Poetry Forum

John, I have re-checked the Post a Poem rules and there is nothing to say that published postings are prohibited, only vanity publishing. The reason I posted this poem was to get opinions: whether a poem is published or unpublished, surely poets are always thirsty for feedback? It might mean that, o...

Thanks for all your comments, I appreciate them. It's interesting that this poem has, on the whole, not been received too well - but it has being accepted for publication anyway, so I guess one man's meat is another man's poison! (By the way, I think that some poets avoid attempting a set poetry for...

Thanks for the Guardian link – what a fascinating story! I like the use of end stops in S1, the terse sentences enhance the instructional nature of the content. The juxtaposition of ‘It would be wise for you to paint/All children need their father’ gives it a menacing tone, which is very fitting to...

Hi camus I go coarse fishing with my husband (he fishes, I read or write and wield the landing net!) so I am familiar with the scene about which you have written. I think ‘lake’ would work better than pond, but I fully understand ‘glacial’, as in calm, unrippled. Half-huge is good, if I’m right in t...

Thanks penguin.
I have been absent from this WOrkshop or a couple of years because of health problems and am now disabled - I think I last posted in 2009.
I'm sorry I haven't critiqued yet, I do intend to, I just wanted to get back into the swim again first.

Any comments, anyone?!

I saw a red rose lying on the ground while walking on the cliffs one summer’s day. I thought about the treasure I had found: had someone marked the spot, this grassy mound, a blossom for a loved one, passed away? I saw a red rose lying on the ground, incongruous, ignored. Yet I, spellbound, believed...

Thanks Harry, your comments are much appreciated. I love the sonnet form, there is just something about writing in the wonderful rhythm of the i/pent within the constrictions of the sonnet form that I actually (and paradoxically!) find quite liberating. I'd advise anyone to give it a go - the subjec...

Has anyone got any comments on whether the second poem (With Apologies to Amphritite) gives more sense to the ending of Submariners, the first poem? (Please see comment by jms on the ending, and my response). I just need to know if the poems work together, i.e. as a sequence, or if they were consecu...

Hi Dennis There are some good ideas here: it feels like a mask, pulled over your face it often teases you, and leaves the door ajar , i look up, and see sunshine its appears in the faces of my family and friends I do feel it's a bit lengthy though - if you re-work it and edit it, you would have a re...

Hi all, and thanks for your comments, they are much appreciated. Lovely, I didn't split it into verses as it is written in the Shakespearean sonnet form, 14 lines of iambic pentameter with a rhyming couplet at the end. (The last two lines should have been indented, but they kept re-aligning themselv...

Submariners It’s calm down here, beneath the raging tide, Beyond brash waves that pound upon the shore Then suck the pebbles back with foam-edged sighs. We are The Fish, hold salt in every pore, Submariners, and older than the hills: A primitive machine, a perfect form, We sleep awake, sift water th...

I like the opening lines, with the idea that two people, miles apart, wake at the same time. I'm not too sure about "drifting around" though, it makes you sound rather disembodied! It's also not clear whether you are actually drifting around, or your thoughts are. The middle stanza works, ...

Reminiscent of "Preludes" by T.S. Eliot The winter's evening settles down With smells of steaks in passageways. Six o'clock. The burnt-out ends of smoky days. And now a gusty shower wraps The grimy scraps Of withered leaves across your feet And newpapers from vacant lots; The showers beat ...

Hi Barrie/Geoff Thanks for your comments. William (or Will, as he now prefers to be called!) is now 24yrs and a strapping 6ft tall! I re-worked the poem from the notes I kept from many moons ago, but I don't think the image of such a thing ever leaves you, so it was quite easy to do at the ripe old ...

I watch as my son, three short summers old, stands knee-high in nettles, weeds and smoke-laced mist, concentration ploughing his features into plump furrows, transfixed by the soft seed ball parallel to his face. Innocence brought him here, and something else - adventure, a sense of daring, call it ...

I think the octave works beautifully, and in particular the second line, then into the third, with it's "decision-less clouds". But I disagree with og, The enjambment across stanzas is bold and quite fun. as I don't think it works in this fairly strict sonnet form. Also, if you were going ...

Hi Wabsnasm I haven't read too much ultra-modern poetry lately, either! But here is just a small selection of love poems that I enjoy and will read again and again. A couple are taken from an excellent anthology on my bookshelf, "Love's Witness, Five Centuries of Love Poetry by Women" - th...

Sorry, I'm not familiar with those quoted - my favourite Frost poems are Fire & Ice and Spring Pools.
Good luck!

I too thought the first verse was faultless - "with a complete disregard" is such an intriguing and original first line, and the verse as a whole is so very graphic I can almost feel it. My interpretation of the aching of transience has torn that much asunder—the self is too much; our skin...

Hi Lake Chilling...! We experienced an fairly significant earthquake (for the UK!) here in Kent not long ago, and that was scary enough! We all thought a bomb had gone off, or that there had been an explosion underground. But what you capture so very well here is "the calm before the storm"...

k-j Sometimes I get bored of poems about going to the laundromat or eating peaches, and yearn for a well-expressed, original but not outré boy-girl love poem. My point exactly - but expressed much more succinctly. Thank you! The point is that it doesn't make sense to write like Mozart or Keats in 2...

Hi Og Thanks for your comments. Morning liberty - when is the worse time to be tied to a task, if not first thing in the morning on a gorgeous sunny day?! And, as most good house-persons know, washing should be done in the morning, because to peg washing out on the line after midday is slovenly (or ...

Hi Lake
Thanks for that, I appreciate it. I see you are quite new - welcome aboard!
Lu

We accept, enjoy and often revere the archaic in other art forms - paintings, theatre, music - many people still prefer a Constable-style landscape over a Damien Hurst (or whoever!), pantomime and Shakespeare are still alive and well in the theatre (thank goodness!) and there are plenty of people wh...