Poetry Forum

Hi Phil, Thanks for revisiting. What did you think of "moonstruck" to describe the pen? Hi Miles, Thanks for the thoughtful reading. The meaning of mooncalf has an old history in English as it used to refer to monstrous births (Shakespeare used it to describe Caliban in The Tempest ). Alth...

Hi Phil, I'm still mulling over the borderlands line. I like having borderlands last as it becomes a rhyme/slant-rhyme for bend/stand/find. Good call on pinewood. I quasi-took your advice and made it "moonstruck," though that necessitated changing "clung" back to "stuck"...

Thanks all. Lia - last 4 lines are not the stairs speaking. The man is sleeping on it, as in mulling it over. JJ - the N is the stairs. You didn't know that stairs can speak but they can and that is exactly how they sound. The gist is that lady wants a new carpet, man doesn't, and she has enlisted ...

JJ, you've found a weak spot of mine, and that is that I haven't studied the history of poetry. That's not to say that I haven't tried to read a few poems of every important author, but I haven't gone back 500 years looking for trends, etc. I'm lazy that way. My blog article about trends covers onl...

I will try to give this a fuller reading tomorrow but, as of now, after two quick-ish readings, I will say I'm quite taken with this. I hear a strong echo of Wallace Stevens in that first stanza: the essay-like philosophical style combined with lyrical reflection, evocative (if mysterious) images, a...

Hi Not, Ah, often it's the simple things we miss. Now I'm smiling both at the wordplay and me missing it; but, in a way, it wouldn't be modern/postmodern art if someone in the audience didn't not get something! :D As for the ordering, my first thought is that S1-3 and S6 all seem to be things in the...

Hi Phil, Good notes. I took the "clung" one and removed "new" (I can convince myself "legs bend" is a spondee). I would consider changing "wild" but I need some word there for the meter (the dimeter/tetrameter pattern). In the mean time I replaced "of&quo...

I'm of two minds on this one. On the one hand, I love the playfully imaginative use of language for such a unique voice; but, on the other hand, I can't help but wondering if this is modeled on a real voice. Does anyone actually talk like this? Is this meant as a parody or caricature of someone real...

Fascinating poem, Not. Vaguely reminds me of Stevens's Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird in its play with perspective, though Stevens chose a single subject while you take several. I especially love how, despite its occasional difficulty/obscurity, there's a lot of playfulness, even right from...

Excellent, John. I have some quibbles (don't I always?) but mostly I really like this. It brings to mind Plato's Cave allegory and how art began as us trying to represent and reflect on our experiences of reality, and I love how the poem is a kind of reversion back to those primitive origins; one in...

V2 the moon scrabbled and clapperclawed to hang in the sky blood crept beneath cracks in the barndoor as dust and straw stuck to the afterbirth and calf huddled in the corner of its moonstruck pen cries of hunger skim the wilds near the borderlands crude legs bend try to stretch try to stand try to ...

Hi Eira, This reads smoothly as narrative, but there's something missing I can't quite put my finger on. I think, for one, despite the kinesis of events there's a proliferation of end-stopped lines. Generally, kinetic movement likes the dynamism of enjambment. You don't want to overdo it, but in poe...

Hi Phil,

I can totally see that perspective as well. It's a close call for me, and I will definitely have it in my mind during my next edit.

Hi Lia,

Thanks!

I don't know if I could give a better summation than Phil's "dripping with ironies and the reality." It's really those two aspects I love here. I also love the choice of rhymed tetrameter, which with its shorter lines (compared to pentameter) bring the rhymes closer to our ears. Normally t...

Hi Phil, At first I balked at the sibilance, but then I thought that the scattered S's had the effect of mimicking the scattered "shreds and shards," with those S's evoking the sharpness of the pieces left. I will have a think over whether it's a bit too much though, maybe with the aim of ...

Hi Phil, As I mentioned to Fliss, most of my favorite poets are/were published in most of the big-named periodicals like Poetry and The American Poetry Review, and those journals just receive so many submissions that the chance of getting into them is slim to none. I wouldn't mind publishing if I co...

Hi Phil, I also think I prefer the sonics of “long” to “mass” but I like the latter more on the denotative/connotative level. Interesting thought on the cosmic mites… will consider. Great idea with "battles with dark matter." I've used it, slightly modified. Hi Lia, Thanks for the kudos an...

Thanks, Fliss! Really hoping you get to feeling better too! Hi Phil, Thanks for the info, though as for this: Essentially it is fun. I guess my thing is that it just doesn't sound fun to me! What excites me about poetry is the craft, and the extent to which I care about sharing my poetry is really t...

Hi Phil, Ah, thanks for heads up on the errant capitalization. Damn auto-cap from Microsoft Word; I still miss it sometimes when it does that and I don't want it to. For some poems I still like the old-fashioned caps at line beginnings, so I've never turned the feature off. I flipped through the pag...

Hi Fliss, I may have a look over some of them. I don't know if I've told you this before, but my whole thing with publishing is that it always seemed a lot of work for (at least to me) very little reward. I'd trade a thousand people reading my poem for one person whom I respect reading my poem that ...

Hi Phil, That first simile inspired most of the poem, so I'm glad you liked it. I wasn't fond of "war campaigns" either. Blood campaigns is interesting but maybe a bit too stark. I might go for something more neutral like "long" and just let the connotation of "campaign"...

It became de rigueur sometime in the 1970s, I think, for British tabloids to include pictures of young women with their tops off. Ah, well, all I know of that is the Page 3 Sun girls back from the days when internet was too slow for downloading videos and the closest a young and horny adolescent co...

I will say I support the right of authors/artists to change any details in the stories that inspires their work if it makes for a better story; though I might say it could make for an equally interesting story if, indeed, the blogger wasn't well known but only had a few dedicated follows; that contr...

Ah, did not know that about "corps," so thanks for the heads up. I like the changes and glad I could help.