Poems Ranked 1-10 Here

[desiresjab]

Post your poem here. I will rank it and give as much critique as I think it is worth or as I am able, using the all time masters as a standard. By that standard even a 1 is not so bad. But a 10 means your poem could sneak into an anthology of Greatest English poems. An 8 would probably get you into an anthology of modern greats. A 6 is a solid poem, it just does not sneak into an anthology of greats, yet is in the neighborhood of being good enough for publishing in small magazines or local journals. As low as 4 might be enough for this. Remember, our standard is an all time great poem, which seems hardly fair at first. The fair part is that you never really have to feel bad when you understand your poem has been judged against the likes of Jenny Kissed Me or Sailing To Byzantium.

I do not see any actual contest with the poetry contests, so I think a ranking for individual poems is better than nothing.

[YesNo]

I do not see any actual contest with the poetry contests, so I think a ranking for individual poems is better than nothing.

I see the contests more as prompts, but there are judges and they change with each contest. The winner of the previous contest becomes the next judge.

[desiresjab]

I see the contests more as prompts, but there are judges and they change with each contest. The winner of the previous contest becomes the next judge.

Come right here if you want a quick, honest appraisal and critique. The contests are too roundabout and polite, too numerous and scattered, to be of much central reference.

I will not dilly-dally. I'll get the job done so you can get back to work. I will rate anything from an aphorism to a fifty line poem acccording to its genre.

More honest and personal than a magazine and a lot faster.

[Danik 2016]

That´s a good idea. There ought to be something similar for short stories.

[fajfall]

A limerick:

I once tried to make my own pasta,
But it all ended up in disaster.
The eggs fell on the floor,
Oh darn, dash it all
Let the ants then eat it for supper.

[desiresjab]

Pushing a rating of 3.7 for this limerick. The opening couplet is cute and strong with the off center rhyme, but it goes downhill from there. Very little metric feel. Only knowledge of the form keeps one on rhythmic course while reading. A successful limerick needs to be driven by its well known cadence. This limerick departs too far from that cadence. I would suggest a lot of revision, though young children might enjoy this limerick as is. Below might represent an improvement. The revision below might squeak out a 4. Whether it is any good or not, the point is do not be afraid to revise big and hard. It is still not precisely on form but does have more the feel of a limerick IMO.

I once tried to make my own pasta,
But it all ended up in disaster
With eggs on the floor
And me out the door!
Let the ants eat pasta for supper.

[desiresjab]

As a further experiment in narrowing to form, you could try something like:

I once tried to make my own pasta,
But it all ended up in disaster
With eggs on the floor
And me out the door
And the ants enjoying my pasta!

[desiresjab]

Next!!!!!!

[desiresjab]

One more possible change.

I once tried to make my own pasta,
But it all ended up in disasta'
With eggs on the floor
And me out the door
And the ants enjoying my pasta!

[desiresjab]

Next!!!!!!

[desiresjab]

Note: Possibly change pronoun in last line to "their."

[desiresjab]

Send only your best, folks--do not be ashamed to admit that--which have been worked and reworked. I would rather evaluate than doctor. Only your best can possibly acheive a decent mark against the all time greats.

[fajfall]

oh yours was much better. I was so focused on the last words rhyming I didn't think about cadence. That makes it much harder.

How about this Limerick of a Scot joke, which I suppose again lacks cadence;

McNab rips out the old wallpaper,
At last! You'll renovate her!
"Nay, I got a new hoose,
So I'm pulling this loose
Which I'll paste on my new walls later."

[desiresjab]

oh yours was much better. I was so focused on the last words rhyming I didn't think about cadence. That makes it much harder.

How about this Limerick of a Scot joke, which I suppose again lacks cadence;

McNab rips out the old wallpaper,
At last! You'll renovate her!
"Nay, I got a new hoose,
So I'm pulling this loose
Which I'll paste on my new walls later."

About a 3. It takes a lot to make a limerick into anything. I don't want to do all limericks.

[desiresjab]

Maybe a little higher, like 3.7, because the rhymes are much better than in the last one.

[North Star]

A splendid thread idea. Have a jab at this, then:


Autumn Colours

The trees are covered in gold and rust
Beauty, reaching its peak, turns to dust.
As Autumn colours the trees and leafs,
So it colours my thoughts, and I must
Face it: my time here will not last.

[desiresjab]

A splendid thread idea. Have a jab at this, then:


Autumn Colours

The trees are covered in gold and rust
Beauty, reaching its peak, turns to dust.
As Autumn colours the trees and leafs,
So it colours my thoughts, and I must
Face it: my time here will not last.

I like the fact this a serious poem. The images and the theme are quite well worn, however. That does mean it cannot work. For an example of the same theme at work in the hands of a master, see Frost's Nothing Gold Can Stay.

The poem needs something surprising. All its images, ideas and phrasings are conventional and used many times. After the first line of iambs the meter disappears, or at least goes underground. Sometimes just giving a piece more metric shape leads to very large and pleasant surprises.

Because this is a serious poem it is quite harder to score high on the master's scale than for tirvialities like aphorisms and limericks. What you must do (and I hate to have to tell you this, but I have promised no dilly-dallying) is start over. You need to find a way of approaching these images and ideas that does not sound like it has been done a million times.

Imagine gutting and rebuilding a house without first tearing it down. I seriously doubt that I must face it will be part of the new house. It does not do the job you want it to do, I promise, because I see what you want.

More and deeper revision of a five line poem is possible than civilians would think. You might hardly recognize it when it is through. When he truly believes he has caught the tail of a comet, the poet is a pitbull of tenacity. A great deal depends on how badly you want this poem to work and believe in it.

My advice again: start over. Find a unique way to use these generic images. Put your own stamp on them. Always try to make a poem work metrically, as well. Even when read silently it must roll off the tongue smoothly.

I give this poem a 3.

[North Star]

A fair and just critique, and sound advice too. Thanks.

[fajfall]

I relish acerbic criticism. I find this entertaining. If I get a decent rating I can build on this poem of the Botanic Park:

Through a small and gilded gate
I see a place of wonder,
Where people stroll and view and breathe
A verdant place and wander.

In this place, which calms my mood,
Stands every shade of green.
From lofty palms to shrouded seeds,
And all plants in between.

The olive coloured cactii,
whose rough and parched [parch-ed] skin,
Are only steps away from ferns
Whose dew the ground soaks in.

And jagged, spiky, spike like horrors
From the cactii point at me,
While smooth and gleaming skin of ferns
kindly soothe my skin

But every plant that's in this Park
does fill my heart with glee.

[desiresjab]

I relish acerbic criticism. I find this entertaining. If I get a decent rating I can build on this poem of the Botanic Park:

Through a small and gilded gate
I see a place of wonder,
Where people stroll and view and breathe
A verdant place and wander.

In this place, which calms my mood,
Stands every shade of green.
From lofty palms to shrouded seeds,
And all plants in between.

The olive coloured cactii,
whose rough and parched [parch-ed] skin,
Are only steps away from ferns
Whose dew the ground soaks in.

And jagged, spiky, spike like horrors
From the cactii point at me,
While smooth and gleaming skin of ferns
kindly soothe my skin

But every plant that's in this Park
does fill my heart with glee.


A very stilted piece. Way too formal for its subject matter. Why should this piece rhyme at all? It wants to feel more like free verse. Get rid of all anachronisms such as the last line. What is the point of all this description? Sorry, nothing natural about this one.

Awarded a 1.5 on the masters scale.

[desiresjab]

Even most poets do not realize how hard they have to work on their pieces. Some feel this will destroy spontaneity in their poetry. But spontaneity is not what you want. The feel of spontaneity is your lodestar, my dear poets. Because it walks and talks like spontaneity does not mean that it is. For it is better than spontaneity almost every time. It is the hammered gold and gold enameling Yeats is talking about.

Why all this hammering in so many of Yeats's poems, anway? Why do you think? Billy was hammering out spontaneity. It was not easy. A blacksmith sweats plenty.


...a line will take us hours maybe;
Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought,
Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.
Better go down upon your marrow bones
And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones
Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;
For to articulate sweet sounds together
Is to work harder than all these, and yet
Be thought an idler by the noisy set
Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen
The martyrs call the world...

W.B. Yeats


The work is hard and the standards are high.

[Lokasenna]

I'll take the challenge - here's one of mine. Tear it apart, if you want to.

Apple a Day

Way back when in Eden,
God made an apple tree.
Said to Eve an' Adam:
"Don't touch it, let it be."

Eve went kinda crazy,
talkin' to Mister Snake:
"Woman, eat that apple,
it ain't no crime to take."

Evie ate the apple,
with evil got to grips.
Then knew herself and found
the fire between her hips.

Adam came a-lookin',
she gave him that sweet fruit.
He saw she were right fair
and wearin' birthday suit.

The Lord, He walked abroad,
lookin' for His chillun'.
Found 'em actin' scand'lous,
not as He was willin'.

Man He set to workin',
woman to givin' birth,
then poor ol' Mister Snake,
He ground into the earth.

And now we pass our days,
makin' love and workin',
and our old snakey friend,
he gone back to lurkin'.

We grow them apples now,
grow under every sky,
we take our daily fill,
we bake 'em into pie.

Keep the apples comin',
keep lovin' while you may.
Take joy in bein' free,
keep mean ol' God away.

[desiresjab]

I'll take the challenge - here's one of mine. Tear it apart, if you want to.

Apple a Day

Way back when in Eden,
God made an apple tree.
Said to Eve an' Adam:
"Don't touch it, let it be."

Eve went kinda crazy,
talkin' to Mister Snake:
"Woman, eat that apple,
it ain't no crime to take."

Evie ate the apple,
with evil got to grips.
Then knew herself and found
the fire between her hips.

Adam came a-lookin',
she gave him that sweet fruit.
He saw she were right fair
and wearin' birthday suit.

The Lord, He walked abroad,
lookin' for His chillun'.
Found 'em actin' scand'lous,
not as He was willin'.

Man He set to workin',
woman to givin' birth,
then poor ol' Mister Snake,
He ground into the earth.

And now we pass our days,
makin' love and workin',
and our old snakey friend,
he gone back to lurkin'.

We grow them apples now,
grow under every sky,
we take our daily fill,
we bake 'em into pie.

Keep the apples comin',
keep lovin' while you may.
Take joy in bein' free,
keep mean ol' God away.

I like it. The narrative flow is clean all the way to me, with no spots where it feels like you are stretching to make a rhyme, etc. We know the story, but it is easy to follow on its own. Rhyme scheme is adhered to nicely. The slang or black talk, or whatever it is, works. Almost singable as a blues song. In fact, singable as a blues song. In line four of verse four, I would probably go ahead and insert the pronoun.

I do not know how to classify it, or if that particularly matters. Parody? A recasting in parody? I was smiling all the way, so apparently humor was intended. It has a wrap up and all. The last line provides a different food for thought.

An obvious understanding of rhythmic necessity is on display in line three, as well as throughout. A serious subject treated this well would score higher. The blues song I hear in my head might be an eight to an all time classic. As a straight poem it still reads well. Its frivolous nature is its strength but also its weakness, on the master scale. It cannot help what it is, I cannot either.

I will award it a score of 5.9, with the comment that I feel it is publishable in the right place.

[Danik 2016]

I enjoyed the poem very much.
To me the subject is serious enough, the light, ironical treatment is deceptive. It discusses nothing less than the modern validity of the old familiar myth of creation.
But in poetry as in drama, comedy and humour seems to rank under tragedy in the rank of literary evaluation.

[desiresjab]

I enjoyed the poem very much.
To me the subject is serious enough, the light, ironical treatment is deceptive. It discusses nothing less than the modern validity of the old familiar myth of creation.
But in poetry as in drama, comedy and humour seems to rank under tragedy in the rank of literary evaluation.

