Poetry Forum

Hi Liliaea, I like the unconventional way you use full stops - a sort of reinvention of the line break. The first three lines work best for me - two beats on the first mini section/sentence and then a longer rhythmic run on. L4 - 'slowly but surely' is too much of a cliché for me and the rhythm feel...

Hi Eira! - delicate and surprising, even better on the second reading. I think the first time I was fighting the hackneyed nature of the theme but you've rescued it with the subtle and specific details, the quiet, playful chiming of sonics. All I would change is the last two triplets, you tell us of...

Hi Sid, this has a gentle quality. I can imagine it being chanted as a prayer. It states the simple facts, so I feel the cynicism of 'pantomime' undermines it a little. And the repetition of 'twine' niggled a bit, though the assonance of 'weave/squeeze' works well. I think the more gentle and innoce...

Inspired Not - I especially liked 'as the crow drives' - conjuring a very determined nun in a cinquecento. I'm using a sort of memory palace system - the brain soaks up stories but bridles at abstract names and shapes - so the corny word plays should lead ineluctably to the hard data and in theory t...

Thanks Poet and Not, Poet - Spike Milligan is a good connection. His rhymes are childish and silly, but they do stick in the mind, and seem to have a life of their own, which is exactly what I want here. Not - This is a word atlas for the map blind - I figured I could recruit a few big name countrie...

If Switzerland was a giant white sink; floating high above her, a luxury bar of Luxembourg; the light shining from her plughole, Liechtenstein and the pipe heading eastward, Austria; and if that pipe opened to a vast sump, facing a triple-stacked outflow Then, the exit up top would lead to immediate...

Hi Poet, it was supposed to be a sort of state of the nation thing, England in 2019, an echo of Shelley's poem 'England in 1819'.
Yes, I agree, it's a convoluted mess!
Jules

Thanks for dropping by Tony - this is a sweet
little toy but I feel sure it's meant to do something
more.
Glad you liked those last three.
Jules

This is a curious one Poet, and I am beginning to like it - the cadence, the internal rhymes, the whole cussed bad-tempered attitude of it. At first it did just feel like a fast written diary entry, emotion all over the place but very little for the reader to hang on to - in fact it feels like it's ...

Hi Miles, Enjoyed this one from the start - some judicious revisions in each version, but I think you lost a few good things on the way e.g. the jeopardy to the N. The simplest way to explain is to cut and paste, mostly working from V2, the most immediate and vivid version for me. See what you think...

Much appreciated mac, Poet and Sid mac - yes, the 'mishap' line just there for the rhyme; an insufficiently feline fill. The Poetry Society's newsletter's comp just announced a new theme… Cats! Poet - that's one of the best things anyone has said about one of my pieces - a definite encouragement to ...

Thanks for coming back Miles, 'AKA'- also known as - though more commonly put in lower case, as amended in V3 I'm not a fan of Tom Hanks but that film, essentially a reconstruction of real events, is really worth a look. mac - point taken. I was going for character inflection but I can see the strai...

Thanks Not, Tony, Miles, Sid and mac - five very useful responses - a modified version up This is quite an experimental piece so I only had a hunch it was working. Much encouraged by your remarks mac and Tony and (almost) Not. mac in particular you seemed to get it exactly, I wonder if you'll think ...

I suppose this could be about an aubergine.
I'm reading a lot of playful and not so playful sexual tension . . . is it just me?
Last two not up to scratch though mac's tweak helps.
Some great phrasing here and I like the genderlessness of it all.

Jules

A week after their last visit It failed again We didn't call them For one, the system was behaving very strangely Flipping into irretrievable lock-out With dire error messages Only to spontaneously start up again Eight hours later And then stop This was the point When everything went a bit Apollo 13...

Hi Ray - this is a strange one but it feels real. I understand it as a sort of death bed scene, curiously held at a distance by this Cinders theme - the N's mother is now literally cinders and ashes but this odd flight brings her momentarily back to life, her tetchy lust for living, her disappointme...

Enjoying the guided tour mac.
Can I return the favour with this
excellent one from Jen Hadfield:
poetryarchive.org/poem/aa

Jules

Hi Miles, do you need the hyphens in L5&6? They seem a bit intrusive to me. At first I was a little disappointed the Morning Star reference didn't lead anywhere. Is it supposed to have a particular significance? Given the excellently sustained whimsicality of the rest I don't suppose it really h...

Yes, I was going to add I think they made a strategic mistake deciding to be so scrupulously (and publicly) non-partisan. In some ways they helped give the impression that all three contenders were as bad/good as each other. Still, if the economy tanks, as it surely will, GDP will fall, people will ...

Pitch perfect - one of your best I think. I'm on XR's mailing list and have to admit I haven't been reading the newsletters. The two week campaign was I think instrumental in making all the parties up their game, at least in their manifestos . . . except the business as usual Tories . . . XR will no...

Hi Not, yes, I think that reads better. I f you insist on S3, those line breaks are better and it's quite a nice echo of the 'drowned house' though I realise there I'm thinking of the rain barrel but the dimpled surface could equally well be the bird bath. I would either add a comma after 'Our garde...

Hi Not, what I like about this is the wry acceptance of the N's tone - the subject is a house and by implication its owner going to seed - a sorry tale, but the N's self-depracating mock gothic humour refuses pity. And there's also this sense that the house itself is almost being brought to life, th...

V2 up.
Heading in the right direction?

Very elegant Miles. The comic incongruencies of S1 lead us to expect more, so we are effectively ambushed by the more poetic flow of S2. My one niggle: the phrase that begins'A hacienda where' seems to connect to 'senoritas decked out' which gives the awkward feeling that your using 'decked out' as ...

I like the layout lotus - it reminds me how text from the middle and far east is more often read from right to left. And the open spaced shapes evoke a flapping canvas, a coastline, a seabird. I also like the idea behind 'to & from'. There is something a bit bland about this though, as if you've...