Poetry Forum

Hi Barrie, Geoff and Cam, Thanks for your comments. I found out the other week that a boy I went to school with was part of this Glasgow gang without a name, and they went down to the river to have a gang fight with this other nameless gang and he died- him and a guy from the other gang. Barrie, tha...

Clyde like this: heavy grey undulating water rain punching holes to make it move wet brick and slate roofs shipbuilder’s names hammered across the walls security lamplight and no stars shoe-sucking mud underfoot and all came there under the shadow of warehouses where warships were born whoops and je...

David, I think this might be my favourite of your poems (which I've read anyway, but I probably have missed a few). I've been trying to write without punctuation too- I thought that worked really well in this one. I wasn't as keen on this stanza: we ran upstairs roused the children crept downstairs ...

Hi Lia, I really really enjoyed this. I loved the interplay between the changing of the seasons and the contrast between the mother and the innocence of the child, which combine to create this really wistful mood. I liked the separation of the stanzas too, which I thought mirrored the way someone tr...

Hi Arco, I realy enjoyed this one. I think the idea of interpretation (as in the painting) and re-interpretation (in this case, your poem) is really interesting. And of course, because you have written a poem based on someone else's image, we have a third filter- the interpretation of the people who...

I really loved this Barrie. The restraint and calm of the poem, of the situation you describe, when the reader is aware what was intended by the men there was the Gunpowder Plot, is really quite haunting. However, I'm ashamed to admit that, even though I'm Scottish, I still totally needed the postsc...

I really enjoyed this one. I liked the image presented in the first line. Also, I liked 'brown to dust', but if it were me, would think about changing the first use of the word brown to something else. I can't think of a word that seems entirely suitable though. Something too descriptive that create...

I suppose all the reader who can't read the original language at all or well enough can do is accept the translation at face value as the text it is. I think what got me really thinking about this is that I'm learning a language at university and I'm realising how impossible it can be to translate c...

I liked this. It held my attention well throughout. I don't get the ending though. What is the intended function of the "CRACK"? I particularly liked the juxtaposing of the cliches with originality, or with phrases that expose the narrator's understanding of his own use of cliche- I though...

I really enjoyed this. I like the attention to detail in your prose. It gives an intensity to the characters whose viewpoint you are speaking from which is very effective. Kind of like you are quite often dealing with people with varying degrees of OCD. Anyway, I like that and I like this piece in g...

He first heard it late on Friday evening when his iPod ran out of battery. A mundane moment to pinpoint as the precise instant when everything suddenly changed, never to go back, but so it was. Life is not always terribly poetic. This was the beginning then. To be precise, it was when John Lennon ha...

I've been thinking about this- about the problems of translation. One of my favourite authors is Haruki Murakami and right now I'm also enjoying Bulgakov and Garcia Marquez. So obviously, I'm reading novels that were not originally written in English. I keep wondering how much I am losing by not bei...

Hello everyone, it's Rachel. How are you all? I want to come back and write stuff again. I've been away for ages (and I was in a different country too, so I was actually away) but I'd like to come back and write. Lots of reading of stuff you all wrote while I was gone to do- very good fun. Anyway, h...

Hi Barrie, I didn't feel this was a patch on any of your best that I've read here. This is probably largely because I don't get it, but I felt that the subject matter was hampering you, you know what I mean? I felt like the ancient folklore idea was leading you to a few cliched descriptions. My favo...

Hey Geoff, Thanks for reading. I thin kI might organise some sort of rewrite of the last stanza... Here there are these high flats up the road that people go to kill themselves by jumping off the top. So people see these dead bodies round there all the time. That's what I wanted to write about. I'll...

Hey Benji, Thanks for the read. I don't know about the last lines. I wrote it right onto the forum here, had just written it, and then I read what Keith and Caleb wrote in another thread starting with Keith's poem and I've written practially exactly the same words. It's pretty wierd. I'll try and th...

Wierd, I practically just wrote about this. That's so odd.

Rachel

Red-brick defunct factory funnel strong against a diluted blue sky, but cowering underneath a thick grey tower block. Not a skyscraper: an ambitious, glamourous American invention, (more than just an aeroplane away from here) but games with over-sized concrete Lego bricks. Those pictures of builders...

Hello,

I loved this, particularly the last line. I liked the use of rhyme and partial rhyme and rhythm that gave the impression of something a lot more simple than what you're actually saying and so provided a really nice contrast to the content.

Rachel

Hi Caleb, I really loved reading this. I think it might be the most personal thing of yours that I've read here. I liked the honesty of it, coupled with the funny bits. I liked the use of long, often confusing sentence structure- maybe like mirroring your relationship? You could tie yourself up in k...

Dear Leslie,

I am wholeheartedly enjoying the Saga of Cynthia. Gripping story with little hilarious moments and unexpected plot developments...

Rachel

Controlling a dull ache at the base of his skull, he raised his head. The room, which had been full of those people that he did not know only minutes before (had it not?), was now empty. He was alone.

I'm a wee bit late, but I wanted to add my appreciation. I think I enjoyed this most of all the poems you've posted here, and that's saying something. And I love Ella too.
Rachel

Well I'm glad you did, because I can't have read it last time. I really enjoyed it. It reminded me in some ways of the cock-shaking poem (the name of which escapes me, please excuse) which I also liked. It's an enjoyable, cutting kind of nostalgia, but from an adult's eye, lending you more in the wa...

I enjoyed this one too Caleb. My favourite train song is about Harriet Tubman (years spent at rallies with my mum's socialist women's choir called Euridice)- bit of a stretch of the train metaphor perhaps, but I think of it every time I think of trains. Harriet Tubman One night I dreamed I was in sl...