I had a great time with it. And I have no argument with anyone who thinks it should be higher, for ranking it was difficult, as the two schools of thought pulled me in different directions. If this poem were slipped in with the collected poems of a semi-famous modern poet I was not overly familiar with, I would not feel let down when I came to it. It could even enhance my image of the poet as extra versatile, especially if it were among dissimilar but equally good poems.

As a one-off, it cannot have the same power as a steep poem. I do not mind if people disagree with this, either. I am just stating the criteria here.

Yes, it nags me, though. I keep asking myself: Would I rate this poem higher if it were my own poem? If it were my poem that was shoving perfect for what it is, would I still be giving it this score with the explanation it was not serious enough, and with the additional explanation that 5.9 is actually a high score? When you cannot get a straight answer from yourself, watch for dilly-dally. I think I would give myself a higher score, therefore I must give Loki a higher score. That is my reasoning. This score officially jacked to 6.4, and still no arguments with anyone who thinks it should be higher.

[Danik 2016]

Ranking poems seems difficult to me, specially considering their differences in form, content, theme, tone, etc. Although I used the word rank in my comment, I wasn´t thinking about the score but about the relation between "serious' and "comic" poetry. In my country it is not usual to give scores for poetry. Anyway I am glad the score went up.

[Lokasenna]

Many thanks for such useful, reasoned and intelligent criticism! For the record, I would be proud to walk away with either of those scores - to be ANY percentage of Yeats would be more than enough. And well done on identifying the blues/blue grass elements of the piece - I regret only that I was born far too late to have written songs for Nina Simone.

This isn't one I've tried to publish - so I might have to rectify that in light of the positive reception here!

[desiresjab]

Ranking poems seems difficult to me, specially considering their differences in form, content, theme, tone, etc. Although I used the word rank in my comment, I wasn´t thinking about the score but about the relation between "serious' and "comic" poetry. In my country it is not usual to give scores for poetry. Anyway I am glad the score went up.

I do not know of a country, state, county or city where ranking poems is the norm. Just here.

The reason for it is to expedite awareness. A number is very relatable, but of course has shortcomings. The particular form of feedback offered here is not available anywhere else, to my knowledge.

The big factor is that people may withhold what they feel is their very best in hopes of preserving its publishing potential. I am not sure how that works, but it is what has prevented me from ever showing a line of my own, and it does annoy me.

Remember, poets, an edifice by a great architect is passed or failed by mere building inspectors who hoped to be architects.

* * * * *

Look at the collected poetry of any great poet. Surprise. Half of it, and usually more, is not great, it merely happens to belong to a great poet. Did you ever notice that? Some things that were really good probably did slip by you and me unnoticed, but that does not explain the rest of the inferior half or more. Is there a poet alive who believes The Three Beggars is superior or eqaul to the shorter Sailing To Byzantium? If The Three Beggars were missing from the collected poetry of Yeats, there is no noticable loss. But if Sailing To Byzantium were not there, that would be an awesome loss to the collected works. That poem is integral to the Yeatsian mythology of Byzantium. A few more losses like that and he might not be on top of the heap for the twentieth century.

The great poets have their smash hits, and they have the rest of their work. One poem of sir Thomas Wyatt is an evergreen in anthologies of great English poetry. They Flee From Me always makes it. Wyatt's one smash hit is so good, if you started paring down the poems by quality in that volume of greatest English poetry, even among such company it will survive many culls while each poem of greater poets is eliminated one by one, until many an illustrious name and poem is lost from that competition altogether.

The number of smash hits is a main element in ranking the poet's greatness. Most of us are ranking one poet's smash hits against another's, instead of the entire body of work, which may not be a mistake afterall, unless it is unreasonable to expect of any poet designated great to unperiodically produce pieces of such ultra-clarity and lucidity that they leave no doubt a special sensibility is behind them, and furthermore, who will probably have another "high performace," somewhere down the line. In more metaphorical terms, we expect flares from a true star. It is the height of these flares, not the average of the body of work, which determines the poet's legacy, along with the number of times the poet has managed to flare magnificently. These flares are statistical abberations, and a high average would often indicate higher flares in absolute terms, though we could even expect abberations from this trend, where a poet averaging only 5 on our mythical scale might be able to produce a 9 or 10 once in a great while.

Nor is the above some astronomical probability. I believe as many as 2 to 3% of people who give poetry a persistent, serious shot over many years, and read a lot of great poetry, may be able to produce a 9 or a 10 on the mythical master's scale. Something that might not be the first poem eliminated in the competition above among the masters, even if the competition took place in the future instead of now. Of the 2-3%, only some are recognized poets. That would mean there are a lot of unpublished masterpieces.

Many of these masterpieces are a little too short. If they belonged to a major poet, they might be one of his little gems, but by themselves they are not enough to acheive escape velocity.

But let us imagine that Crossways, the first slim volume of poetry by Yeats, dreamy Irish lyricism tinged with Indian mysticism, was also his last because of untimely death, yet the volume contained one more poem, Sailing To Byzantium. Because it has even that thin body of published work to rest atop, the poem now probably has the staying power that Wyatt's smash hit has shown. Totally out of place in Crossways, it would nonetheless mark a high flare in English literature for some time to come. But it probably did need that thin body of inferior work for this to happen.

For a single poem by an unknown to acheive escape velocity from the real world without a body of work, I believe it has to be a very long one, and I do not mean a hundred lines. It would have to be publishable as a volume by itself, albeit in some cases a very short volume of twenty or thirty pages.

That's the real world. Who's talking about that? In our mythical world you can compete against the masters right here. Just remember who the competition is. If your 6-liner can flare as high as John Donne or Phillip Larkin or William Yeats et al acheived in approximately the same number of lines, I will try to tell you so, even if you do not have a body of work for it to rest upon, if you have an attitude that allows you to show your best. I ain't sayin' you should, but if you do.

[desiresjab]

Since I do not always have a plan when I begin writing a poem, I have different tricks to get going. The most effective one of all is to simply start writing, like a sick patient eating soley because she knows it is good for her. Sometimes the engine takes some primiing in whatever form works.

About 25% of my poems have a strong architectural plan I felt was necessary. Like most of us, I like to let things develop in a protean manner, during the process, a good deal of the time. Form and scheme have a way of sorting themselves out "on the road."

Sometimes you are desperate to write, but froze up like cement. The key, if you do not already know it, is to begin. To get out of a shooting slump you shoot.

[desiresjab]

As she grits her teeth over a blank page, the poet cannot unify overwhelming emotion. There is enough emotion there to drown an ocean liner, though the page remains blank. Things you need to say in person instead of on the page can often produce this state. The poems all come out train wrecks of things you need to say off-the-page to someone you are denied access to, gut spillings worthy of the crumplings they receive.

Unfortunately, poet, themes are born this way. They thought you were kidding when you compared writing poetry to childbirth. Pregnancy has its good moments and its bad, and plenty of both. A few births are easy, but generally--ouch! and much greater exclamations of pain.

To ignite the repressed bog which is you may require more tragedy or unhappiness than you would have agreed to in a Faustian bargain. I think anyone who writes poetry has made such a bargain. We have tacitly agreed to suffer so we can transcend suffering through poetry. We want to do unto others as has been done to us. We want to mangle and fondle their hearts in the same few lines. Religion we would not suffer for--but poetry, that is different. Sometimes we have to suffer even more than we tacitly agreed to. In fact, we did not agree to these continuations at all.

All those years of blundering--hundreds of crumpled sheets and a few smooth ones in a stack--the themes and technique raved but grew strong, and then

KaBoooom.

Are you sure you wanted this? It was always going to be yours anyway. It is what you practiced suffering for, what the years meant, while others were living. It is self-fullfilled prophecy, for you were not blind, you knew the bargain entailed everything.

[Danik 2016]

Just to answer some ideas of yours, I myself feel more at home with prose than with poetry although I have my favorite poets and poems. And I specially enjoy poetic prose, with its rich imagery.
Something which seems anguishing to me is the (forgive me) the so North American idea of competition which also lurks behind the scores. Of course the great masters are the reference and the English language has a tradition of poetry which is particularly rich. But I think a poem is something one should let grow slowly, like a plant. It is made out of what you are your particular life experience and your own subjective way of relating to it. I agree with you that it usually requires a lot of work like a piece of jewelry that must be put into its best form. But I wouldn't try to compete with any of the great poets I just would be as much as myself as I could.

[desiresjab]

I do not want my ten-liner growing like a plant, do you? Poetry itself grows, the poet grows slowly as a poet. The best way to become a poet is to write a lot of poetry, not thinking or plannng or waiting for the houseplant to grow. The advice applies to prose writers.

The competitive aspect is what makes this thread active and different. If I only handed out my sage advice without a score, the thread would fold right up. No shilly-shally here. Honest and direct, right down to a numerical score.

The masters are your opponents, not the other contributors. The poem I eventually upgraded to a 6.4, would be an 8 or better graded by genre, so that should not discourage anyone. People would see a score of 5 is a big score around here, if they sent more poems.

If someone receives a score of 7, that does not mean their poem is better than the 6.4. Totally irrelevant. It could mean they got closer to the target request in the eyes of the judge, or the judge prefers a certain kind of poetry. It specifically means here that the judge believes it is easier to make a perfect light poem than it to make a perfect serious one.

Ogden Nash might produce eights, nines and tens of his genre, but they cannot compete with a solid 7.5 performance from W.D. Snodgrass, using the master's universal scale. It is written.

[desiresjab]

Now for some official business. One good thing allowed a sole arbiter is to change even what is written.

I am going to score differently from now on. I will give any poem its score in its own genre, but the master's scale still applies. I will give two scores, a more localized genre score in case your poem qualifies, and the universal master's score.

Loki's Local genre score: 8.1. His universal master score remains at 6.4. The master's scale is too powerful by itself, and will scare people away. The local score gives people some feedback on how they are doing as growing poets in the moment.

[Michael Kajuan]

I guess I'll contribute. This was a poem I wrote a few years ago where I implore God to take away fear away from me as a Christian:

Do Away with Fear: Shakespearean sonnet #1

Do away with fear, lift burdens that crush;
Steel me, Lord; look on your servant’s torment;
I’ve endured patiently, there’s been no rush.
Fear’s dominion’s been long, my strength is spent;
I beg you; flood this soul with divine love!
The Enemy’s tactics have been devious,
Clear out his twilight and shine from above;
All the while these trials have been tortuous,
Through untold adversities faith remains;
Lurching onward, craving liberation,
A sound mind is what I seek to regain.
Must I abide this horrification?
Then with the Sustainer’s power Grace me;
So I can emerge as one wholly free.

[desiresjab]

I guess I'll contribute. This was a poem I wrote a few years ago where I implore God to take away fear away from me as a Christian:

Do Away with Fear: Shakespearean sonnet #1

Do away with fear, lift burdens that crush;
Steel me, Lord; look on your servant’s torment;
I’ve endured patiently, there’s been no rush.
Fear’s dominion’s been long, my strength is spent;
I beg you; flood this soul with divine love!
The Enemy’s tactics have been devious,
Clear out his twilight and shine from above;
All the while these trials have been tortuous,
Through untold adversities faith remains;
Lurching onward, craving liberation,
A sound mind is what I seek to regain.
Must I abide this horrification?
Then with the Sustainer’s power Grace me;
So I can emerge as one wholly free.

I would say this one has been good practice. It is a real sonnet. The rhyme scheme is perfect and the poem one syllable longer than exact pentameter, over the course of fourteen lines.

