, anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it! Chortle...

DG.

This is a longish and quite ambitious poem. There is much to commend it and others have done so. Anyway time for "critique"! No one else has mentioned this so I will. It is the matter of your verbs. I'm trotting along nicely in your poem and then I have to swerve violently at some of your ...

I got a whiff of Gerald Manley Hopkins.

"I have desired to go
Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail,
And a few lilies blow.

And I have asked to be
Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
And out of the swing of the sea."

Yup, it was Betch all right. This is work in progress and I think the B references will have to go! I live nearer the District line anyway...

DG

You guys just break me up. LOL.

He got to work and parked his bike
just like every other day but
according to bicycle parking regulations this was the day his bicycle parking permit ran
out.

“Should I get a permit or shall I just risk it?”
he asked himself, feeling quite the buccaneer.

I woke up at about
six this morning
and I noticed the curtains

were flapping in the wind.
so I closed the window
in case my wife woke up
and I would have to carry
up a cup of tea.

The radio said there were a few
children shot dead today.
I got on my bike and went
to work.

Some invention here, notably "molasses mass". There's a lot that is indistinguishable from prose : " A cone of light beamed on the wall- the lecture started with commentary followed by a succession of images and texts. Instead of focussing on the white screen and listening to the lect...

Flight from Aquitaine I woke in the air of the antiseptic pine in Aquitaine hard by the scouring sea, at Arcachon, where the mussels lie and the kelp and the wrack repent under the drying sun by the shore, and being France every palatable whelk had scarcely an hour before its appointment at lunch. I...

This is an endearing poem apparently written with great affection. I enjoy conceits very much and the double entry reference hits the spot. My only quibble would be the last line which stems from the expression "(I wouldn't do that) FOR love nor money" and therefore the line- 'at any price...

I seem to recall that as they flung their arms aside in gymnastic fashion the mantra was:

I must, I must,
increase my bust.


That would be euphemism. Like " Prisoners of the Playtex Penitentiary".
I mean... "boobs"... really...!

DG

Somebody’s Child Time carries them off one way or the other, they all go. Some to make something of their chances, some to dances, while you make believe, spinning tales of nothing. Led to water, they sip, unconvinced. Hearts beat, veins in a stringed instrument, somebody’s child is dancing in the n...

A perfect antidote to a sentimental poem posted a week or two ago called Troubadour. It could have been less prosy in parts but it has a shine to it nevertheless. A bit of a Vicar and Tart party.

Somebody should post a review for you, so it'll be me. It's a bit of a rough review though. The thing of it is, how involved do I feel with this and where does it go? I don't have an argument with personal statements, but sometimes they turn out so idiosyncratic that one has few points of reference....

slip of key

Hi chaps, thankyou for your comments. "Circulation" is a play on "traffic" as in the French for traffic and "velocity" is of course irony in the sense that the car is barely moving. It is all a pun on the economic axiom "MV=PT" or money supply x velocity of ci...

incoming creep foot by foot obediently in line ahead minding my business boy aged seven, maybe eight vigilant feral scanning for the faintest flicker of implied consent between the sleek cars in the sandy drift get money from the money supply prepare a votive offering to the velocity of circulation ...

Will dump WYSIWYG. I believe if enough people think something, it's probably right. It was only there as a side swipe or more accurately an arc between apeman and computers. I'm very impressed that most recognised archaeology in there. Not the case in many forums believe me. Although I thought it wa...

The Book of Numbers Why do islands come in threes and divinities confer in triplicate? What triameter, propelled the “Word” and in what dialect was it heard in human time? They’ll dig, one day and interpret all our durable objects; our golden calves must betray our busy lives. Since we’ll be drawn i...

The first one is a bit too "Campaign for Real Ale" for me, but the second one is magic. Although the best phrase in it, in my view, isn't "Long in death enshrined" which to me sounds too "funeral parlour" or is it "stone mason"? The rest of it is perfect and v...

A bit of welsh wizardry here- I do admire those who take great pains with a given structure, and when they do, the result is frequently pleasing. I don't know which englyn form this is, but it's one or another. Either way, the poem works because of its economy and it has an arresting "attack&qu...

"Tat" as in tatting lace...... Thank you for reading the poem. "Borrowing" those names made the poem fairly easy to write. Just had to tat them together, so to speak. I've just realised that everytime one posts a reply to a comment the poem swoops up to the top of the list, which...