Poetry Forum

Requiem For the men, women and children who lost their lives in a terrorist bombing in Oklahoma City One hundred and sixty-eight are gone, for no known reason, ripped away from the succor of the world, from the gaze of friends, from the hustle and the bustle, and the quietude of mothers’ arms. And ...

This is a very appealing poem. The rhythms and words are lovely. I'll need to read it a few more times to fully grasp what you are saying, although it doesn't seem too complicated.

Perhaps because the eyes are askew, the face is a little frightening, as if the person were possibly crazy. However, the mottled color of the skin imbues the face with character. It's certainly a well worn face. If you had lowered the higher of the two eyes (the right eye? the left eye? -- what do w...

I think the reason the mentally ill will never have their Stonewall moment is for the same reason that chronic back sufferers will never march down Fifth Avenue for their rights: our maladies preempt such efforts. I think the poem is a little too plain-spoken. It needs more lyricism, in my view. I'm...

Yes, that's a good poem. It doesn't strain my synapses overmuch. Congratulations.

John, I wasn't thinking about this poem in the context of your manuscript. I should have considered that.

Please note that I just reread a thread from 2022 and discovered that I inadvertently snubbed you. Please read the PM I just sent you about the incident.

I'm on my way to bed, but just want to say I like it. If this were mine, I'd keep working on it to see what images I could come up with for the stanzas, possibly increasing their number. I've been listening to Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" lately, and man, I love the images he came up with ...

we must go through the night to arrive at day. The nightingale sings only at night, the lark at dawn. Now that's gorgeous, John, totally gorgeous. Once again, my lack of knowledge about the world is tripping me up. If I had known that nightingale's sing at night, and larks sing during the day, I co...

Sorry, John. I kept meaning to comment. But then you told me that you sometimes find me annoying (though not offensive), and I decided that maybe I should cut my losses and not comment on your poems that I don't fully understand. That used to be my standard rule: Comment only on the poems I understa...

Thanks, John. That's helpful.

Frost always liked to use the plainest language possible, and that stuck with me; but sometimes the plainest language isn't very poetic.

Phil, I just noticed your comment suggesting "orchids" -- sorry that I didn't notice it before. Yes, "flowers" is almost too generic for a poem. I'll consider "orchids" and I'll also look into some other flower names. I'm thinking about simplifying the language of the e...

camus wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 07, 2024 11:25 pm

This is probably the first poem that I've read of yours that has actually used some poetic devices. It's a poem!

It has metaphors and everything...

Good work, crap title.

Cheers
Kris

I'm sorry that you find so many of my poems disappointing.

Well, I'm sorry that my knowledge of religion and the classics in general is so wanting. I've been thinking about this. While Alicia Stallings (and apparently you too) was reading the classics, I was escaping from my life by reading comics. It put me at a disadvantage both as a writer and a reader.

I revisited this poem and made changes. I found a rhyme for the final line (mend/friend). That had been driving me crazy ever since I wrote the poem.

It's surprising to me how just the passage of time can give me perspective on a poem.

The problem with the 200 pages line is, first, that some people won't know what the Bhagavad-Gītā is (like me -- I had to look it up); but secondly, the line just isn't written in a poetic way. It's as if you jump from poetry to prose for that one line. So, don't remove it, just make it more lyrical...

This is a good poem, a cut above some of the poems that you have posted recently. I would have commented sooner, but I was getting a little weary of the religious themes. But right now, with a clear head, I definitely like it and feel that it makes an interesting point. This line ... [ over the cour...

John, I just noticed that you asked me a question. I'm off to bed. I'll answer it later today.

I see your point, and the poem makes a little more sense to me now. It's interesting how you rhymed the stanzas 3 and 4, but not 1 and 2. I've seen you do that before. If two parts of a poem were sufficiently different, I would sometimes use an ellipsis of asterisks (centered between two stanzas) to...

I don't know a lot about Shiva, the Hindu god. What I notice about the poem is that you segue from Shiva to "God", by which I assume you mean the Western god. The first two stanzas sound good together, and the third and fourth stanzas also sound good together. Maybe I'm tired, but I'm not ...

Thanks for giving the poem so much attention!

I've divided the poem in two, replaced "consigned" with "dispatched", and eliminated some descriptive words, as poems about the Christian God work best when they are stark and plain. Thanks again! This poem is a keeper. Whether I'm going to show it to my religious friend, I haven...

Thanks, John! So, if I just split it after "feign", you think that will improve it? To add a little meaning to the poem, I refer to the protagonist as "the preacher" in the second line now. That justifies the line in which God takes his tongue and name from him, since preachers d...

There are some interesting images in the poem.

I'm not sure why the man is motherless, and whether the mother is being blamed for being absent, or whether she is being praised because she is needed. I guess I'm saying that I'm not sure what point of the poem is.

Thank you, John. I read about a young man once whose Jewish family started sitting Shiva for him when he told them he was gay. I should tell you that I am trying to convince my friend of some of the ideas in the Seth Material. The God described in those readings is a God everyone would want to have....

Thank you, John. The poem still needs refining in a couple places. Here is the story: My best friend as an adolescent was someone named Todd. We were both around 12 or 13, and we knew each other only for perhaps half a year before my mother moved the family 200 miles away. Even at that age, Todd was...