You did everything a poet is supposed to do--then you filled your form in with dead language without a single new image or idea--sustainer's power, soul, grace, burdens, capltalized Enemy, craving and lurching, untold adversaries--they are all there, every worn out phrase and buzz word that goes with the frozen genre. It sounds like something a devout christian amateur might write in 1732, but a decent imitation. The tone and language is so borrowed it's out of a costume shop.

Now because a piece like this fictionally speaks directly to God, who already knows everything, does not mean to leave out all detail for the human reader. Unless you are keeping the poem between you and God, why not give a hint of what those burdens and trials might be, instead of leaving we mortals with one hundred percent generalities, abstract words of activity without a single image? Are you implying your trials and burdens were just run of the mill ordinary? It is like saying, "Oh, I've had my troubles, but you wouldn't want to hear about them," to your reader.

A piece like this may well carry great signifcance to you on your spiritual journey, but as 21rst century poetry it fails as fast as Icarus falls, because its language is wholly conventional.

Genre religious poem score: 5

Universal master's tally: 3.9

[YesNo]

I agree with you about the content of Michael Kajuan's poem, desiresjab.

However, is it actually a sonnet? The rhyme isn't correct. For example, "Grace me" and "wholly free" do not rhyme. In "Grace me" the accent is on "Grace" not "me". In "wholly free", it is on "free". The meter is also off. For example, the line "Must I abide this horrification?" contains only four accented syllables, "I", "-bide","hor-", "-ca-", not the expected five syllables.

Of course today just about anything can be called a "sonnet". See Gerald Stern's "American Sonnets" which are like ramblings that take up about one page. Here is one example: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/54770

[Michael Kajuan]

I would say this one has been good practice. It is a real sonnet. The rhyme scheme is perfect and the poem one syllable longer than exact pentameter, over the course of fourteen lines.

You did everything a poet is supposed to do--then you filled your form in with dead language without a single new image or idea--sustainer's power, soul, grace, burdens, capltalized Enemy, craving and lurching, untold adversaries--they are all there, every worn out phrase and buzz word that goes with the frozen genre. It sounds like something a devout christian amateur might write in 1732, but a decent imitation. The tone and language is so borrowed it's out of a costume shop.

Now because a piece like this fictionally speaks directly to God, who already knows everything, does not mean to leave out all detail for the human reader. Unless you are keeping the poem between you and God, why not give a hint of what those burdens and trials might be, instead of leaving we mortals with one hundred percent generalities, abstract words of activity without a single image? Are you implying your trials and burdens were just run of the mill ordinary? It is like saying, "Oh, I've had my troubles, but you wouldn't want to hear about them," to your reader.

A piece like this may well carry great signifcance to you on your spiritual journey, but as 21rst century poetry it fails as fast as Icarus falls, because its language is wholly conventional.

Genre religious poem score: 5

Universal master's tally: 3.9

Thank you for your comments. They were greatly appreciated. I guess the main reason why I didn't represent my fears fully in this poem is because I wanted any other Christians who read it to empathize with it. If I had explicitly stated what my fears were, perhaps the poem would no longer be a universal call for God to remove fear out of Christian's lives. Fear is the opposite of faith to a Christian, because when you are living in fear you are not trusting and believing in God. Fear breeds torment in the mind. The Devil (or Enemy in this case) can implant thoughts in Christian's minds and play off of or even create fears himself, a stronghold on the mind. I hope this makes sense, and again thanks for taking the time to critique my poem.


I agree with you about the content of Michael Kajuan's poem, desiresjab.

However, is it actually a sonnet? The rhyme isn't correct. For example, "Grace me" and "wholly free" do not rhyme.
I did not know the last two words of a line in an English sonnet were supposed to rhyme. This is my first time hearing of this. I thought it was just the last words of the line.


In "Grace me" the accent is on "Grace" not "me". In "wholly free", it is on "free". The meter is also off. For example, the line "Must I abide this horrification?" contains only four accented syllables, "I", "-bide","hor-", "-ca-", not the expected five syllables.

Of course today just about anything can be called a "sonnet". See Gerald Stern's "American Sonnets" which are like ramblings that take up about one page.

When I wrote this poem I really did not know how to approach accents. I guess now I somewhat understand that you can sound out a word to make a correct accent but I did not understand that then. Thanks for your comments as well, they were most appreciated.

[YesNo]

I did not know the last two words of a line in an English sonnet were supposed to rhyme. This is my first time hearing of this. I thought it was just the last words of the line.


It is only the part starting with the last accented syllable that is included in the rhyme. In iambic pentameter that is usually the last syllable unless the meter is irregular. Since "Grace me" is accented on "Grace" it means the meter is irregular and one has to consider two syllables for the rhyme. Something like "face me" would rhyme, but "wholly free" would not because the word "free" is accented, that is stressed more. An accented "free" does not rhyme with an unaccented "me" although as words outside of a metrical context they are rhymes.

[desiresjab]

I have certainly enjoyed the submissions so far, folks, and look forward to more. I like to let poems explain themselves.

My own poetry has tried many different approaches. I tried some forms extensively I cannot remember the name of. Out of forty or fifty shape poems, I got two that I thought were good enough for me.

Mixing forms within the same poem without section markers, is something else I find myself doing. If something comes out this way, and it is cohesive and you think really good, and it reads right, is there any reason to feel like less of a technician than you should be? Maybe you are more of a technician. More often than trying to make a form work, we poets simply find ourselves trying to make the poem work, and we do not care what it is that makes it work--we'll take it!

There are moods and tempos you can only get out of free verse. What if you feel the need for one of these somewhere in a versed rhyming poem? Or what if the poem just meanders that way and turns out really good? Are you going to destroy it because it breaks form? You have just been caught being creative, should you destroy the evidence before the poem tells on you?

Try anything. Great poets are always great critics of their own poetry, even when not of others'. They generally know if they have written an A, B, C, D or F. You cannot be a great poet without being a great critic of your own work. You learn to overlook everything but the words on the page, so you can judge your poem as if it comes from a stranger. When honesty is talked about in literature, I believe this is one of the things meant.

One thing I hope to accomplish here is to help people become great critics of their own work, through seeing criticism of that work. A lot of such discernment must come from observing the masters themselves closely, however.

[tailor STATELY]

I've been enjoying this thread.

I agree with your overview in #39. Having a critical eye for one's own works is very important. I read and study poetry tirelessly. As one writes though, I realize that the written word is fluid and may be edited ad nauseum. I've heard of writing with the intent of leaving one's poem raw and left alone, and have tried this approach many times, but some of my best poetry has gone through a revision or two before posting, and then perhaps more revisions on the digital page - which I generally note when revisions are made. All my poems on my web page https://sites.google.com/site/apoetingardenvalley/ are ever on review, and one "Sisyphus; and Sun Wukong, the Monkey King" I have contemplated upon more than others - I will pull the trigger on revising that poem soon I hope.

On occasion I employ the online Poetry Assessor http://www.poetryassessor.com/poetry/ and have had some digital/critical success... with one poem "Beneath the Dogwoods of May" scoring 3+ on their scale at one time (a relatively high score if I understand correctly). Using this app is quite humbling to say the least... a negative score is possible as I can attest.

I've only been writing since 2003 (I'm a late bloomer) and continue my poetry education seriously while attempting to push the limits in my endeavors. The result of 700+ poems, or poem-like creations, I've written is maybe 20 gems that I enjoy better than the rest. I am writer, audience, and critic all rolled into one and enjoy the freedom that Litnet provides to further my progress.

Sincerely,

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

[desiresjab]

I've been enjoying this thread.

I agree with your overview in #39. Having a critical eye for one's own works is very important. I read and study poetry tirelessly. As one writes though, I realize that the written word is fluid and may be edited ad nauseum. I've heard of writing with the intent of leaving one's poem raw and left alone, and have tried this approach many times, but some of my best poetry has gone through a revision or two before posting, and then perhaps more revisions on the digital page - which I generally note when revisions are made. All my poems on my web page https://sites.google.com/site/apoetingardenvalley/ are ever on review, and one "Sisyphus; and Sun Wukong, the Monkey King" I have contemplated upon more than others - I will pull the trigger on revising that poem soon I hope.

On occasion I employ the online Poetry Assessor http://www.poetryassessor.com/poetry/ and have had some digital/critical success... with one poem "Beneath the Dogwoods of May" scoring 3+ on their scale at one time (a relatively high score if I understand correctly). Using this app is quite humbling to say the least... a negative score is possible as I can attest.

I've only been writing since 2003 (I'm a late bloomer) and continue my poetry education seriously while attempting to push the limits in my endeavors. The result of 700+ poems, or poem-like creations, I've written is maybe 20 gems that I enjoy better than the rest. I am writer, audience, and critic all rolled into one and enjoy the freedom that Litnet provides to further my progress.

Sincerely,

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

Poetry assessor is an empty gimmick. Attaining high scores from them will not make anyone a better poet. They assign numerical values to all the superficialities they can, run them through a little statistical engine of their own invention, and give you back a score. They can tell you nothing about the worth of the content of your poem. I do not want to see you waste your time with them. It sounds like maybe you are not--much.

Bring your poems here, if you want them evaluated for real. I cannot go anywhere else to get them or read them. Always fair, always honest.

[YesNo]

I put my recent limerick from the limerick thread about the existential dilemma of a worm into the Poetry Assessor and got a score of 1.2. I haven't tried creating a Google Site yet but I do use Google docs and gmail.

[desiresjab]

I have received a private e-mail. Apparently this thread is currently among the top 10 most read threads anywhere on the internet! Good job, folks. It proves a couple of things. It proves people at large are interested in poetry, and by extension fair criticism of it. It proves they want to read your poetry and my comments on it. It proves you will be discovered if you send in an irresistible poem.

I know more heavy duty poems are out there, pestering you to let them come on. You might as well relent and become famous. What was local turned into a worldwide showcase. Send only your best now. Give us the mustard gas, baby.

[YesNo]

I find it hard to believe that this thread is among the top 10 most read threads anywhere on the internet.

[desiresjab]

I find it hard to believe that this thread is among the top 10 most read threads anywhere on the internet.

I do too. I was amazed. Hundreds of guests are pouring in and keeping tabs, and have crashed several servers. I do not do facebook, but they tell me it is abuzz with the latest developments. One of those developments is a demand for the poetry of Yes/No. You cannot hold forth on a world forum without being noticed, my friend.

Seriously, I do wonder why you eschew the thread of your old pal as a full contributor. I know you post poems elsewhere on the site. Maybe you do not trust my criticism. I think you should give me a chance one on one in my own kitchen. Just now we are running short of submissions as poets worldwide gather their verses for another seige on the foothills of immortality, so we solicit your work at this time. Perhaps you are gathering your verses, too, from far flung pastures where they graze; or even, perhaps, you fatten some for market you do not wish to show at the fair. I would understand.

[YesNo]

You are welcome to rate any poem I have posted. You don't have to wait for me to post it in this thread.

Here's a recent one from the Lymerick thread entitled "How the Lowly Fart Inspires the Noble Nose":


A fart is a wonderful thing.
The air freshly tainted could bring
A thought to my nose
Since a fart’s not a rose
And a rose makes a nose want to sing.

There are also others who start threads for their poems. I assume they do that so you could post a comment in the thread. Unless they object, I don't see why you could not rate them.

I gave up work-shopping poetry many years ago learning my lesson on other sites. It just causes people to get annoyed especially the way I nit-pick. Besides, when they "critiqued" something I wrote, I never took their advice which did not make them happy. So why bother?

Anyway, I don't think I have ever read one of your poems.

[desiresjab]

You are welcome to rate any poem I have posted. You don't have to wait for me to post it in this thread.

