Poetry Forum

I turn it over in my hands, the inky A4 printout of the ultrasound: is that a leg or an arm? I turn it upside down. Is that a jawbone or a jumping bean? I look at the spine, shaped like an interrobang, and then, I grope for the whole: a whorl of monochrome denoting an incoming storm, or a photo of J...

Morning. I hear what you're saying, virago. I think the 5-7-5 form can be divorced from the intentions of the traditional Japanese form - acting more like a structured epigram. After all, it's tough to replicate the intentions of the Japanese form when you don't have the immediacy of their ideograms.

Your clothes on the floor:
my unadulterated,
immediate bliss.

p.s. how about you? What do you think?

He was apparently a much better goalkeeper than Camus, too.

I'm rubbish at titles. How about just <i>Bicycles</i>.

Yeah. Definitely visionary. Not sure about a couple of your examples, though: - "M8", "lol", etc., are examples of <i>written</i> language condensing. It's just a convenience - there's no restriction of meaning as with Orwell's newspeak. What we see now is English continuing to e...

Yes!

I like that a lot more. It's much more direct, easier on the eye and the ear. I prefer the final line of draft 1, which I would transplant onto this latest version, but otherwise it's a huge improvement.

Wow. This is really polished. You have a great way with what you don't say. There's a luscious iambic undertow which knits it all together, and the language is vibrant and apt.

Love it.

Typo in part II.

I think perhaps you'd better stick to prose.

Morning. I dunno. I think those changes are wordy. For me it needed fewer syllables, not more. How about just "they flaunt their disrespect"? "However" sounds forced, and "adopting a docile mien" - that's just not how people think! This draft sounds like it's been built...

Hi. The line breaks aren't working for me here. They seem to be arbitrary - if you take them out and concertina the thing into prose, I'm not sure what it loses. I don't expect a formal metric, or even the most subliminal beat, but these line breaks seem motiveless. So why not make it prose? - Conte...

<i>A Grand Don't Come For Free</i> - The Streets. Not all great tunes, but a <b>great</b> story.

Hello. I like the idea of thoughts as critters / rodents - frolicking around what, a Swiss-cheese mind? - do they really have delusions of grandeur, or are they just stubborn / impertinent? I think of people with delusions of grandeur as being showy, flashy, bombastic types - but your thoughts are s...

Cheers, C & C. The idea of internal rhyme is interesting. The desk / grotesque rhyme stood out to my ear as well, but I couldn't figure out why. But if it's curdling someone else's milk, maybe it needs doing something about. Thank you both for the crits.

Thanks both.

I didn't realise "foetid" was "American vulgate" - to me it's just another word for "minging". Now there's a word that really deserves to be worked into a poem.

Yeah, I hack away at it, as a hobby. Just looking for a bit of criticism. Some smart work on this site; I like.

Outside, the streetlights flicker into life. I draw the aluminium blinds and face my desk, and notice that my office is grotesque: entirely so, much more so than before. I shift uncomfortably in my seat. My neck grows thick within the collar of my shirt. I set my telephone to call divert and in my d...

I can't think of a way this could be made better. It's a great poetic advert for pills, and more importantly, for cabs.

I like this a lot. The last line <i>is</i> slightly Reading, but more than that I like the way the last two lines accelerate from "dimished" into the buffers. Ooof! Cute.

Hello. Heartwarming stuff, a real jaunty narrative, enjoyed very much. - what are the "strings" in the second line? Are they actual, like everything else in the poem, or what? Am I missing something obvious here? - "his left eye winked a tad" doesn't sound right. People wink, but...

Love the conceit. Criticisms: - why not "Google" for "the search engine". It's almost synonymous now, anyway, and "Google" sounds funkier. - "it enticed me" and "I was intrigued" - aren't you saying the same thing twice here? Wouldn't "it entice...