Here's a recent one from the Lymerick thread entitled "How the Lowly Fart Inspires the Noble Nose":

A fart is a wonderful thing.
The air freshly tainted could bring
A thought to my nose
Since a fart’s not a rose
And a rose makes a nose want to sing.

There are also others who start threads for their poems. I assume they do that so you could post a comment in the thread. Unless they object, I don't see why you could not rate them.

I gave up work-shopping poetry many years ago learning my lesson on other sites. It just causes people to get annoyed especially the way I nit-pick. Besides, when they "critiqued" something I wrote, I never took their advice which did not make them happy. So why bother?

Anyway, I don't think I have ever read one of your poems.

You give me a fart poem to critique? All right. I cannot let a readership of thousands down. I think the second line drops the cadence ball but the fumble is recovered. In something as cadence-dependent as the limerick form I do not believe one can ever afford to lose or even stretch the cadence beyond instant recognition. The connection between lines 3 and 4 is a stretch, yet not quite absurd enough, perhaps. Most of your points will come from getting the form close.

Genre scale: 5 Master's Scale: 4

[YesNo]

There is no connection between lines 3 and 4 as you noticed. I would also say there isn't much of a connection between lines 1 and 5 except the first line talks about farts and the last line talks about roses. But then the third line introduces the idea of "thought", something a noble nose might expect to value, and that doesn't help matters.

[desiresjab]

There is no connection between lines 3 and 4 as you noticed. I would also say there isn't much of a connection between lines 1 and 5 except the first line talks about farts and the last line talks about roses. But then the third line introduces the idea of "thought", something a noble nose might expect to value, and that doesn't help matters.

Yes, relating two physical sensations, one esthetically repulsive, the other esthetically attractive, was a good idea, I would say. With a form like the limerick one could literally calculate the number of syllables one has to get the job done. How one relates the two opposites is the whole trick after getting the form right. Sometimes an effort cannot get any better in its present form. A similar idea in synesthetics might be giving the rose an audible tone that is pleasing and giving the fart a visual image that is equally displeasing. I felt the connection of singing and thought came across as sort of rambling, not a strong enough observation, if you will, for me, because the poem can only be about an observation relating the two opposites, and it is not as if a rose does not give me thoughts too.

I disagree that a fart is a wonderful thing, unless it is my own, and even then it is not always wonderful, for who has not crapped their pants thinking they were only going to fart? Calling a fart a wonderful thing may be part of a sly "technique" of revulsion, however, that sets the disagreement between these things apart poetically, by making the reader disagree.

I have written about farts a fair bit more than the average freak myself. I also have a feces inspired menu, complete with appetizers, deserts and imbibements, written in typical menu prose, though coprophagia is not my (ahem!) bag, in which certain fecal menu items are garnished with venereal wart shavings or baked under a skin of herpes blisters, for heightened culinary sensation.

Wait! This is a high poetry thread. Should I even admit this? I can always push cancel. Still, no dilly-dally and no shilly-shally. Yes, I even wrote a sh*t menu, dear thousands of readers. Now send me your poems, everybody, so I can tell you whether you approach the masters or not! What's the matter with you? I wrote a sh*t menu. For more references see my western trilogy where the action is frequently interrupted by trips to the outhouses and water closets.

Yes, let us get back to high poetry, now that poets understand they can trust me with their work, that I have the qualifications and sensitivity for the job.

[desiresjab]

Maybe it is my turn. I will try. Thinking of recent news.



One of Her
by desiresjab



If it should be
human destiny
to exist again,
it is all right, then;

if dying children
quick as electrons
are superheros,
grief's most savage throes

of we humanoids
ripped by asteroids,
ashes to the air,
need not long despair;

if your humble self
should awake as elf
or dream-bothered man,
it is all right, then,
it is all right.


5/4/16

[desiresjab]

Time for a small revision. Change "of" to "on," line one of stanza three. This is about the third revision I have made since the poem was up. I should have kept track of them. The very first version said: "felt by humanoids..."


One of Her
by desiresjab



If it should be
human destiny
to exist again,
it is all right, then;

if dying children
quick as electrons
are superheros,
grief's most savage throes

on we humanoids
ripped by asteroids,
ashes to the air,
need not long despair;

if your humble self
should awake as elf
or dream-bothered man,
it is all right, then,
it is all right.

[YesNo]

Keeping track of versions has some value. I used to use a version control system that I used for technical work on my personal computer for poems, but I realized I didn't go back to them. Now I put each poem on a Google document, save different versions in the same file along with where it has been posted or sent out. Anything sent out is also tracked on a Google sheet.

What was the news item you were writing about? I don't read the news so I haven't heard about it. It sounds like some tragedy.

A technical point: "are superheroes" does not rhyme with "grief's most savage throes".

[Danik 2016]

Maybe it is my turn. I will try. Thinking of recent news.



One of Her
by desiresjab



If it should be
human destiny
to exist again,
it is all right, then;

if dying children
quick as electrons
are superheros,
grief's most savage throes

of we humanoids
ripped by asteroids,
ashes to the air,
need not long despair;

if your humble self
should awake as elf
or dream-bothered man,
it is all right, then,
it is all right.


5/4/16
I liked it very much. It´s a tense poem. I didn´t understand the title though, maybe because I don´t know to what news it is referring.
Something referring to I child´s death?
The solace of the despair of death is the idea of imortality. Death is not definitive as long as there is a hope of rebirth.

[desiresjab]

Here it is again after heavy revision, with a new title.



Taking Down Posters
by desiresjab




If it should be
our destiny
to live again,
it is all right, then;

if dying children
ride electrons—
in mad bellows
and grieving throes

our insides
ripped by asteroids,
need not long despair,
ashes to the air;

and when a humble self,
dear, awakes as elf
or dream-bothered man,
it is all right, then,
it is all right.

[desiresjab]

More changes.

Taking Down Posters
by desiresjab




If it should be
our destiny
to live again,
it is all right, then;

if dying children
ride electrons—
in mad repose
and grieving throes

our insides
ripped by asteroids,
need not long despair,
ashes to the air;

and when a humble self,
dear, awakes as elf
or dream-bothered man,
it is all right, then,
it is all right.

[desiresjab]

Here is another revision. To me, each revision is getting better. It is like I could no longer bear to live with the words I had ten minutes ago.



Taking Down Posters
by desiresjab




If it should be
our destiny
to live again,
it is all right, then;

if dying children
ride electrons—
our grieving throes
and mad repose

of insides
ripped by asteroids,
need not long despair,
ashes to the air;

and when a humble self,
dear, awakes as elf
or dream-bothered man,
it is all right, then,
it is all right.

[Danik 2016]

The title that suggested itself to me, while I was reading the poem the first time: "It is all right".

[YesNo]

It seems to me as well that the title could use some improvement. I don't understand "posters" in it.

It seems like the poem is about reincarnation, or some theme like that, with the claim that such reincarnation is good and justifies any problem in an earlier reincarnation. Am I close?

[Epistolaryof8th]

It was interesting to see the revisions. Though, each time I was worried that I wouldn't read "dream-bothered man" near the end.

I'm pretty curious to see if you'll give yourself a score.

[desiresjab]

It was interesting to see the revisions. Though, each time I was worried that I wouldn't read "dream-bothered man" near the end.

I'm pretty curious to see if you'll give yourself a score.

The score right now would be low. Hardly ever do I work on a poem this short this much and receive satisfaction for my efforts. I am not done trying with this one.

At first I was convinced I had found the killer title. It would have been the right title if the poem actually followed someone taking down posters of a lost child. It would be a killer title in that case, I beleive.

Dream-bothered cannot go anywhere. The first verse cannot go anywhere either. The problems with this piece lie in the middle. I still think it has a chance, but it needs a major overhaul again.

Now, folks, this is what can happen when you are full of feelings but still not certain what it is you are trying to say. The news article affected me, I wanted write immediately. It is too bad you could not see one of my poems I have belief in. On the other hand, nothing could have worked out better than the current failure for seeing the rigors of revision and determination in action.

This does not mean you should always know what you are going to say before you start, or should never give up. Poems work out or they don't. Many with a great plan behind them do not cut the mustard, either. If we planned every twenty line poem we would not write very many.

The way you say it makes poetry. What you say could be written in a newspaper article.The speaker in my poem seems to be trying to sneakily address two subjects at once, mankind and a victimized child. I doubt he will pull it off, but there could be a unifier I am not seeing.

Now this thread feels right. The critic with enough aplomb to judge others publicly is bent over for inspection himself. I am not fond of it. Several times I wished I had never posted this effort at all. If it succeeds or fails now will be public. From it, I earnestly wish we may all better our technique and critical sensibilities.

An overhaul is underway. I have other things I would like to work on rather than what has become an assignment. The assignment, however, is at least of interest to poets and myself.

I am just worried I might like failing in front of you. It could be a new twist on the self flagellations of Swineburne. From the looks of things so far, I could be a reborn Swineburne making unsatisfactoy revisions with the coming pain in mind. Let us go seaward as the great winds go...

[desiresjab]

After the mother of all makeovers, the poem has found what it wants to say, without biting off so much. I am more comfortable with it.




At the Poster of the Unknown Child
by desiresjab




If it should be
our destiny
to live again,
it is all right, then;

if rigid children
ride electrons
over meadows
void of sorrow,

loftier than apes,
ready to traipse
weird geometries
pleasing whimsys,

the toll would be fair,
ashes to the air;
all must be well, then,
if we live again;

should your humble self
awake as elf
or dream-bothered man,
it is all right, then,
it is all right.

[desiresjab]

I am going to change the name.



At the Poster for the Missing Child
by desiresjab




If it should be
our destiny
to live again,
it is all right, then;

if rigid children
ride electrons
over meadows
void of sorrow,

loftier than apes,
ready to traipse
weird geometries
pleasing whimsys,

the toll would be fair,
ashes to the air;
all must be well, then,
if we live again;

should your humble self
awake as elf
or dream-bothered man,
it is all right, then,
it is all right.

[desiresjab]

Another name change. May it be the last.



An Old Poster for a Missing Child
by desiresjab




If it should be
our destiny
to live again,
it is all right, then;

if rigid children
ride electrons
over meadows
void of sorrow,

loftier than apes,
ready to traipse
weird geometries
pleasing whimsys,

the toll would be fair,
ashes to the air;
all must be well, then,
if we live again;

should your humble self
awake as elf
or dream-bothered man,
it is all right, then,
it is all right.

[Danik 2016]

I like the new title but I prefer the older version:
"if dying children
quick as electrons
are superheros,
grief's most savage throes

of we humanoids
ripped by asteroids,
ashes to the air,
need not long despair;"

conveys more emotion to me than:

"loftier than apes,
ready to traipse
weird geometries
pleasing whimsys,

the toll would be fair,
ashes to the air;
all must be well, then,
if we live again;"

One of the dangers of remaking a piece o writing several times is that we may become to absorbed in formal changes.

[desiresjab]

By the way, I had a write-in request for a private critique of a poet's work. Though I am flattered, I would be unwilling to critique poetry outside of this thread. Keep revising.

[YesNo]

I finally understand that this is about a lost child one has seen on a poster.

[desiresjab]

I like the new title but I prefer the older version:
"if dying children
quick as electrons
are superheros,
grief's most savage throes

of we humanoids
ripped by asteroids,
ashes to the air,
need not long despair;"

conveys more emotion to me than:

"loftier than apes,
ready to traipse
weird geometries
pleasing whimsys,

the toll would be fair,
ashes to the air;
all must be well, then,
if we live again;"

One of the dangers of remaking a piece o writing several times is that we may become to absorbed in formal changes.

I appreciate your responses.

[desiresjab]

I like the new title but I prefer the older version:
"if dying children
quick as electrons
are superheros,
grief's most savage throes

of we humanoids
ripped by asteroids,
ashes to the air,
need not long despair;"

conveys more emotion to me than:

"loftier than apes,
ready to traipse
weird geometries
pleasing whimsys,

the toll would be fair,
ashes to the air;
all must be well, then,
if we live again;"

One of the dangers of remaking a piece o writing several times is that we may become to absorbed in formal changes.

Thanks again for your respected comments. I have thought about them.

I believe most of the danger for a poet lies in not revising enough, worried over some myth of spontaneity. Wordsworth is not a passionate improvised outburst in the forest, but calculated art after the fact. Artificial, if you will. Great poets should worry about "sounding" spontaneous, but they never should worry about "being" sponrtaneous.

To me the original version of my poem was still seeking itself with a long way to go, but it had managed to find the first and last verses more or less complete. The emotion of the interior portion was melodramatic and overstated, and that segment felt metrically out of kilter, not by design.

I believe poetry is about compression of emotion at least as much as pouring it onto the page in outbursts of savage grief. The transformed second verse is more than I hoped for. All the horrid torment and emotion that was loose in the poem, was contained and compressed into one adjective and one noun. Rigid children, is a chilling image to me. The suggestion of rigor mortis is immediately countered by the only thing that could make it cosmically fair--children void of sorrow riding electrons even as their bodies begin to stiffen. Meadows are generally happy places in poetry, but they are also isolated areas which can allude to destinations where childrens' bodies are often dumped. Whether these meadows are even "of this world," is left to the reader.

The words of the second verse roll off the tongue easily, once you read them correctly, because they, too, are "rigid" with meter, during this part of the poem, this time by design. With the "if" read as a pickup note, each line of the second verse may be read as distinct, chopping trochees, instead of laconic, or anything in between, and do not seem to lose anything by it. Any old way I read that verse, it works for me, even when the children are merely rigid with the thrill of their electron ride.

The third verse breaks the absolute rigidity, but continues with hard opening downbeats and the description of what would be fair for the most unfortunate of children. One may, however, continue with the choppy read, or read as punctuated. Cosmically, the children will lose no ground to the apes they were. They are “ready” because they have died, but their readiness suggests eagerness, too, for they will traipse other geometries, like children on a nature hike and, most importantly, they are pleasing whimsys, showing they are able to make choices, and have free wills.

The poet determines these conditions to be fair, and lets go of the children in a few words that might evoke the common burial rite. The “toll” mentioned has a double meaning. Of course there is the obvious toll on the surviving relatives and the loss to the world. The other toll is a fee the children themselves must pay for their highend electron ride to other geometries.

The last verse then addresses the child in the poster directly. There is a comforting tone of closure. In which ever way the child now exists--as a conscious manifestation of the imagination, as a dream-bothered reincarnated man, or as the dream-bothered adult survivor of his childhood experiences--their is solace.

* * * * *

I do not see the poem changing much from now on. It went through a rapid period of transformation publicly to recover its voice. The first and last verses always were what I wanted, and remained essentially intact through all the revisions. The interior of the poem had to unify the beginning and end that were already there, usually a tough job.

The poem acheives an accurate nutshell of my own philosophy on the subject of death and cosmic justice, and I believe carries a lot of emotion installed just beneath its surface. I think I am satisifed with it, but only time will tell. Further revision may come. Always welcome the chance to make a poem better and the instinct to recognize it.

A man's ratings of his own poems do not even count with an audience, for excellent reasons. Individual people decide for their own reasons whether they like a poem. They may not even know their reasons, but they do know what they like, and this they can decide. Yeats did not decide his poems would be read a hundred years later, a conspiracy of thousands of readers, scholars and poets did because of a common experience with those poems.

[Danik 2016]

Thanks for your carefull consideration of my comments. As I stated above somewhere I am very much in favour of text revisions (not only revision of poems). On should always aim at perfection. I also think, it its not so easy to find an balance between the effect of spontaneity and form perfection.
But of course, you as the author, decide when and how your your poem is complete. Also mine is an individual opinion, you certainly have or will have a chance to expose it to a broader audience.
I also believe that good poetry is about the compression of emotion although I am used to the "latin" pattern where emotions are less restrained. However my comment was based on my feelings, not on a more rational evaluation.

[desiresjab]

Is there something genuinely odd about this verse of Swineburne? Here is the verse.


Let us rise up and part; she will not know.
Let us go seaward as the great winds go,
Full of blown sand and foam; what help is here?
There is no help, for all these things are so,
And all the world is bitter as a tear.
And how these things are, though ye strove to show,
She would not know.


Am I merely a victim of local meteorology, or are there really places where the great winds blow toward the sea instead of off it? Was Swineburne this poor a meteorologist, or am I? Was he up to something else? Does it matter? Why did he say it?

Here is another piece, this one by Alaskan poet John Haines. What is wrong with this one, but really right at the same time?


If the Owl Calls Again by John Haines



at dusk
from the island in the river,
and it's not too cold,

I'll wait for the moon
to rise,
then take wing and glide
to meet him.

We will not speak,
but hooded against the frost
soar above
the alder flats, searching
with tawny eyes.

And then we'll sit
in the shadowy spruce
and pick the bones
of careless mice,

while the long moon drifts
toward Asia
and the river mutters
in its icy bed.

And when the morning climbs
the limbs
we'll part without a sound,

fulfilled, floating
homeward as
the cold world awakens.

[desiresjab]

I do not mean to say something is wrong with the Haines poem, to the contrary, I think it is a stunning wordscape. An image in it the mind makes operate to the reverse of nature struck me years ago. I always wondered if it was a conscious technique or something accidental. I am betting on the latter. When did Haines himself realize what he had done? It is simple, but brings you even more into the poem's environment, once you notice it. I would venture to say that out of thousands of readers, perhaps very few ever became aware and realized the image correctly. It does not matter. I loved the poem before I noticed, and loved it afterwards.

This may seem like nitpicking to some of you. It is positive nitpicking, though.

[YesNo]

Is there something genuinely odd about this verse of Swineburne? Here is the verse.


Let us rise up and part; she will not know.
Let us go seaward as the great winds go,
Full of blown sand and foam; what help is here?
There is no help, for all these things are so,
And all the world is bitter as a tear.
And how these things are, though ye strove to show,
She would not know.


Am I merely a victim of local meteorology, or are there really places where the great winds blow toward the sea instead of off it? Was Swineburne this poor a meteorologist, or am I? Was he up to something else? Does it matter? Why did he say it?


I thought it meant a suggestion to go toward the sea where winds blow, not that the winds blow toward the sea.

[desiresjab]

The Patient Dentist
by desiresjab



A mouth of rotting stumps,
Busted wagon wheels
And leaning brownish snags;
Bacterial beach resort,
A breath to make maggots
Haul out the white flags.

Speed attacks the gums,
Powdered barracuda
Tearing fleshy strips
Of buccal matter
And in its frenzy
Lesions on the lips.

I've seen it all before—
When the teeth fall out
The cheeks cave in,
Collapsing airbags;
A set of false chompers
And they're inflated again.

Wretches with perfect teeth
Beg at the corner,
Holding a hunger sign.
They could chew a tire now
But prefer a burger.
Their uncle Sam is fine.

[desiresjab]

Here is a revision in the first verse.


The Patient Dentist
by desiresjab




A mouth of rotting stumps,
Of broken grist wheels
And leaning brownish snags;
Bacterial beach resort;
A breath to make maggots
Haul out their white flags.

Speed attacks the gums,
Powdered barracuda
Tearing fleshy strips
Of buccal matter
And in its frenzy
Lesions on the lips.

I've seen it all before—
When the teeth fall out
The cheeks cave in,
Collapsing airbags;
A set of false chompers
And they're inflated again.

Wretches with perfect teeth
Beg at the corner,
Holding a hunger sign.
They could chew a tire now
But prefer a burger.
Their uncle Sam is fine.

[YesNo]

Nice part about the breath that makes maggots gag.

I remember a neighbor, long ago, who had false teeth on the bottom but his real teeth on top. His wife had false teeth, top and bottom. She told him he should spend a little money on himself and have his real teeth pulled so he could have all false teeth like she did.

[Lokasenna]

I liked this one quite a lot - there's some gloriously grotesque images there. That last stanza is a real kicker.

[desiresjab]

Thanks Loki and Yes/No. Right now poetry seems to be winning its perpetual tug-of-war with prose to dominate my interest. Prose flows, but poetry grows at the speed of grass sometimes.

[desiresjab]

The thing about new poems is, well, they're new. I don't know if people put their own names on them. My handle is an anagram for my name.



I'll Tell You What I know
by desiresjab



I'll tell you what I know about the spring,
When cackling rivlets play
And tease at tag all day
And feathered Valentinos come to sing.

I'll tell you what I know about the stars,
Those celebrated lights
Where sailors set their sights,
And seers read for emporers and tsars;

I'll tell you all I know about the moon,
That creeps across the sky
Too soon for those that lie
Entwined in lunar silver

and maroon;

That called the poets from their reeking lairs
To marvel and be men
In rough animal skin
And bring round mother incantative prayers;

That drags the blood of every human being
Through the slopping motion
Of the sighing ocean
Until we feel the light we are seeing;

I'll tell you all you need about the world
In orbit at your feet
That turned the brute aesthete,
Its cities and continents cloud-

enswirled;

She never really weans from old mistakes,
But loves a new costume;
It is an old custom
That one hand gives what the other hand takes.

I'll tell you why the world is not the earth.
One marks you up or down
And flys the news around,
The other is a mountain, wood and firth.


5/11/16

copyright 2016 desiresjab lab

[desiresjab]

Did you ever have the feeling that a favorite image or metaphor from one of your poems might not be original, you might have sub consciously lifted it and incorporated it into your own thinking? Sometimes you even have a vague idea where it came from, but all your detective work does not find the source again.

Such suspicions nag me all the time. I don't want to be alone. I hope you people suffer too.

There are a couple of nags on my back right now. Want to know what they are? If you read my recent poems in this thread you have seen them.

1 Comparing bad teeth to broken wagon wheels. This one is so unusual I wonder where I might have observed enough wagon wheels in my modern life to find the comparison. I think I may have seen it in translation in an old Russian poem. It bothered me so much I have changed it to

Broken grist wheels.

2 Dream-bothered. I love this one and would hate to give it up. That is probably what would be necessary, though, if it turns out any poet of significance has already used it. That is the way I feel about that issue. I like to think I have pure standards. This is not rhyming ocean and motion, which hundreds of poets have done. It is unique enough that a poet could stamp it. But is it my stamp?

Yeats was a great one for hyphenated adjectives. He would be the primary suspect, with stuff like gong-tormented and blood-begotten all through his work. I have not found dream-bothered anywhere else yet, and of course I hope I don't. But if you do, please let me know.

3 Rough animal skins. Animal skins is one thing, rough in front of it is another. A great choice, but not a natural one. Did I or didn't I? I have read an awful lot of top notch poetry.

Just where the cutoff line is varies. The stuff that is highly unique and truly represents the fruit of someone else's imaginaqtion, of course belongs to them forever. Gong-tormented belongs to Yeats. Anyone else using it, with the claim they came up with it independently, would be howled out of court.

These items are of true concern to me, and should be to a poet if he or she has any suspicions at all. I write everyday and this comes up every few weeks on the average. Because the poems I posted were all brand new, they did not undergo the usual rigorous process when suspicions are afoot.

[YesNo]

Did you ever have the feeling that a favorite image or metaphor from one of your poems might not be original, you might have sub consciously lifted it and incorporated it into your own thinking? Sometimes you even have a vague idea where it came from, but all your detective work does not find the source again.

Such suspicions nag me all the time. I don't want to be alone. I hope you people suffer too.

I consider language to be a psi phenomenon. It links us to others and in that sense we are not individuals. Because of that I assume everything I write at some level does not belong to me including this sentence.

In the past people credited their creativity to muses and they believed those muses were real.

I realize there are copyright issues that should be respected and it would be embarrassing if someone felt I had copied another person's writing. That is as far as I would take this concern. Should I market any material I want to make sure I have not violated the copyrights of someone else.

[desiresjab]

I consider language to be a psi phenomenon. It links us to others and in that sense we are not individuals. Because of that I assume everything I write at some level does not belong to me including this sentence.

In the past people credited their creativity to muses and they believed those muses were real.

I realize there are copyright issues that should be respected and it would be embarrassing if someone felt I had copied another person's writing. That is as far as I would take this concern. Should I market any material I want to make sure I have not violated the copyrights of someone else.

You could not violate any copyrights of Thomas Hardy. A poet, any writer, should have ethics beyond copyright laws, extending to the realm of pride and fear of shotguns.

[desiresjab]

This is a sleepy place. I guess a lot of the casual foot traffic is college students trying to pick up something useful for their classes or folks preparing for the next watercooler debate.

I got a lot more action on quadratic reciprocity over in Cosmology than I am to living poetry. People here want to talk about things, only a tiny fraction want to do poetry, as in making it.

Most people would still like to read a poem that got to them. The few words and big payoff of poetry suits the instant gratification mentality of cyber society. A lot of good poems are not going to "get to" most people. Sometimes, the better stuff is, the less public appeal it has, but not always. Any poet is fortunate to engage positively with the small per capita audience for poetry in the world.

[desiresjab]

Maybe it is time for a new set of criteria here. Instead of ranking poems the way we started, I will now tell you point blank whether any poem you submit is up to the high standard of the LitNet Poetry Book I recently proposed in another thread. Remember, every poem has to be a smash hit, good enough not just for LitNet, but the entire world. I have seen the work of authors on here which would qualify if submitted. Loki's poem he posted here would qualify.

Poets, it is up to you. Obviously, a shot in the arm is needed for poetry on the site. I feel it weakening.

[North Star]

You seem to be lonely here.. I haven't written anything in a while but here's something old.



The Sound

The sound of heart, beating
The rushing blood, streaming
The scratching needle, dropping

Silently in the agonizing
Body, in the veins flowing
Soothing pain, and killing
All sensation, and being.

Muscles relenting,
Body dropping
In silence.

[Bishop]

Hey,

I wrote this sestina for class. Let me know what you think:

The blue guitar was stolen late at night.
We all wondered, though we knew, why thieves
Would steal an old guitar instead of crowns.
And as they sang and ran towards the moon,
Their rushed lurches made silly silhouettes
That danced to the beats of the blue guitar.

Soon horns muffled the strums from the guitar,
And hopes of recovery faded through the night,
As owls started to slowly glide in silhouettes
We took to be those of the winged god of thieves
Out to collect, under the cover of the moon,
His childhood craft. On his return, he said, “Crowns,

Trinkets, all I have seen, yet nothing crowns
My words as the serenades from this guitar.”
We saw him dancing in the glow of the moon;
The half-lit moon fueled his joy in the night.
He began to serenade the songs of other thieves:
The prince who sees portentous silhouettes

On Danish land. He sang of the silhouettes
In Plato’s cave and the poet who always crowns
His words with suns and moons for other thieves
To find, playing in the chords of his blue guitar.
Then all around us fell the dark silence of night.
We grew distraught until the miracle: the moon

Fell into our arms, to console us as a moon
Can, intriguing us by the silhouettes
Against its glacial, half-lit face. That night,
Its face reminded us of thorny crowns
On thieves upon a hill. The blue guitar,
As Saint Luke says, sang that one of the thieves,

Who sees things as they are, was saved; thieves
No longer ran to hide behind the moon,
But chose to see things as they are on the guitar.
They strummed variations of silhouettes
We’ve never seen, with no desire for crowns
Of kings, but only the silence of the night.

We laughed as the thieves made silly silhouettes
Against the cold old moon, and their poetic crowns
Hung on the notes from the guitar, that night.

[desiresjab]

You seem to be lonely here.. I haven't written anything in a while but here's something old.



The Sound

The sound of heart, beating
The rushing blood, streaming
The scratching needle, dropping

Silently in the agonizing
Body, in the veins flowing
Soothing pain, and killing
All sensation, and being.

Muscles relenting,
Body dropping
In silence.

Keep practicing. This sounds as if someone had a shot for pain. There wants to be a feeling of urgency, but the clipped syntax does not quite do the job. All sensation was killed, but did it really kill being too? That must mean sleep. Writing something like this from the patient's point of view is tough, because he is mumbling, talking to himself and not thinking straight. Somehow the author has to impart that along with enough objective information to bring the reader in. There is nothing new here--beating, rushing, streaming, flowing, all stuff I expect about a heart and blood. Try harder to get some images with real uniqueness to them. The same sound at the end of all the lines was an attempt to impart urgency, too, I believe, or a heartbeat. It works a little bit. One could make a hard stop at all line ends. The biggest problem is no rhythm. The lines are just prose lines broken off at an approximate syllable count. If something flows right, much is forgiven, but this one does not flow well. Thanks for sending it in. And keep writing. One review from a nobody is more than I myself get.

[desiresjab]

Hey,

I wrote this sestina for class. Let me know what you think:

The blue guitar was stolen late at night.
We all wondered, though we knew, why thieves
Would steal an old guitar instead of crowns.
And as they sang and ran towards the moon,
Their rushed lurches made silly silhouettes
That danced to the beats of the blue guitar.

Soon horns muffled the strums from the guitar,
And hopes of recovery faded through the night,
As owls started to slowly glide in silhouettes
We took to be those of the winged god of thieves
Out to collect, under the cover of the moon,
His childhood craft. On his return, he said, “Crowns,

Trinkets, all I have seen, yet nothing crowns
My words as the serenades from this guitar.”
We saw him dancing in the glow of the moon;
The half-lit moon fueled his joy in the night.
He began to serenade the songs of other thieves:
The prince who sees portentous silhouettes

On Danish land. He sang of the silhouettes
In Plato’s cave and the poet who always crowns
His words with suns and moons for other thieves
To find, playing in the chords of his blue guitar.
Then all around us fell the dark silence of night.
We grew distraught until the miracle: the moon

Fell into our arms, to console us as a moon
Can, intriguing us by the silhouettes
Against its glacial, half-lit face. That night,
Its face reminded us of thorny crowns
On thieves upon a hill. The blue guitar,
As Saint Luke says, sang that one of the thieves,

Who sees things as they are, was saved; thieves
No longer ran to hide behind the moon,
But chose to see things as they are on the guitar.
They strummed variations of silhouettes
We’ve never seen, with no desire for crowns
Of kings, but only the silence of the night.

We laughed as the thieves made silly silhouettes
Against the cold old moon, and their poetic crowns
Hung on the notes from the guitar, that night.

As a class project I have to think it was a success and well received. It was a formidable challenge merely to complete. You did a good job of completing the challenge. No consciousness of rhythm is the real shortcoming of the piece as poetry. Everything does not necessarily have to be counted in a line--that was the old days, perhaps--but an author must pay obsessive attention to how things are flowing. It is easy to fool ourselves on this matter when we are reading our own work back. We know so exactly what we want to say that it seems to us as if we have done it. But is the door really open for others?

Restrictive forms often cause mangled syntax. You did a good job of avoiding that for the most part. As a professor I would give you an A, and as an editor, I would reject the piece. I hope my criticism has not been too harsh.

It is important for people to realize I am simply a nobody with the aplomb to volunteer to judge everyone's poetry. Naturally, what you are getting is my opinion. Whether I even know anything about poetry and whether my criticism is worth anything to anyone, has to be decided by each person. Believe it or not, I loathe hurting people. God, I know how much I hope for some of my own poems and believe in them. To have them summarily rejected by someone I don't even know, why, it would, and...

What? You mean it has never happened to me? No one told me anything, though. Just no thank you. It is always a stunner, even when you are wrong and cannot see it, a real pop in the chops by the rough hand of a form letter rejection slip. What? Not possible.

Oh, yeah, it is possible. In fact, you could send me a poem destined to be recognized as a great one of the 21st century and I could misss its significance entirely, because no one's taste is all-inclusive enough to be appreciative of everything that apparently meets those elusive high standards. Do you like every piece of art that sells for millions, or every poem that sticks around for centuries? If they came into your magazine would you print them or send them back?

How bad can you hurt, emotionally? Is that the well from which art comes, at least some of the time? It has not always worked out that way in the past. Right now I hurt that way, for personal reasons not disclosed. I will see if it works out. That is all I ever know how to do in these situations. It hardly ever works out.

Why? Because if you are writing enough, almost every poem you attempt will be a literary failure, whether you are whistling or whining when you write it.

If it works out for me this time I promise to share it with the thread. You should not expect to see anything. Poets have a low batting average of hitting their full literary stride. Thanks for the comments and submissions.

[desiresjab]

All poets must have noticed that sometimes only a part of one of their poems is spectacular and worth keeping, and that good part has nothing to do what she started out to write.

The fact is, just because you are writing, it will sometimes happen. You don't even know if it is good poetry, you just know you like it. You think others would like it, some others anyway, but you are not even sure about that.

The more you like it and the longer you continue liking it, the better it probably is. If you begin to see weaknesses in it you did not notice before, you are probably right about that too.

If it is good, or you suspect it is, you should be happy as a clam, whether it resembles what you set out to write or not. I know I always am, if that happens.

[desiresjab]

All comments are welcome.


The Stranger
by desiresjab




One step above a homeless sleeping bag,
The empty wastes, the stars of yesterday,
The barking ocean's waves unchained at last,
The offer owls extend to huddling mice,
The chowder line of vacant visages,
The time reflection sets aside for ghosts
Abandoning everything but bodies,
Their legs of atoms crying for a bench
In a town that has abandoned benches.



copyright 2016 by desiresjab lab

[YesNo]

I can hear the pentameter line. That is initially good for rhythm. The meter however is irregular toward the end as I would accent the words.

For content, it seems that you are looking at the homeless person from the relatively prosperous outside and without empathy and you have made a rather predicable value judgement against this person. For example, "vacant visages" suggests to me that you are not trying to imagine seeing what that person sees, but you are projecting what you think that person should be seeing. Basically, the poem exposes a lack of empathy.

For an example of a poem showing empathy with a similar subject matter but is longer and has more opportunity to develop that empathy, see Robert Frost's "The Death of the Hired Man": http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/44261

[desiresjab]

I can hear the pentameter line. That is initially good for rhythm. The meter however is irregular toward the end as I would accent the words.

I never mind going irregular, if everything feels right. I seldom find a poem I truly love where the poet is not irregular for stretches. But I agree that everything does not flow as I want it to yet. I was actually thinking I might be too metrical as a whole. You could be right. I'll see. I do not know how much more I will work on this.


For content, it seems that you are looking at the homeless person from the relatively prosperous outside and without empathy and you have made a rather predicable value judgement against this person. For example, "vacant visages" suggests to me that you are not trying to imagine seeing what that person sees, but you are projecting what you think that person should be seeing. Basically, the poem exposes a lack of empathy.

Darn it, I meant for vacant to imply that it is a hard life which leaves you kind of numb. I hope it still does to some. That is what I have seen in a lot of bread lines. I was worried the empathy of the last two lines would not be read, because I doubt that many people are aware that numerous municipalities across our great land remove all benches as discouragement to the homeless. The only leave those at bus stops. Concrete is hell on tired legs. I guess that did not come through for you. My fault.



For an example of a poem showing empathy with a similar subject matter but is longer and has more opportunity to develop that empathy, see Robert Frost's "The Death of the Hired Man": http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/44261

My poem is one sentence. It was the last verse in another effort and seemed separate from it. A simple title change could make it more personal. It has not found its final direction yet, if it ever will. It was a look at something dark in a dark time for me. I would not publish it myself, if it came into my magazine, though I would compliment the author on certain aspects and tell him to keep practicing. I might even ask to see more of his work, and hope for something more finished and not overwritten.

So we are changing the format once again in this thread. We pretend I own and edit a prestigious literary magazine. Send your poems to me and I will tell you whether I will publish them. I might even make suggestions. You already know the editor's tastes and inclinations. I just rejected myself. How much more honest can I be?

[YesNo]

I was reading some of the poems in Helen Macdonald's collection called "Shaler's Fish" yesterday that I found in the library. I didn't understand any of them and so I do not plan on wasting my time on the book. I prefer Mary Oliver, whom I do understand. Or Lang Leav ("Love and Misadventure") who also respects her readers enough to write something intelligible.

Your poem was understandable and that is a plus. Most of the poems that people post here on Lit Net are understandable even when the poet is trying to be pretentiously dense. When I am done reading them I have a general idea what they were about.

It is very difficult writing what is unintelligible. It take a certain "talent" to pull this off. The technique seems to be to bunch together individual phrases which have the potential of making sense except the phrases around them don't lead anywhere. Those phrases have to be joined together to give the reader the illusion that maybe they do go together but the reader is too stupid to see how. Of course, it helps if you can find someone with a tiny bit of authority who says it is "stunning" or "brilliant" or "so good only I can understand it."

To keep this thread going, here is a poem of mine you are welcome to critique in your new format.


Dance

While algae's greening in the swamp
And ogres in the forest romp,
The villagers would have a dance,
A masquerade, and take a chance
Some ogre with a fairy might
Pretend to waltz then start a fight.

They've never liked each other much
Although it's heard they sometimes touch.
It's even heard they sometimes kiss!
But I'd doubt all reports of this.
It's rumored that they even love.
What can these fools be thinking of?

The dance will give them roles to play.
For some there might be words to say.
It's safe to meet behind disguise
To look into each other's eyes.
Of course, they know what each has done,
But from the present, who can run?

We'll have that dance, no matter what.
Yes, worried folks will worry, but
Tonight we'll take a chance on change.
Let something, somewhere rearrange,
Then, whether they like it or not,
They'll get the love they've always got.

I hope it made sense even though it is unlikely you will find fairies and ogres dancing together.

[desiresjab]

I was reading some of the poems in Helen Macdonald's collection called "Shaler's Fish" yesterday that I found in the library. I didn't understand any of them and so I do not plan on wasting my time on the book. I prefer Mary Oliver, whom I do understand. Or Lang Leav ("Love and Misadventure") who also respects her readers enough to write something intelligible.

Your poem was understandable and that is a plus. Most of the poems that people post here on Lit Net are understandable even when the poet is trying to be pretentiously dense. When I am done reading them I have a general idea what they were about.

It is very difficult writing what is unintelligible. It take a certain "talent" to pull this off. The technique seems to be to bunch together individual phrases which have the potential of making sense except the phrases around them don't lead anywhere. Those phrases have to be joined together to give the reader the illusion that maybe they do go together but the reader is too stupid to see how. Of course, it helps if you can find someone with a tiny bit of authority who says it is "stunning" or "brilliant" or "so good only I can understand it."

To keep this thread going, here is a poem of mine you are welcome to critique in your new format.


Dance

While algae's greening in the swamp
And ogres in the forest romp,
The villagers would have a dance,
A masquerade, and take a chance
Some ogre with a fairy might
Pretend to waltz then start a fight.

They've never liked each other much
Although it's heard they sometimes touch.
It's even heard they sometimes kiss!
But I'd doubt all reports of this.
It's rumored that they even love.
What can these fools be thinking of?

The dance will give them roles to play.
For some there might be words to say.
It's safe to meet behind disguise
To look into each other's eyes.
Of course, they know what each has done,
But from the present, who can run?

We'll have that dance, no matter what.
Yes, worried folks will worry, but
Tonight we'll take a chance on change.
Let something, somewhere rearrange,
Then, whether they like it or not,
They'll get the love they've always got.

I hope it made sense even though it is unlikely you will find fairies and ogres dancing together.

It makes sense as a racial parallel or cultrural divide. It also makes sense on its simpler fun level, but would still not be fun enough for children, I think. Expert handling of meter. The narrator seems a liitle confused about what he believes or what he wants in stanza two versus stanza four.

The poem shows a high level of proficiency and manages to avoid sounding anachronistic except a shade on the very first rhyme, a rhyme I like very much as an opening, however. I will not print the piece, because it does not grab me enough. The poem might very well be publishable where they love such parallels, which is almost everywhere these days. But our criteria are different from other magazines. We are not particularly interested in social causes at large, as we feel all other magazines cover that well. Of course the exception to that rule is anything that really grabs us. I write poems about social causes myself. I would have to check to see if I would publish any of them.

Overall, an excellent effort, I believe.

[Danik 2016]

I enjoyed this poem.On a symbolic level it makes much sense, Yes/No. As desire pointed out it celebrates the meeting of the different, the kind of careful introdutory dance that comes before love.
It might also relate to the kind of meetings that happen on forums:
"The dance will give them roles to play./For some there might be words to say./It's safe to meet behind disguise."That´s us all on LitNet :D.

[YesNo]

Thanks, Danik! I did imagine it as an dance between two potential lovers who may have been quarreling with each other earlier. The dance is a way to re-introduce them to each other.

No problem with not publishing it, desiresjab. I wasn't thinking of racial differences, but that could work. The fairies and ogres are just men and women (or women and men) who have been fighting so long and hard they become a concern to the other people around them (villagers). The narrator makes a progression, as you observed, from being one of the worriers to approving of the dance at the end. The narrator could be viewed also as the villagers as a whole offering their different perspectives on the ogres and fairies who don't get along.

[desiresjab]

I can't thank you folks enough for sending your poems in and making yourselves vulnerable. The more you like a poem the harder it is to do, for it might get slammed. Here is one I may like. It is brand new, so it is not easy to tell yet. We all get vulnerable together, right? What did Roethke say? Love is not love until love is vulnerable.


For My Father
by desirejab



For you it is the end.
The final dream is dreamed.
No more of disappointment
To sink your heart for years,
No more of fortune's game
Of water turned mirage.

No more society
That laughed and rolled its eyes,
No more children, father,
To worry for and help,
No more of guilt, or shame
To worsen lonely nights.

The deer you loved to hunt
Await in country dense
With stunning scenery,
Slopes of timber, rocky points
Where you see a long time
Into ruddy sundown.

When morning comes you wake,
The hunt begins again
For the first time. You'll want
Your boys along of course.
I think I must be there, dad,
The son who hunts with you

In far existences,
Who never did on earth.
Last dream gone to sunset,
We all know what to do,
Whichever place we're in,
Whatever moon should rise.



copyright 2016 by desiresjab lab

[YesNo]

I liked the trimeter.

Some parts seemed odd such as "Where you see a long time/Into rouge of sundown." "Rouge" does not seem like the right word.

A nice point in the last stanza occurred when you mentioned that you did not hunt with your father, but you know he would want you to be with him on those future hunts.

[desiresjab]

I liked the trimeter.

Some parts seemed odd such as "Where you see a long time/Into rouge of sundown." "Rouge" does not seem like the right word.

A nice point in the last stanza occurred when you mentioned that you did not hunt with your father, but you know he would want you to be with him on those future hunts.

Yes, thanks.

Into ruddy sundown

Is more comfortable to me. The rest, from line four on of the third stanza, I probably want to keep, because it was an intentional meter change to trip things up for the image and a new perspective. Stanza four returns.

[desiresjab]

I remember the poem that made me a rapid convert to poetry--The Fall Again, by Howard Nemerov. The poem does not particularly strike me anymore, except as my gateway poem, making it the most important poem in my life anyway. Thank you, Mr. Nemerov.

Actually, there was a poem at least five years before that which interested me, and may have led to my eventually buying the anthology where I found the Nemerov poem. That poem was Thanatopsis, by William Cullen Bryant.

[Michael Kajuan]

Heck, I guess I'll post another one of mine.

A Moonlit Peek through Feathered Windows: Ballad #2 First Draft 5/24/12-6/2/12

Cross Carrier’s clock cries out, “The occasion has come.”
Toil has slipped, and Cross Carrier, he too slips,
Yet failing lights brings fights with feathered windows, and those
Shades yield not while Dreamer’s Bane foils and outstrips.

The Bearer wrests with Bane this dusk, a chronic echo
And cyclical malady; days, weeks, months, years lapse,
Dreamer’s Bane siphons still of Bearer’s nightly sequence,
Constant recalls ere Cross Bearer can collapse.

Now Cross Carrier’s plague causes sought sanctuary.
Cross Bearer’s windows will not be weighted down.
Encouraging prophetic signals stream through the screen
Reminding Cross Carrier Christ comes at sundown.

Watching, Cross Carrier contemplates: “What want I most?
Being edgeless from evil’s expansive embrace;
Ways to walk wakeless while this wakeful world yet worsens;
Faith fixed from falling, faultless before His face.”

Cross Carrier sailed a secluded craft on stormy seas
Shipwrecked self in clouds of charmed iniquity
Grasped he’s goaded Holy God with self-righteous conceit,
Sees Seeking Savior salvages sovereignly.

Whispered wantonness cause an unworldly wondering
While the Bearer resumes wrestling windows;
Cross Carrier’s scarce of cognizance of cessation,
He races to outlast Bane on Narrows Road.

Light dances through shaded windows; fancies flash upon
Cross Carrier’s palsied form and stained psyche;
A mockery, not of Dreamers Bane’s tormenting ruse,
Schemes flow from one that’s Devious and Deadly.

A cyclical complaint! Yet Cross Carrier’s dreaming
Of being threatened no longer by Dreamer’s Bane.
There remains therefore a rest to the people of God.
Onward, Cross Carrier! Christ will keep you sane.

[DieterM]

Interesting thread, I have to say… Alright, I'll submit one of mine, too.

SiliClone

I’m sure one day some pimply brainiac
down in Silicon Valley will find
a sure-fire means to copy-paste my genes,
and he will flood the market
with perfect clones,
an army of underdogs.

You’ll find me in restaurants,
all gums and teeth,
and my smile will be subdued
and blessed and sorry
as I lead you to your tables
and serve drinks and food,
cooing ‘Everything alright, sir, madam?
Would you like to have a desert?
Or the bill? Very well.’

You’ll stumble upon me
in the glossy aisles of shopping malls,
where I will show you the shortest way
to Abercrombie & Fitch, Toys ‘R’ Us,
the nearest perfume shop,
exhaling pheromones to force you
into more compulsive purchases.

You’ll ignore me while I sweep the streets,
unwhistling, uncomplaining,
while I check on your nuclear plants,
radiant with joy,
or sing a sweet lullaby
to your precious offspring.

Invisible I’ll be, and you won’t notice
my eyes light up
whenever a sunray cuts the poisonous fumes
because of some erroneous coding procedure.
And you won’t see the glint of
hatred and rebellion
until it’ll be too late.

[desiresjab]

Interesting thread, I have to say… Alright, I'll submit one of mine, too.

SiliClone

I’m sure one day some pimply brainiac
down in Silicon Valley will find
a sure-fire means to copy-paste my genes,
and he will flood the market
with perfect clones,
an army of underdogs.

You’ll find me in restaurants,
all gums and teeth,
and my smile will be subdued
and blessed and sorry
as I lead you to your tables
and serve drinks and food,
cooing ‘Everything alright, sir, madam?
Would you like to have a desert?
Or the bill? Very well.’

You’ll stumble upon me
in the glossy aisles of shopping malls,
where I will show you the shortest way
to Abercrombie & Fitch, Toys ‘R’ Us,
the nearest perfume shop,
exhaling pheromones to force you
into more compulsive purchases.

You’ll ignore me while I sweep the streets,
unwhistling, uncomplaining,
while I check on your nuclear plants,
radiant with joy,
or sing a sweet lullaby
to your precious offspring.

Invisible I’ll be, and you won’t notice
my eyes light up
whenever a sunray cuts the poisonous fumes
because of some erroneous coding procedure.
And you won’t see the glint of
hatred and rebellion
until it’ll be too late.



I like this one. You think like I do. I have a novel underway about this very thing. Love that army of underdogs, sir. Great line. If this thread were still in the ranking business you would score well with this effort.

[desiresjab]

Heck, I guess I'll post another one of mine.

A Moonlit Peek through Feathered Windows: Ballad #2 First Draft 5/24/12-6/2/12

Cross Carrier’s clock cries out, “The occasion has come.”
Toil has slipped, and Cross Carrier, he too slips,
Yet failing lights brings fights with feathered windows, and those
Shades yield not while Dreamer’s Bane foils and outstrips.

The Bearer wrests with Bane this dusk, a chronic echo
And cyclical malady; days, weeks, months, years lapse,
Dreamer’s Bane siphons still of Bearer’s nightly sequence,
Constant recalls ere Cross Bearer can collapse.

Now Cross Carrier’s plague causes sought sanctuary.
Cross Bearer’s windows will not be weighted down.
Encouraging prophetic signals stream through the screen
Reminding Cross Carrier Christ comes at sundown.

Watching, Cross Carrier contemplates: “What want I most?
Being edgeless from evil’s expansive embrace;
Ways to walk wakeless while this wakeful world yet worsens;
Faith fixed from falling, faultless before His face.”

Cross Carrier sailed a secluded craft on stormy seas
Shipwrecked self in clouds of charmed iniquity
Grasped he’s goaded Holy God with self-righteous conceit,
Sees Seeking Savior salvages sovereignly.

Whispered wantonness cause an unworldly wondering
While the Bearer resumes wrestling windows;
Cross Carrier’s scarce of cognizance of cessation,
He races to outlast Bane on Narrows Road.

Light dances through shaded windows; fancies flash upon
Cross Carrier’s palsied form and stained psyche;
A mockery, not of Dreamers Bane’s tormenting ruse,
Schemes flow from one that’s Devious and Deadly.

A cyclical complaint! Yet Cross Carrier’s dreaming
Of being threatened no longer by Dreamer’s Bane.
There remains therefore a rest to the people of God.
Onward, Cross Carrier! Christ will keep you sane.

I guess this one is opaque to me, Mike. I do not quite get it. Glad to see you are hard at it, though.

[Michael Kajuan]

I guess this one is opaque to me, Mike. I do not quite get it. Glad to see you are hard at it, though.

Thanks for the comments regardless. It's actually about insomnia, windows being a metaphor for eyes. There's some other meanings one could glean from it as well I guess. Thanks again.

[Danik 2016]

Heck, I guess I'll post another one of mine.

A Moonlit Peek through Feathered Windows: Ballad #2 First Draft 5/24/12-6/2/12

Cross Carrier’s clock cries out, “The occasion has come.”
Toil has slipped, and Cross Carrier, he too slips,
Yet failing lights brings fights with feathered windows, and those
Shades yield not while Dreamer’s Bane foils and outstrips.

The Bearer wrests with Bane this dusk, a chronic echo
And cyclical malady; days, weeks, months, years lapse,
Dreamer’s Bane siphons still of Bearer’s nightly sequence,
Constant recalls ere Cross Bearer can collapse.

Now Cross Carrier’s plague causes sought sanctuary.
Cross Bearer’s windows will not be weighted down.
Encouraging prophetic signals stream through the screen
Reminding Cross Carrier Christ comes at sundown.

Watching, Cross Carrier contemplates: “What want I most?
Being edgeless from evil’s expansive embrace;
Ways to walk wakeless while this wakeful world yet worsens;
Faith fixed from falling, faultless before His face.”

Cross Carrier sailed a secluded craft on stormy seas
Shipwrecked self in clouds of charmed iniquity
Grasped he’s goaded Holy God with self-righteous conceit,
Sees Seeking Savior salvages sovereignly.

Whispered wantonness cause an unworldly wondering
While the Bearer resumes wrestling windows;
Cross Carrier’s scarce of cognizance of cessation,
He races to outlast Bane on Narrows Road.

Light dances through shaded windows; fancies flash upon
Cross Carrier’s palsied form and stained psyche;
A mockery, not of Dreamers Bane’s tormenting ruse,
Schemes flow from one that’s Devious and Deadly.

A cyclical complaint! Yet Cross Carrier’s dreaming
Of being threatened no longer by Dreamer’s Bane.
There remains therefore a rest to the people of God.
Onward, Cross Carrier! Christ will keep you sane.
I enjoyed reading this poem!To me it seemed to be about human fate, because of the recurrent image of the Cross Carrier!

[desiresjab]

Thanks for the comments regardless. It's actually about insomnia, windows being a metaphor for eyes. There's some other meanings one could glean from it as well I guess. Thanks again.

You write odd poetry. That doesn't mean bad, it just means strange. I knew you were talking about religion, but I didn't know what you were trying to get across. Iwould like to see you take the religious subject matter to a personal level in poetry and see what happens. The typical language of religion has to be dispensed with, though, for it to work. All language and images that are worn out and well known are not suitable for poetry. You have to get beyond the common language Christians use when speaking of religion and get down to your own feelings and thoughts. This only sounds easy. You have to use your own words, not the typical padding of typical phrases. I would like to see radically different poetry from you, something almost journalistic in its approach, that would force you out into the open rather than dwelling among the shadows of obscure symbolism.

[spikepipsqueak]

Sometimes I wish that I could sing.
Sitting watching boats bobbing
Out on the mirrored blue and silver sea.
I would partake of that tranquility,
Produce a proud, an operatic, note
To pierce the goldfish bowl of fog.
To arrow smoothly off
Toward the long horizon line.
Continue past, eternally to mark,
A planchette on the labile air,
The time, the date, my state of processing.

That note would bear my message out in clear
And clearly represent my case to Earth.
I'm waiting. Send your sea to blanket me,
And wiping me, allow another birth.


PS I am new to the thread and have only read enough snippets to have figured out that you are feeding back in a different form to that you used in the beginning. Please feel free to give this numerical scores, if that suits, and be as honest as you need.

Thanks, :)

[spikepipsqueak]

I am loving this thread. Thank you for it.

Especially the evolution of your own poem on the missing child.


Did you ever have the feeling that a favorite image or metaphor from one of your poems might not be original, you might have sub consciously lifted it and incorporated it into your own thinking? Sometimes you even have a vague idea where it came from, but all your detective work does not find the source again.



I once wrote "Just to make sure it's still there" with reference to a habit most of the locals have of checking out the beach before leaving the area, and on returning.

A couple of years later I found that I had plagiarised the exact wording from Under Milkwood, which I couldn't remember ever having read before. (blush)

[desiresjab]

I am loving this thread. Thank you for it.

Especially the evolution of your own poem on the missing child.



I once wrote "Just to make sure it's still there" with reference to a habit most of the locals have of checking out the beach before leaving the area, and on returning.

A couple of years later I found that I had plagiarised the exact wording from Under Milkwood, which I couldn't remember ever having read before. (blush)

Uh-oh. That stuff can happen completely innocently. It can happen not so innocently, too. I once fell in love with a line and almost convinced myself it was mine because I could not find it again. But I knew darned well I had read

The eyelids open with a creak of pulleys

(or something close to it) somewhere, whether I could find it or not. Someday I will find it again.

[spikepipsqueak]

When I read your quote I immediately thought "Robert Silverberg". If you ran across it in prose rather than poetry it's going to be even harder to find.

[desiresjab]

When I read your quote I immediately thought "Robert Silverberg". If you ran across it in prose rather than poetry it's going to be even harder to find.

I am sure it was a poem.

[desiresjab]

Sometimes I wish that I could sing.
Sitting watching boats bobbing
Out on the mirrored blue and silver sea.
I would partake of that tranquility,
Produce a proud, an operatic, note
To pierce the goldfish bowl of fog.
To arrow smoothly off
Toward the long horizon line.
Continue past, eternally to mark,
A planchette on the labile air,
The time, the date, my state of processing.

That note would bear my message out in clear
And clearly represent my case to Earth.
I'm waiting. Send your sea to blanket me,
And wiping me, allow another birth.


PS I am new to the thread and have only read enough snippets to have figured out that you are feeding back in a different form to that you used in the beginning. Please feel free to give this numerical scores, if that suits, and be as honest as you need.

Thanks, :)

The rhyming couplets soon disappeared. For some reason it appeals to me anyway. It does not feel quite like a good poem yet, but has some excellent stuff in it. The imagery is alive, at least.

To arrow smoothly off
Toward the long horizon line

Is creative imagery, and has meter, too.

However, and wiping me, will have to exit via the cane if necessary from the last line. It immediately brings to mind you know what. You want your images to plow up a profusion of thoughts for the reader, just not that one in that place.

The poem is disjointed and unsure of its destination. In spite of that it shows promise--perhaps not the poem itself, but your writing.

This may be a place you are imagining, or a real place you are sitting in. Either way, it might be a good idea to provide an even stronger sense of place for the reader.

The desire of the speaker may come true yet if everything gets recorded on the surface of a black hole as some have theorized. Recording a dead past would be no problem, since the black hole pulls in objects and moves them faster the the speed of light, reversing time and their history and kicking the bits of information back out to its own surface. One entangled particle goes in and the other hovers at the surface. Anyway, the poem did remind me of the theory.

Needs work and more aim, in my opinion, but shows potential.

[spikepipsqueak]

hanks for the insights. You will know how hard it is to see what you write from the outside, and I appreciate it.

I will have to think of another suitable synonym for "obliterate". "Wipe" conjures blackboards rather than toilets for me, but I take your point. I think, because that spot on the beach is so real to me that I was writing more for myself than to communicate. OOps.

The loss of the rhymes was deliberate but clearly didn't say what I wanted to say. I have tried to use the rhyming scheme in other pieces to try to convey a point, never knowing if that point was being communicated. So you have sent me off to re-examine some other stuff.

Having said that reminds me of another piece I would like assessed by someone else, if you would be so kind. Then I will leave you in peace. :)


The problem with poetry
My meaning may not be your meaning.
My dullness may be your gleaming.
My turn-off may be your creaming.
My turn-on might be day dreaming.
My dream? Escape the world's scheming.
Your pain might leave the world beaming.
That's just not right. Sets me to heaving.
The fit's too tight. Sets me to pounding
On the door, demanding
Egress. Propounding redress,
Demanding justice, freedom from hounding.
We all need grounding.
Some need weaning.
Security, leaning.
Honesty's leaving. There's grieving abounding,
Weaving round the insoluble mess.
Overdose of bitterness.
Doesn't seem to be a balm to bless,
Or any understanding.


I was a younger, different person when I wrote both of those.

Thanks again.

[EmptySeraph]

A sky void of sun
beckons and all
the sunken flames
cry their virginity
in a glass full of
meteorites.
Nearly-
together.